A blogger (below) proposed the following in a comment:
Thank You for interacting,
I would sum it up very briefly.
A state in which things probably exist?
Can you name something?
We are, in general, left with only two choices in regarding the beginning of everything—An eternal universe or an eternal Creator.
“Something” cannot come out of “Nothing” becuase out of nothing, comes nothing. But we have something now, So something must have always existed from the eternity. Why i say eternity is because, if there was a point of time “Nothing Existed”then there would absolutely exist nothing even now. So now Eternal Creator? or Eternal Universe?
Any Matter or material by its nature always had a beginning and an end because it is matter. But on the other side God is neither matter not material and he does not have a beginning or an end.
Rajesh, the questions you are asking are to be expected. You would ask them.
“A state in which things probably exist? Can you name something?” Certainly, Rajesh. You may know of systems in which a particle may (or may not) exist at any given point. For example, lets examine the most abundant substance in your universe, Hydrogen.
What you are looking at is an atomic structure. This is not the Bohr’s Model (below).
Instead, those lightly glowing fields represent a probability of where the particle may exist. Does it exist? Probably. Those clouds are fields that the various particles probably exist. It is also a much more accurate representation.
The odd thing is, many particles can exhibit these behaviors. Even more follow them by default. The computer you are utilizing, in fact, depends on these probabilities. The Heisenberg Equations of Motion, and more famously, Schrodinger (below) are also useful to describe these types of states.
You mentioned the only two results, an eternal universe or an eternal creator.
Those two are not mutually exclusive. We could have an eternal universe that gave rise to an eternal creator. Or vice versa. Or perhaps neither, or both. Or…as I’ve hinted at…all of those in a state of probabilistic superposition.
As far as “something” coming from “nothing.” You would be hard pressed to prove it wrong. You don’t currently have an example of “nothing” to work with. You could never. In fact, the only example of “nothing” we have in conceivable physics is the essence before the Big Bang. There was no time, space, causality, probability. It truly was nothing. Thus…it seems “something” did indeed come from “nothing.” When you understand the nature of the “something” and “nothing” you’ll realize they are not absolutes.
This is not a nod toward Eastern metaphysics. Truly, as manifestations develop of matter and energy, you’ll find that “something” and “nothing” are just like those fuzzy orange clouds of the Hydrogen molecule. Where does “nothing” begin and “something” end? The question itself is wrong. They are both the same states, one more likely to have “something” in it. Just like our universe before the big bang.
God exists this way. However you would express God, she/it/they/he/we must exist in this way. Existing and not existing. A contradiction embodied.
As bizarre as it sounds, we too are much that way. “So now Eternal Creator? or Eternal Universe?”
Your answer is simply…”Yes.”
Any matter or material may have a beginning or end. You are referring to a few rules when you speak of this:
In 1785, there started the Law of Conservation of Mass (Antoine Lavoisier.) “Matter is neither created nor destroyed.”
A second one was added in 1842 by Julius Robert Mayer with the Law of Conservation of Energy. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed.”
It turns out, both were wrong. Einstein’s equation E = mc2 mandates that energy and mass are interchangeable. Therefore “the total amount of mass and energy in the universe is constant.”
There we have it. The caveat. As long as energy and mass is constant in the universe, we are golden.
Keep in mind, String Theory suggests that the reality you are experiencing now is just one of an infinite number of arrangements of matter and energy. Most likely, 10 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time make our little universe a very fuzzy, unlikely, and very dim blob. Just like the pictures of the hydrogen.
Yes, the matter and energy in a universe do stay constant. But that doesn’t mean that one manifestation of reality can’t be a complete void, while the next is brimming full of particles and energy.
God does NOT have a beginning or an end, you are correct. The very concept of “beginning” and “end” are contingent upon the application of causality and time, both of which such a being could override easily. In fact, it would take very few steps upward, dimensionally, to also do the same.
There are ways. But that is a post for another day.
Rajesh, you ask wonderful questions. It was a pleasure to answer them.
-Priest
Church of Aeternum 