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No legitimate, modern physicist that I am aware of has postulated that everything began as nothing.

Nor can any one of them postulate what, if anything, preceded the Big Bang. The laws of physics do not yet exist in the Planck era — the earliest period of time in the history of the universe, from zero to approximately 10⁻⁴³ seconds immediately following the Big Bang. We can not only not "see" what the immediate aftermath (i.e., the Planck era) of the Big Bang "looks like"; but we have no scientific means that can tell us what preceded it (if anything).

And so please forgive this Christian if she simply believes that God did in fact create the universe exactly as He told us He did: ex nihilo. Though science can neither validate nor falsify this claim, I reason that it is true — because the Foundation of Truth cannot Lie and be consistent with Himself.

Ex nihilo means: no time, no space, no dimensions, no matter, no fundamental forces of nature, no physical laws, nothing at all pre-exists the Creation. All of these are God's creatures, too: They did not pre-exist; they too were first made in the Beginning. And whatever was loaded into God's Word of the Beginning (i.e., the "singularity" in scientific jargon) became manifest in cosmic evolution.

Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, L,TOWM.

Darwinism is a God-less naturalist metaphysical program positing the pre-existence of self-generated primordial water. Where did the water come from? The void. Similarly, the Big Bang and quantum theory hold that things materialized out of a vacuum (void).

It is precisely because some naturalists desire a God-less source for life, consciousness, mind, and will that Teilhard held that ‘god’ had finally emerged out of brute matter that had spontaneously self-generated out of the void.

All of these positions ultimately implode in nihilism because the void is nothingness. It is not conscious. It cannot think, see, move or tell time.

Nothing is not life but death. From death came life by chance, thus back to death goes life. Death is the victor.

Jesus Christ the Physician said ‘freely choose’ life that you may live. Though naturalists go to great lengths to deny the reality of free will, they ultimately demonstrate its’ existence by choosing death (the void) rather than life.

Thank you both so much for pinging me to your wonderful essay-posts on this thread!

Since the 1960s forward measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding. This means that space and time do not pre-exist but are created as the universe expands. It also means there was a beginning of real space and real time.

That was the most theological statement to ever come out of modern science (Jastrow) – “In the beginning, God created …” (Gen 1:1)

There is no infinite past. Steady state cosmology is dead as a doornail.

So of course physical cosmologists went into high gear trying to obviate God the Creator evidently because methodological naturalism cannot allow for Creator God.

But none of the theories – cyclic, ekpyrotic, multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, etc. – can avoid the problem that space and time do not pre-exist.

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Both are required for physical causation.

In other words, there can be no physical causation (energy momentum, wave fluctuation, etc.) without real space and real time.

Also, the singularity of big bang cosmology is not nothing:

Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space. A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc. That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.

It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.

In ex nihilo Creation (beginning of space/time) - the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.

There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.

In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.

Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.

Wave propagation (e.g. big bang, inflation) cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.

Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.

For instance “0” at point n^t causes “1” at point n+1^t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1^t+2 etc..

Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality.

The wise man asks: Why this instead of nothing at all?

And he realizes that only God, beyond space/time and physical causation, can be the uncaused cause of causation, the first cause, The Creator of the beginning.

Space, time and physical causation are not properties of God the Creator. They are properties of the Creation. Only God is uncaused.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20

The origin of space, time and physical causation – although striking - are not the only open questions that vex scientists. There is also no explanation for the origin of information (Shannon, successful communication,) inertia, semiosis, autonomy and so on. And yet the universe is logical – if it were not, we could not understand it at all.

Order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system whether one is using chaos theory, self-organizing complexity, cellular automata or whatever to analyze complexification, entropy and order.

Indeed, to me, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) is God’s copyright notice on the cosmos.

Logos is the Greek word which is translated “Word” in the following passage. It is also the root for the word “Logic:”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

God’s Name is I AM.