Ah, this is completely a misguided questions, as used by Bertrand Russell. The fact of the matter is, science is quite clear that the universe had a beginning and will have an end. Therefore, the universe has not always been. The attempt to create a solid state model of the universe, that it has always existed, has failed, despite the best ideological motivation of its proponents. So, science does say that the universe exists and behaves in a way consistent with the Big Bang -- that the universe had a beginning. Therefore, you cannot assume that the universe has always existed. You can, however, postulate a primal source or ground for the creation of that universe -- God. Of course, God, as such, is not subject to empirical verification, but neither is empiricism. In other words, you cannot prove empiricism is true, because it is not a testable hypothesis, just as the existence of God is not a testable hypothesis.
So, I can say that God has always existed without contradicting anything in science, but I can not say that the universe has always existed without contradicting almost everything that is known about cosmological physics.
The thing that tickles me is, all the scientific people that sniff at the idea of God, saying it cannot be proven that God exists, don't like to be reminded of the fact that it cannot be proven that He doesn't exist, either. As you say, empirical verification is not a suitable method to attempt to verify the existence of God. It's using the wrong tool for the job. The only way that you can know if there is a God, is to take Him at His word (the Bible), and then experience it for yourself. Problem is, to do so scientifically is not possible, because it violates scientific principles to become a part of your experiment, to enter into the experiment rather than observe from an objective distance. To a scientist, any scientific data subjectively gained (where you are the one being experimented on as well as being the observer) is suspect, because objectivity is lost. The payback, though is the understanding of a higher power at work behind all those scientific observations, and a new respect for the beauty of the universe and its wonders. The hardest thing for a scientist to do is take a leap of faith, because it violates his training. Rather than accept only what he can verify, he is asked to accept BEFORE he can verify. That's God's way of keeping man humble before Him....