‘What came before that?’ ‘Or what started that?’ ‘Or what caused that to begin?’
Simple little questions that can cause your brain to explode!
Science tells us that the Universe began expanding about 13.8 billion years ago in what we call the Big Bang. If we wind the clock backwards, everything we can observe today appears to have been compressed into an incredibly hot, incredibly dense state known as a singularity.
The popular description is that this tiny, infinitely dense point containing all the matter that would eventually become stars, planets and galaxies then went BANG, and everything was flung outwards.
Religion, meanwhile, tells us that God created the heavens and the Earth in six days, and then had a rest.
For the purpose of this column, it matters not which origin theory you believe, because they are both subject to the same awkward question:
Who or what created the singularity?
And, if God created everything, who or what created the creator?
One answer to the scientific conundrum is the theory that the Universe may eventually stop expanding and begin contracting. It would then collapse back into an incredibly dense state in what is known as the Big Crunch. Perhaps, the theory goes, it could then bounce back into another Big Bang, creating another universe. And another. And another. A continuous cosmic cycle, ad infinitum.
I have a problem with that.
You can have as many universes expanding, contracting and bouncing around as you like, but simple logic tells me that there still has to be a first one.
What created all that mass and energy in the first place?
What caused that first universe to begin?
What caused the first cause?
How is your brain holding up?
Now let’s apply exactly the same questions to our concept of God.
How did God come into being? Who created the creator?
These are questions for which there is, ultimately, no rational answer that everyone can agree upon.
Of course, you can combine the two concepts and say that God created the singularity in the first place and then set off the Big Bang.
That neatly brings God into the scientific explanation.
Unfortunately, it also brings us straight back to the fundamental question:
Why? Why did God create it?
The problem is that neither science nor religion currently provides an answer that completely satisfies my logical brain.
Science can take us remarkably close to the beginning of the Universe, but at some point our understanding of physics simply runs out.
Religion asks us to have faith and accept that God has always existed and that, ultimately, it is what it is because, as the saying goes, ‘He moves in mysterious ways’.
I have been pondering these questions for years and, to put it politely, it ‘does my nut in’.
As someone who considers himself a logician, I have great difficulty with explanations that ultimately end with: ‘It just is’.
So, dear readers, if there is someone out there who can provide the definitive answer to the question ‘How did it all begin?’, please enlighten me.
Although, thinking about it, I have actually found a useful purpose for all this pondering.
When I lay my head on the pillow at night, I set my mind to trying to solve the puzzle.
Before you know it, the rooster is crowing and it is time to face another day.
Perhaps I should just count sheep.
Jackie@JBeedie.com