Something Rather than Nothing

If someone tells you that God doesn’t exist, ask them: if there is no God, why is there anything at all? In other words, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

After many years, even centuries, of insisting that the universe is eternal and had no beginning, scientists finally reached the consensus that the universe had a beginning. There was once no time, space, or matter/energy. Nothing existed. According to currently accepted science, the universe, including matter, energy, space, and time, came into existence approximately 13.8 billion years ago. If none of those things existed, what caused them to come into existence?

The beginning is commonly known as the Big Bang, but I prefer to call it the Cosmic Creation Event. If nothing existed before then, how did the universe come into existence? Whatever explanation you suggest, it must be outside of space and time and immaterial. Those things could not have created themselves. Einstein’s famous E=Mc² equation (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) tells us that matter and energy are two forms of the same thing.

If nothing existed before the Cosmic Creation Event or Big Bang, why does anything exist now? What originated the things we can see and measure—the universe and even ourselves? In other words, why is there something rather than nothing? I suggest that if you think about what could have caused the beginning, it would have to be outside of time and space and immaterial—something unseen. What could that be? “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3). The God described in the Bible perfectly matches the requirements for the ultimate cause. (See Genesis 1:1.)

— Roland Earnst © 2026