How science leads to an intelligent designer
The Big Bang is the accepted scientific model that describes the beginning of the universe. But as the philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer has said, “A Big Bang requires a Big Banger.” This conclusion is supported by the Kalam Cosmological Argument:
P1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore, the universe has a cause.¹
Everything that begins to exist has a cause Although this first premise seems intuitively obvious, it is worth examining briefly. Many argue that, because in quantum physics particles and antiparticles can appear and disappear from “nothing,” the universe itself might also have come into being without a cause. However, this objection rests on a misunderstanding of the term “nothing” within quantum physics. “Nothing” does not actually exist. What physicists refer to as “nothing” is, in fact, the quantum vacuum—a sea of fluctuating energy fields that can produce virtual particles. ² As philosopher William Lane Craig has pointed out, if things could truly come into existence out of nothing, we should expect to see this happening everywhere: money appearing out of thin air, gold materializing on the street, and so on. ²
Thus, we maintain the principle that everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist This premise states that the universe has a starting point and is therefore finite. Time, space, and matter all had a beginning, contrary to the ancient belief that the universe has existed eternally.
Both philosophical reasoning and scientific evidence support this claim.
Philosophical evidence
Aristotle believed that the universe had existed eternally. Although early Christian thinkers rejected this view, it remained influential throughout antiquity.
Around 1080 AD, the Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali formulated what became known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument, arguing that the universe is finite.¹
He distinguished between actual infinity and potential infinity.
Al-Ghazali reasoned that an actual infinity cannot exist in reality, because it would lead to absurdities. Imagine that for every complete orbit Saturn makes around the Sun, Jupiter completes two. Over time, Jupiter will have made twice as many orbits as Saturn. But if the universe had existed for an infinite duration, both planets would have completed an infinite number of orbits—making the ratio meaningless.
His second point is that if the universe had no beginning, there would have been an infinite number of past events. Now Imagine a line of falling dominoes where each domino represents an event in the past, and the last one represents today.
If an infinite number of dominoes had to fall before reaching the last one, that last domino would never fall—and today would never arrive.
But since today clearly exists, the past cannot be infinite, and therefore the universe must have had a beginning.¹ ³
Scientific evidence
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity While Al-Ghazali’s argument was philosophical, science later confirmed his conclusion. In 1917, Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, which implied an expanding universe where time, space, and matter began together. In the 1920s, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître independently developed cosmological models based on Einstein’s equations, both pointing to an expanding universe — and therefore a beginning.
Hubble’s Redshift In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble made an empirical discovery supporting these models. He observed that light from distant galaxies was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum — a phenomenon now known as redshift. This effect occurs when light waves stretch as galaxies move farther apart, confirming that the universe is expanding and had a definite beginning.
The big bang and the BGV theorem Despite various cosmological models, the matter was settled decisively in 2003 through the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem. This theorem demonstrates that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be past-eternal and must have an absolute beginning. The Friedmann-Lemaître model, commonly known as the Big Bang, describes the early expansion of the universe.
Even though it does not fully account for quantum mechanics, it still proves that the universe, and any hypothetical multiverse, must have had a beginning. ⁴ ³
For more on the multiverse, I recommend taking a look at Cold Case Christianity.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics Finally, the second law of thermodynamics provides additional evidence for a beginning. The total disorder (entropy) of a closed system always increases or, at best, remains constant. Given enough time, usable energy would eventually be evenly distributed throughout the universe, leading to what physicists call the heat death of the cosmos. If the universe had existed eternally, it would have already reached this state of equilibrium long ago. Since we clearly do not live in a heat-dead universe, it must have had a finite past.³
The universe has a cause It logically follows that if both premises are true, the conclusion must also be true: The universe has a cause. This cause must lie beyond the universe itself, and thus be transcendent, immaterial, spaceless, timeless, and immensely powerful.
Such a cause could only be either a personal intelligent agent or an abstract object (like mathematics). But abstract objects cannot cause anything. Therefore, the cause of the universe must be a personal, intelligent Designer, one with the freedom to choose when to bring the universe into existence.³ ⁵ In other words God.
A Response to Richard Dawkins One of the so-called “Four Horsemen,” Richard Dawkins, argues in The God Delusion that even this explanation is improbable, since we cannot explain the origin of the Designer Himself. However, mathematician John Lennox—Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at the University of Oxford—responds that The God Delusion concerns created gods, whereas the Christian God is uncaused and eternal. Dawkins assumes that God must be created, ignoring the concept of divine infinity. God’s infinity is intrinsic to His nature; He has no beginning and therefore no cause.⁶
Conclusion The ultimate question one must ask is: Does God exist? Through cumulative theistic arguments, I hope to show you that the probability of God’s existence is far greater than the probability that He does not exist. As the comedian Pete Holmes put it: “Some people think God created the universe, and some think nothing created the universe. The ‘nothing people’ mock the ‘God people.’ They say God doesn’t exist—and maybe He doesn’t. But you know what absolutely doesn’t exist? Nothing.”⁷.
And so it seems that the ancient sentence, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), remains the most reasonable of all.
-Ella
Notes:
(1) Al-Ghazali Kitab al-Iqtisad fi’l-I’tiqad, cited in S. de Beaurecueil, ‘Gazzali et S. Thomas d’Aquino Essai sur la preuve de l’existence de Dieu proposée dans l’Iqtisad et sa comparison avec les ‘voies’ Thomiste, ‘’ Bulletin de l’Institute Francais d’Archeologie orientale 46 (1947): 203
(2) ReasonableFaithOrg. (2024, 26 juli). The Hardest Questions on the Kalam Cosmological Argument [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IivCD4EQA7k
(3) Craig, W. L. (2010). On guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision. David C Cook.
(4) J.M. Wersinger, ‘’Genesis: The Origin of the Universe,’’ National Forum (Winter 1996), 11, 9, 12.
(5) Koukl, G. (z.d.). Why Would God Be the Best Explanation for the Existence of the Universe?https://www.str.org/w/why-would-god-be-the-best-explanation-for-the-existence-of-the-universe?p_l_back_url=%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dkalam%26delta%3D20%26start%3D2
(6) Who created God? | Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox. (2018). [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM_sUy9RW-E
(7) Michael Knowles. (2024, 28 september). LOL: Comedians trashing ATHEISTS | Michael REACTS [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv48O6Pngtk