The Beginning of Beginnings

I reckon you know the words well: “In the beginning, God created…” (Gen. 1:1).

The beginning of all beginnings. The Foundation of reality reveals Himself with the fundamental Truth—God is, and He is the singular, self-existent Cause behind the universe.

Everything that has a beginning has a cause, so says the Law of Causality, and most of us take it very seriously. To illustrate: While away from home, getting groceries, just doing life, do you ever worry that a giraffe has suddenly appeared in your living room, and is now waiting for you to get home? I bet that not only do you not worry about such a thing, but the thought has never even entered your mind. Why? Because you know as well as any reasonable person things don’t just happen randomly without causes. You take the Law of Causality seriously, so the kinds of questions (like the one I just asked) seem moronic. If you ever encountered someone who really, habitually worried about such things, this would be cause for concern. You would have serious doubts about anything he claimed.

Yet, this is precisely what many atheists would have you believe—that things just pop into existence all the time without any cause, and no one seems to question their sanity. In principle, their explanation for the cause of the universe is about as reasonable as the man who genuinely believes an 18 foot, African animal will just appear out of thin air. They insist on this troubling nonsense despite the existence of enormously complex and complicated things (information) needed to build giraffes and every other living thing. When it comes to information, there’s no known causes except intelligence. Take DNA for example—the instructions/blueprint for your body. It consists of 6 billion letters arranged by pairs in each and every one of your trillions of cells. Which means in every one of your cells, there’s enough data to fill 1.5 million pages (around 2,000-3,000 books, each with 500 pages).

No wonder David exclaimed, “I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well” (Ps. 139:14). I think it’s safe to say David never examined a cell under a microscope, yet he was so impressed by the design of his own body, he praised His Maker. He knew that all the various parts that made up his body didn't randomly appear from nothing and come together in functional way without guidance.

If something as vast and complicated as DNA can “come from nothing” or “create itself,” then why doesn’t everything do that? Why don’t smaller and simpler bodies of information like phone books or encyclopedias just pop into existence? They contain far fewer letters than DNA, yet they too are arranged in a meaningful way. Would we take a man seriously if he believed his phone book was produced when a print shop exploded? No, at least I hope not, and for the same reasons we wouldn't take “giraffe guy” seriously. Yet, so many people do. If you dissent? Well, then, woe be unto you, you big dum-dum. Psalm 14 comes to mind: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 14:1).

Space, time, and matter all had a beginning. There’s nothing in human experience indicating space, time, and matter create themselves. Like everything else, they operate within the laws of cause and effect. So whatever made space, time, and matter must be outside of them, which is to say, the source is spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Does that sound familiar?

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God” (Ps. 90:2).

“For in Your sight a thousand years are but a day that passes, or a watch of the night” (Ps. 90:4).

“Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?” (Ps. 139:7).

What unimaginable power! What a gracious God who wields it! Since neither space, nor time, nor matter are personal, He must be. He speaks, loves, gets angry and sad, and He chooses. He chose to create these things, He chose to create you and me. Nature can’t be it’s own cause anymore than you and I can cause ourselves. All creation points to a personal, powerful, loving Creator. No natural cause will ever be discovered to be responsible for the universe no matter how much time someone is given. Why? For the same reason no matter how much time you’re given, you will never be able to say, “I gave birth to my own mother.” It’s impossible in principle.

So we’re left with a choice. In the end, every person must choose one of two explanations: Either no one made something out of nothing or Someone created something out of nothing. That’s it. There’s no alternatives.

We were born into the natural world, governed by physical laws that were here long before you and I arrived. In this life, as we grow and observe creation, we see that it points to a Creator. The Bible says there are no exceptions to this experience: “For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19-20).

Contrary to what some may tell you, physical things can and do have non-physical causes. This article, for example, you can see it on your screen or perhaps hold it in your hand—it is physical, but it is the product of my non-physical thoughts or mind.

If an atheist says that the creation of space-time and matter doesn’t need a cause—he’s asking me to accept an effect without a cause—he’s asking me to believe a giraffe has suddenly appeared in my living room out of thin air. Actually much more, right? Because he wants me to believe the universe and all it contains suddenly appeared without a cause.

Fine, make the claim, ask me to accept your position, but can you at least present convincing evidence to support your claim? Doing so would present a problem wouldn’t it? Any evidence he cites from experiments (e.g. Miller-Urey experiment) presupposes cause and effect—the Law of Causality. In short, he wants me to deny causality (i.e. something comes from nothing), while arguing from the law of causality (something does not come from nothing). We’ve skedaddled past reason and have slammed head on into contradiction. His claims do not meet their own standards. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Pro. 1:7).

Honest people understand, by their simple observations of the evidence, what has been made must have a Maker. They understand reality is governed by laws of cause and effect, and that all laws must have a Law-Giver. Laws like the Law of Gravity are precise, predictable, and uniform, no matter where you are. This consistency in our ordered world is exactly why we can investigate it, experiment with it, and draw universal, reliable conclusions about how it operates. It's what allows us to make accurate weather predictions, know when our daughter’s flight will arrive, build a rover and launch it towards a planet 50 million miles away, or decide how close to sit by the campfire. These and countless other scenarios are only possible because we live in a universe governed by orderly laws and we have minds designed to discover and understand those laws. This allows us to create amazing things based on what we’ve learned. Everything from antihistamines to iPads to roller coasters would be impossible if the universe were random and unpredictable. Only the willfully blind deny this.

Paul Davies put it succinctly: “Can the mighty edifice of physical order we perceive in the world about us ultimately be rooted in reasonless absurdity? If so, then nature is a fiendishly clever bit of trickery: meaninglessness and absurdity somehow masquerading as ingenious order and rationality.” (Paul Davies, "Taking Science on Faith," New York Times, November 24, 2007)

So we’re confronted with a choice: either all this order we see arose from God or it did not.

Scripture declares Christ is behind creation:

“He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made” (Jn. 1:2-3).

“For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).

Someone will counter, “OK well, then, who made Christ?” or, usually, “Who made God?” Contrary to what many atheists seem to believe, the Law of Causality does not say that everything has a cause. It says that everything that has a beginning has a cause, or every effect has a cause. The God of the Bible has no beginning—He is eternal—the great I AM. In fact, that’s what His Name means. In Hebrew, this phrase is “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”—“I AM WHO I AM" or "I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” After revealing this to Moses, God says: "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord [Yahweh], the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation” (Ex. 3:15). Yahweh can mean "He is" or "He causes to be." God’s own Name signifies not only His self-existence, but that He is the ultimate source of all existence independent of anything else. The Great “I AM” is the very Being whom Aristotle unwittingly defined as the “unmoved mover.” Man knows there cannot be an infinite chain of causes into the past—at some point there was “In the beginning…” But before there was “In the beginning,” there was Yahweh (He who causes to be)—self-existent, eternal, outside of time, and the Author of time itself. God has no cause because He has no beginning. He created the beginning of everything. When atheists ask, “Who created God?” they’re not thinking of Yahweh, because Yahweh is not a created being, if He were, He would be an idol.

Either the universe is eternal, self-existent, and uncaused or whatever got it started is eternal, self-existent, and uncaused, why not follow the evidence where it leads?

On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:1-3).