How could the universe and life come into existence without God? How could life evolve without God?

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Eric_Hyom

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The creation of the universe is history and we cannot change history.

Where is the science to show how the universe and life came into existence without God?

For the purpose of this thread, can we define God as the creator of all that is seen and unseen.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
For the purpose of this thread, can we define God as the creator of all that is seen and unseen.
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That gives me a problem. God did not create Himself as He is uncreated. Neither did God create the first life, since He Himself is a living God. At best God created everything except Himself.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
The creation of the universe is history and we cannot change history.

Where is the science to show how the universe and life came into existence without God?
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There isn"t any.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along please. Thank you.
 
rossum said:
That gives me a problem. God did not create Himself as He is uncreated. Neither did God create the first life, since He Himself is a living God. At best God created everything except Himself .
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Fair enough, i don’t want to cause you any problems.

How did the universe and life start by natural causes? And without any help from from a God who created everything except himself.
 
MasterHaster said:
An atheist could likewise ask “where is the science to show how the universe and life came into existence WITH God”.
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Atheists claim the science high ground. So it should not be unreasonable to ask; where is the evidence to show that the universe and life started by natural causes.
 
I’m obviously a theist, but I think this topic could be approached with more care. An atheist might not think the universe ever began. And if they believe the universe began to exist without a cause and that must be accepted as a brute fact, then obviously science would be unable to show it, because if there is no cause then they cannot show you the cause you’re asking for. There’s nothing for science to measure on that front.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
Fair enough, i don’t want to cause you any problems.

How did the universe and life start by natural causes? And without any help from from a God who created everything except himself.
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By agreeing that God did not create Himself, then you also agree that God did not create life, since He Himself is alive. If God is eternal and uncreated then life is also eternal and uncreated since God is a living God.

Whether or not God created the universe depends on the definition of “universe”. The OP says:
  • “For the purpose of this thread, can we define God as the creator of all that is seen and unseen.”
From that I assume that you are talking about more than the material STEM universe. If that is the case then we are talking about the philosophical “All That Exists” (ATE) universe. Since God exists, then He is a part of the ATE universe. Since God is eternal then the ATE universe is also eternal. Hence, by the Kalaam argument the ATE universe did not have a cause/creator. Also anything outside the ATE universe does not exist, by definition, hence there is no existing external cause for the ATE universe.

God may have created some parts of the ATE universe, but He did not create the entire ATE universe.
 
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The difference between atheism (which is really pantheism) and theism is boiled down to whether the principle by which the cosmos came into being and/or is sustained in being is a distinct, self-actualized, self-sustaining substance (God by definition) or the cosmos itself is this self-actualized, self-sustaining substance.

Once you look at it this way, the answer seems pretty obvious, since the cosmos is clearly a composite of finite substances with potentiality and actuality, even at the basic levels of matter and energy, rather than a perfectly simple, self-actualized substance.
 
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Genesis315 said:
The difference between atheism (which is really pantheism) and theism is boiled down to whether the principle by which the cosmos came into being and/or is sustained in being is a distinct, self-actualized, self-sustaining substance (God by definition) or the cosmos itself is this self-actualized, self-sustaining substance.
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I think you’ll find that a belief in the second option is the result of atheism, not the cause.
 
Science cannot prove that the universe created itself. There are many things science doesn’t have an explanation for, like dark matter and dark energy. And that’s ok.
 
Atheists bear witness to God, as G. K. Chesterton quipped: “Without God, there could be no atheists.”
 
Dan_Defender said:
Science cannot prove that the universe created itself.
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From the answers so far; I tend to agree with you.

Together, helium and hydrogen make up around 99 percent of known matter in the universe. Did helium and hydrogen have no beginning? Or did they just pop into existence and not come from anything?

Something had to defy logic and reason by having no beginning, or just come onto existence without coming from anything, but what and how?
 
Ex nihilo nihil fit - from nothing, nothing comes. The universe cannot have come into existence without God. By positing something in quantum physics or the multiverse simply forces us to move one step behind the Big Bang and ask what caused this? For, an infinite regress of contingent causes is illogical as it leads to contradictions.
Now, it is beyond the competence of science to determine that the universe or life came into existence without God, this is a properly philosophical question. Even the great palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould did not consider it foolish to believe in God and distinguished between the realm of religion and philosophy & science. Whilst I disagree with Gould somewhat, I think this is a reasonable distinction. I side more with the thinking of Alister McGrath in thinking that whilst religion and philosophy are distinct from science, they have some overlap in their interests. To that end, I agree with William Lane Craig in thinking that whilst science and scientific knowledge (i.e. the Big Bang) cannot be used as a proof for the existence of God but scientific knowledge can be used as evidence to support a premise in an argument for the existence of God - an important distinction.
I hope you will find this useful.
 
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rossum said:
Since God exists, then He is a part of the ATE universe. Since God is eternal then the ATE universe is also eternal. Hence, by the Kalaam argument the ATE universe did not have a cause/creator.
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The Kalam Cosmological Argument is more subtle than that; it argues that everything that begins to exist has a cause and that the universe began to exist and therefore the universe must have a cause. It does not merely include everything that exists (which would include God). I believe you are mistaken here.
 
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