Cause

Just why is there something as opposed to nothing? Have you ever thought about that? Take a walk outside. You’ll see and experience the world around you. Wind, sun, moon, stars, oceans, rivers, lakes, plants, trees, insects, birds, animals, people, all these have their beauty, and we can perceive them with our senses of touch, taste, smell, and sound. But how do we account for those things?

 

Is what I perceive just an illusion? What if it is all a quest to discover “there is no spoon”? Why bother warning people to stop texting when they drive? Or better yet, stop daydreaming why they drive! Anyone would be wise to heed such warnings, and one never really takes solipsism to its logical extension.

 

Suppose there is a universe of things out there beyond one’s own mind and perception. Why is it there? Some might have thought the universe had always existed, but our scientific enlightenment rules out that possibility. The “Big Bang” theory of cosmology contends that several billion years ago from an extremely dense and hot singularly came forth the time, matter, and space which makes up the present universe. This is one of the prevailing theories on the origin of the universe accepted among scientist. The “Big Bang” theory indicates the universe had a beginning, which rules out the very idea of an eternal universe.

 

Could the universe have just self-generated itself? How is it possible to get something from nothing? Sure maybe in some physics laboratory there are observation of subatomic particles that appear to come in and out of existence, but beyond the subatomic level, when we get to the atomic, molecular, cellular, organ, and body levels, such is never the case. For example, living in Charlotte, North Caroline, there is not a single In-N-Out burger joint within a two days drive. So order for me to get a “Double Double” I pretty much have to go to a place where there is an In-N-Out burger joint, because the one thing that anyone can accept is those bad boys never materialize out of nothing. I cannot just wish to have one and the see it pop into existence on an empty plate. So, things on the scale of an In-N-Out “Double Double” and the universe never really self-generate, and all finite things must have a cause. In fact, every effect, if it can be established as an effect, must have a cause. I am an effect of a cause, and the agents of the cause were my mother and father. The universe is likewise an effect of a cause.

 

There is an answer to the question of why is there something as opposed to nothing which often gets brushed aside these days. It is the idea that the universe is the effect of an uncaused first cause of all things. This idea is summed up in the very opening verse of the Scriptures: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The theology of the Bible fits well with the idea that the universe had a beginning, that beginning was caused, and the cause was personal.

 

When I see the world around me, it is more than just my imagination, something is there. There reason why those things are there is they are the effects of the Creator. When I consider the vastness of this universe, all I can do is say, “How Great thou art.!”