The most fundamental question of metaphysics is as follows: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
I am proposing that there might be an atheistic explanation for this question: Albeit, the explanation might appear to be nothing more than a play of words. The reason why there is something rather than nothing is because it is impossible for “nothing” to exist by definition. (I also believe that it is impossible for nothing to exist. However, my reasoning is different. I believe it is impossible because God is a necessary being and God’s essence is existence itself.)
What sayeth you?
Note: The theist is obligated to explain why God exists. Why? Because God is something, not nothing.
You are correct that it is logically impossible for nothing to exist, since nothing is not an object. It cannot be an
objective truth because nothing is the absence of objective truth entirely; in fact it is absence of truth and cannot produce any truth, and that is to say nothing can be true about nothing. Nothing cannot exist because nothing is the absence of existence.
The Problem Of Nothing
Nothing is meaningful only insofar as we are comparing the absence of things that could potentially exist in relation to things that do exist or insofar as we are comparing the metaphysically impossible to that which is metaphysically possible. The word nothing is purely a
comparative concept, it is not an ontology.
1) Now; the fact that nothing cannot ontologically exist cannot in itself cause any particular thing you can imagine to exist. Out of nothing comes nothing and thus efficient causality has to be considered although something does have to exist. We cannot assume that the Universe in particular exists just because nothing cannot exist.
But what we can say is that there is a being that has the explanation of own existence within its own nature. In other words the **act of existence **is its nature; it is its nature to be the antithesis of nothing. However anything that changes, anything that is in a state of “becoming” cannot be the antithesis of nothing since that which is the antithesis of nothing does not change because it is necessary in every aspect. It does not become anything else; it does not come
“into” existence because it is existence.
2) That which comes into existence is contingent upon the antithesis of nothing in order to be real because it does not have in its own nature the necessity of existence, otherwise it would necessarily exist.
3) That which is finite in dimension cannot be the antithesis of nothing since there is nowhere where nothingness can exist. Thus the antithesis of nothing permeates everything and transcends any form of finiteness.
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The Atheist would have to show that the universe is in fact the antithesis of nothing.**