Who Made You?
We begin with the most basic of questions. How did the universe come to be? All evidence points to the temporal nature of the universe. It had a beginning. It will have an end. Just like us, the universe constantly changes. It ages, getting older every day. Galaxies collide with other galaxies. Stars explode and die. Our own star had a beginning and will eventually run out of energy and die. The earth ages, along with the rest of us. The earth had a beginning and will come to certain end. Just like the universe, just like our sun and our planet, each of us had a beginning. There was a time when you did not exist. There is coming a time when you will die. Just like humans, the universe will eventually die. The universe is not eternal.
From where did the universe come? How did the universe begin? The Bible opens with emphatic language in addressing this most basic question. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The universe exists because God made it. This answers the question of causality. What caused the universe? How did it get here? God put it here. That is how the universe came into being. That is how the earth and our sun came into existence. God made the heavens and the earth and everything on the earth.
If there is no God, extremely difficult questions arise. How does a contingent, dependent, temporal universe come into being? How does non-existence become existence? Some say the universe just is or that it is eternal. This seems to be as audacious a claim as a person claiming that they have no beginning or that they have always been. If asked, “How did you come to be?” most will answer with statements about conception, birth and parents. Hopefully no one will claim that they have always been or that they were self-created. Any foolish language like that should prompt immediate scoffing - “You have NOT always been.” When confronted with the origin of the universe, any claims to eternality or self-creation should be met with similar skepticism. If the universe has a beginning someone or something brought it into existence. The most rational answer to the question of how the universe came into being comes from the affirmation of Genesis 1:1. God, a non-contingent, independent, self-sufficient, eternal being, brought the universe into existence –
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
In R.C. Sproul’s book Not a Chance, he describes a radio news report that aired when the Hubble Telescope was launched. The news report “quoted a noted scientist who declared, ‘Fifteen to seventeen billion years ago the universe exploded into being.’ The operative words are the last three, ‘exploded into being.’… Whence does something move into being? The only logical alternative is non-being. Does the statement mean that fifteen billion years ago the universe exploded from non-being into being?...This is so absurd that it seems to be downright silly.” In addition to this quote from his book, I once heard R.C. Sproul say that if the universe exploded into being out of nothing, “Can you imagine the explosion that NOTHING makes? If there was ever a time there was nothing – a million years A million years ago, a billion years ago, a trillion years ago, what would there be now? Nothing.” It is illogical to speak of a temporary universe exploding out of nothing and into something.
It is tremendously helpful to know the cause for the universe’s existence. God made the world and everything in it. An eternal, self-existent God brought a temporary, dependent universe into existence. However, simply stating that God created the universe still leaves the fundamental question of why unanswered. Not surprisingly, the children’s catechism begins with the issue of causality. The first question of the catechism is, “Who made you?” Answer: “God made me.” The second question, “What else did God make?” Answer: “God made me and all things.” From the opening verse of the Bible, God’s word clearly states that He is the source of all things. A chorus of other verses supports this claim. In addition to God’s revelatory word, there is a wealth of philosophical, ethical and scientific arguments that come to bear on this debate.
(To be continued in the May Newsletter)