Do you believe in God? There are only 3 answers to this question. “Yes”, “No” or “I’m not sure” – believer, atheist, or agnostic. Let’s focus on “yes” or “no” since agnosticism is uncommitted.
Believers believe there is a Supreme Being who always existed with the power to create whatever He wanted. They believe that He designed the universe intentionally and everything on our planet is the result of that process.
Atheists believe everything, or the building blocks of everything has always existed. All the chemicals which make up every animate and inanimate object in our universe, all the processes which maintain life – everything – has always existed. They believe that all the forces necessary to combine those chemicals into atoms, molecules, cells, DNA, genes, and millions of other things all spontaneously combined to enable all of life and all of reality. Granted, the belief is that it occurred in tiny modifications over trillions of years, but the raw ingredients simply exist. All of this despite the fact, that the complexity of life (for example, a cell which splits to create two cells and then differentiates in order to make a different part of one’s body – and then differentiates again in order to provide a different function such as breathing, digestion, reproduction, even thought) seems to create more questions than it answers.
So this discussion will focus on whether or not a Supreme Being could exist forever without cause. It’s difficult to accept, since, as humans, all we’ve ever known is creation. Everything we know, everything we can see and touch and feel and sense and smell has been created at some point in our world. Everything we experience is the result of creation. Flowers from seeds, bricks from clay, babies from parents, and so on. Even within the concept of evolution, we only see more creation. Muti-cell organisms from single cells, adaptations of life from previous versions. Creation is all we know. But where did it all come from? What did we start with and how did it get here?
It’s too simple to just assume we were created since everything was created. It leaves unanswered the question of the Original Creator. How did the Original Creator come to be if everything is created? How did “GOD” or “The Big Bang” come to be? The real answer is, we don’t know. But that’s not what you came here to hear. So I’ll take a crack at it.
Whether we believe in God, or spontaneous existence such as the big bang, we are making a huge assumption. Whether a Supreme Being existed always, and for all eternity, or whether a pile of chemicals existed, always, and for all eternity, the fact is, something existed always. That means it’s possible. To some degree, and in some form, it’s possible that something always existed. In fact, it’s not just possible, it’s required by both points of view. So the first thing we have to agree on is that it is possible for “something” to have always existed, without cause. There is no path to the present without that assumption, regardless of your idea about what that “something” is.
I’ve heard arguments that somebody proved mathematically that everything could spontaneously burst into existence from nothing, but even that is flawed. First, it’s entirely theoretical. It can’t be proven, and it can’t be replicated. So there is a huge amount of trust built into that theory. Additionally, if everything could spontaneously burst into existence from nothing, then the potential for everything to burst spontaneously into existence always existed. And the principles involved in combining that nothingness into a condition in which everything spontaneously burst into existence also always existed. So the only thing we really know is that it’s possible for something to always have existed without cause, otherwise nothing would exist. We are left to admit that we just don’t know how things came to be, but they certainly came to be somehow. This fact leaves us wanting. We need to make a decision. We need to decide what makes more sense.
Believers choose to believe that this Uncaused Cause is a Supreme Being who purposely created everything. Atheists believe that this cause was nothing. It just happened. Or always was. It just “was”. To me, that’s difficult to wrap my head around, especially since we all must agree that something always existed, be it raw ingredients, potential, laws of physics or God. Is it more likely that something existed with the power to create everything, or that something existed consisting of nothing, which ultimately combined to form something? By the way, you can’t say “hey wait, I’m not saying nothing existed, I’m saying something existed that became everything”. You can’t say it because that perspective requires an admission that something can exist without cause. Well, guess what? You are right. Something can exist without cause. It’s called God. That just seems a little bit more plausible than a bunch of chemicals lying around forever suddenly combining to create anything. We may not know the true nature of God, but we now know that the concept isn’t all that irrational. Atheists and Believers have been arguing the same exact point. We just didn’t know it. And for the agnostics, now you have your answer.