1.1 Has The Universe Always Existed?

What are you going to do with your life? If you’re anything like me you’re probably sick of being asked that question! Like I’m married with four kids and I’m still being asked it! For some people though their answers are on the tip of their tongues... ...I’m going to be a doctor, I’m going to be a marine biologist, I’m going to be a pilot. For me explaining what I do often causes an interesting reaction. I talk to people about God and faith. Now sometimes I love this because it opens up a conversation about what we believe... ...and other times I dread it because I’m afraid of being labelled a fanatic or a ‘Holy Joe’! The arguments made against the existence of God are everywhere. Books, websites and all sorts of people can be quite vocal about it. I want to present the other side of the story... ...and start an honest conversation about questions of faith and belief that we all struggle with. So let’s start with a question. How did we get here? Or better yet, how did all this get here? Did someone or something create all of this Or did it start by itself? Is it possible that the universe has always just been here, with no start and with no end? These questions have been puzzling philosophers and challenging scientists for thousands of years. Take Plato. He was one of the most influential thinkers in history. He argued that if you see something moving then something must have moved it and that, if you traced every movement back in time, you would find the source of all movement. Say you’re at home looking out your window and you see a ball come flying towards you… Do you assume that the ball has just always been in motion, just bouncing around the cosmos? Or worse, the ball comes crashing through your window, will your first thought be, ‘Wow. I guess the ball was just always moving?’ No! That would be mad ...You’re more likely to think about ‘the cause’ behind what’s just happened! Or suppose you find something unexpected in your room, you don’t think ‘Huh’, I never noticed this before. You think, ‘how did this get here?’ It’s part of our curious human nature. The question of 'how?' always leads to the question of 'who?' Who left this in my room? Who broke my window!? Let's consider a much bigger ball in motion, like our planet. Our beautiful green and blue rock travels through space at 67000 mph, rotating at 1000 mph. So, here’s the question: what or who kicked this off? What keeps it going? The Bible opens with these three words: in the beginning (Genesis 1:1) Three simple words loaded with meaning. It’s a statement that our universe had a beginning. But does this line up with what scientists have discovered about why our universe came to be? Early in the nineteen hundred’s, Edwin Hubble (of telescope fame) contributed greatly to the Scientific theory of an Expanding Universe. Hubble argued that... Not only is the universe expanding but that it sprang into being from a single point in the finite past. Scientists used to assume that the universe had always just existed. Scientists like Hubble now show us that the universe had an initiation event or starting point. My point though is that if the universe had a beginning it’s fair to suggest that something caused it and that this powerful creative force must be beyond the universe itself. For me, it seems that both science and faith recognise the possibility of this powerful creative force. If this force is God, it might go a long way to explaining why we’re here and how we’re even able to have this conversation.