Was there nothing before the Big bang?

[mikekle]

IMO, the bible makes it very clear God is a creative God, and I can see that by simply looking around at all the different varieties of life currently here on earth, plus all the ones that have gone extinct over the years, Our God is DEFINITELY creative!

Knowing this, I tend to think God has probably created many trillions of different civilizations before us, (not really referring to extraterrestrial civilizations here, but just different life forms in general), God has always been in existence, that is hard to wrap your head around, I find it hard to believe before us, he simply did nothing and created nothing.

Although it does make me wonder if God has ALWAYS been, at some point, he must have been bored or didnt know what to do with himself, or…? Just seems natural…I mean, what would he have done for the ump-teen quad trillion years before we were thought of??

 

[steph_86]

What evidence do we Catholics have that there was nothing at some point?

St. Thomas treated this very matter concerning Creation and its existence. He posited that we know by Faith that Creation indeed had a Beginning. He also posited that it is possible to postulate that the known universe might have been eternal. At the same time, he cautioned that even if the universe were eternal, it would still depend on God for its being and existence.

But to answer the question, all I can state is that, before the existence of Creation, there was something, and that thing, Is God. God existed, in the Trinity of His Persons, all Free, Equal, Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent. In other words, God was Sufficient unto Himself.

It is difficult for us to understand what that kind of existence would have been for God, before the existence of Creation. There was no space, no time, no change. Where did God exist? He was not bound by anything. In comparison, with Creation, God is now circumscribed in His Persons, to Heaven, even though by His Immensity, He fills and is Present everywhere. Can it then be stated that, currently, Our Lord is bound by Space and Time? I would answer in the negative. And yet, the question to answer is what God’s current mode of existence is.** Since, Heaven is, in my estimation, a place, or rather, a metaphysical place,** God is Present in Creation. But my position is that He is not bound by it.

God was and is the All. Now, an interesting question is as to why God decided to create.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not sure we can ever know what there was before the Big Bang, assuming that theory is correct in any sense. Some physicists claim we can never know, because everything that existed before it was utterly changed by it, even the laws of physics.

But if one believes in the God of the Christians, as I do, I see no difficulty in the whole issue. It’s beside the point really. If God is truly God, then the universe and everything in it existed in the Mind of God from all eternity and into all eternity. That it may have, at some point in time, come into existence as we understand existence, is irrelevant because our understanding of “existence” is insufficient to understand existence as God understands it.

So there truly could have been “nothing” before the Big Bang or the precursor(s) of the Big Bang, as we understand “nothing”. But that does not preclude there never having been such a thing as “nothing” as God understands “nothing”.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Knowing this, I tend to think God has probably created many trillions of different civilizations before us, (not really referring to extraterrestrial civilizations here, but just different life forms in general), God has always been in existence, that is hard to wrap your head around, I find it hard to believe before us, he simply did nothing and created nothing.

Although it does make me wonder if God has ALWAYS been, at some point, he must have been bored or didnt know what to do with himself, or…? Just seems natural…I mean, what would he have done for the ump-teen quad trillion years before we were thought of??

What’s more important here is the view that God exists in time, which you seem to imply. God does not exist in time. Time is part of God’s Creation. So it’s hard to wrap your head around it, sure, but there is no reason to ask what God did trillions of years before we were created or even thought of. There were no trillions of years. There was just God.

 

[DaveBj]

What’s more important here is the view that God exists in time, which you seem to imply. God does not exist in time. Time is part of God’s Creation. So it’s hard to wrap your head around it, sure, but there is no reason to ask what God did trillions of years before we were created or even thought of. There were no trillions of years. There was just God.

This concept is hard for most people to understand. I came to understand it in the early '90s. Imagine my surprise when, years later, I discovered that a bunch of 2nd- and 3rd-century Catholic theologians had beaten me to it

 

[N0X3x]

If there were an infinite regress, we could not be at any point in time, because it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to that point.

I don’t see how needing an infinite amount of time to reach a particular event makes it impossible to actually reach that event. It seems you are saying that infinite regress is impossible because infinite regress is impossible.

 

[aragonjohn1]

What evidence do we Catholics have that there was nothing at some point?

according to the “big bang” theory and many disciplines there was “something” before the big bang before that nothing in actual/real time and before that is the only first cause containing in Him everywhere throughout everything.

God bless

 

[JamesTheJust]

I don’t see how needing an infinite amount of time to reach a particular event makes it impossible to actually reach that event. It seems you are saying that infinite regress is impossible because infinite regress is impossible.

Think about it this way. If you are counting points on an infinite line, you cannot reach a desired point, because you’d have to count infinite points before reaching it, which would take an infinite amount of time.

 

[N0X3x]

Think about it this way. If you are counting points on an infinite line, you cannot reach a desired point, because you’d have to count infinite points before reaching it, which would take an infinite amount of time.

But if you had an infinite amount of time, it would be theoretically possible to reach these points, and I see no logical inconsistency in the idea of infinite time.

 

[Aloysium]

I don’t know about the Big Bang, but if we assume that it signalled the creation of the universe, then there would be no “was” before that because time would have started with the Big Bang. The “was” would be an “IS”, since God always is in His eternal moment , which encompasses all that was before, is in, and will be after this particular moment in which we each now exist.

 

[GratefulFred]

Now, an interesting question is as to why God decided to create.

LOVE.

 

[Anselm33]

What evidence do we Catholics have that there was nothing at some point?

There is no scientific evidence that there was ‘nothing’, and there is no evidence that there was “something”, and by something I include a vacuum (which would have spatial dimensions, coordinate and momentum operators, creation and annihilation operators, etc.)
On the other hand, the red shifts and all other scientific evidence for the “BIG BANG” are entirely consistent with that being a point of creation, ex nihilo. But scientists who are hesitant to credit anything that might point to an act of Creation, dabble in mathematical metaphysics, Hartle-Hawking substitution of -i for i in the relativistic Schrodinger equation, multiverses, cyclic universes, etc.

 

[Anselm33]

None whatsoever.

And there is no evidence that there was something.

 

[Anselm33]

There was something before the Big Bang.

The evidence is Reason.

The “Big Bang” was an explosion. There had to be stuff that could be exploded and it had to come from somewhere. As we can now see much of the Universe, that was a lot of stuff.

That stuff had to come from somewhere, something.

There has to be a first cause that was not caused by something before it.

That First Cause is God. First cause is understood by Reasoning. See St Thomas Aquinas.

God made the stuff, caused the explosion, and set in place the physical laws we have discovered.

A 4 year child has no idea how he or she was made, much less anything about his or her ancestors back to the first humans. That lack of knowledge only proves a lack of knowledge. It does not disprove first cause. We humans are discovering more and more about how God created the Universe.

Through Science we have discovered many facts and laws of behavior. Consistent, predicable behavior of the physical world - obeying certain laws if you will - cannot happen by itself. The odds of getting just the right mix of “stuff” that performs in just the right are so extremely remote as to be impossible. Scientific Laws have to come from intelligent design.

That intelligent design is God. Again by reasoning.

The reasoning I tried to present simply has been written more eloquently by other highly respected authors. Whether we understand it and accept it is another matter.

It’s a common misconception that the Big Bang was an explosion…that’s not so. It was an expansion (inflationary presumably in the earliest part).

 

[Anselm33]

The Big Bang theory has been dismissed.

By you? By the Young Earth faithful? or by cosmologists?..As a quondam practicing physicist, who has read in cosmology, I don’t believe that statement.

 

[aragonjohn1]

By you? By the Young Earth faithful? or by cosmologists?..As a quondam practicing physicist, who has read in cosmology, I don’t believe that statement.

not very many theories have been completely and definitivly proven with both empirical and objective truth. this is one of the reasons why many in the higher learning and other communities reject the big bang theory with similar theories.

God bless

 

[steph_86]

It’s a common misconception that the Big Bang was an explosion…that’s not so. It was an expansion (inflationary presumably in the earliest part).

Yes, an expansion from a point of a singularity.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

not very many theories have been completely and definitivly proven with both empirical and objective truth. this is one of the reasons why many in the higher learning and other communities reject the big bang theory with similar theories.

There is no reason to reject the Big Bang. It is well established as a scientific phenomenon, even more so than evolution, because we can see the continuing expansion of the universe.

The main aspect of the theory that is still hotly disputed is whether the Big Bang is only one in an infinite series of universes being born and destined to die. No proof at all for this. But the atheists favor it. Anything but a Creator God!

 

[Anselm33]

not very many theories have been completely and definitivly proven with both empirical and objective truth. this is one of the reasons why many in the higher learning and other communities reject the big bang theory with similar theories.

God bless

John, a suggestion to help you in argumentation/discussion. If you assert something more or less controversial, such as disputing the validity of the Big Bang explanation for the expanding universe, the COBE microwave radiation, etc., then it helps the discussion for you to give references to back up your claim–web sites, names of books, scientists, etc.
That enables the discussion to go beyond a " 'tis, 'tisn’t " type of argument. I know of arguments for cyclic universes and for continuing multiverses that counter a Creation; if this is what you’re thinking of, I can argue against them.

 

[Anselm33]

There is no reason to reject the Big Bang. It is well established as a scientific phenomenon, even more so than evolution, because we can see the continuing expansion of the universe.

The main aspect of the theory that is still hotly disputed is whether the Big Bang is only one in an infinite series of universes being born and destined to die. No proof at all for this. But the atheists favor it. Anything but a Creator God!