The cosmological argument is really a simple statement based on observations of the universe:

  1. Things don’t just happen (causality)
  2. Things don’t just start or stop existing (conservation of matter/energy)

These 2 observations form the basis of all scientific thought and investigation. Causality is such a basic assumption that it need not even be formally stated: Science is about discovering cause and effect. Causality is assumed. The second item is more formally known as the first law of thermodynamics which says that energy (and matter) cannot be created or destroyed.

Indeed if either were not true, our universe would indeed be a strange and irrational place. Imagine a world in which 2 apples plus 2 apples sometimes equalled 5 apples because the extra apple just appeared from nowhere. Or imagine finding a moose in your living room and accepting the explanation “no reason, these things just happen”. We live in a universe in which things don’t just happen. Cause and effect are at play all around us and things which appear to be chance are really the result of complex processes we cannot always understand.

Until about the mid 20th century there were those who argued that the universe itself had no cause and had always existed. The problem was that this meant the number of past events was infinite. Mathematicians will tell you that infinity has no corresponding reality because of the contradictions which occur. As humans we have some vague idea of the infinite but find it nowhere in nature. We now know, thanks to observations of the distant parts of the universe that it was created some 15 billion years ago in a hot expansion known as the Big Bang. This model of the early universe describes how matter, energy, space and time came into being from a singularity (point of zero dimensions) and from which all we see around us is created.

Theoretical and observational physics have come together to refute any claims that the universe had a beginning – it is not eternal. Even time and space had a beginning! Also, given that things don’t just happen, something caused the universe. This cause must be eternal, powerful and, given the order and finely-tuned design and balance of the universe, intelligent. Nature cannot create itself and thus we have evidence for a supernatural God who brought the universe into being.

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