Discussions about how the world began usually focus on how human beings, animals, the planets, stars, sun and moon came to be. But this type of discussion, which deals only with matter, does not address deeper questions of how existence came to be and whether non-existence (i.e., nothing) is even possible.
It seems to me that it is not possible to have nothing, and that something without an origin has always existed. This something can only be God. Thus, God’s existence is intertwined with existence itself.
While this is self-evident to someone who believes in creationism, a person who believes in evolution should come to this conclusion through a reasoning process that starts with what we already know — our own existence–and then working backwards. If humans evolved from monkeys, the next question is: Where did monkeys come from? The answer to that question prompts another question and so on. Each question illustrates the process of cause and effect: something comes into being as the result of something before it. As we continue to proceed through the chain of cause and effect, we eventually reach the atom (the basic building block of all matter) and wonder how the atom came into being.
At this point, it becomes apparent that there must be a beginning to the cause and effect process—that is, an initial cause that is not the effect of anything else. In other words, there must be an original source or prime mover that did not need to be created – in other words, a Creator. Why? Because without a prime mover, everything would be waiting for something else to be created, which means that nothing would have been created even to this day, including you and me.
The question therefore becomes what is the prime mover? Anything related to matter, such as an atom, cannot be the prime mover because the existence of matter depends on the existence of other matter. Thus, matter could not have always existed: it was created. In addition, matter could not have come into being from a state of nothing because non-existence is not possible. If there were no humans, animals, planets, stars, sun or moon, space would probably still exist. If space did not exist, which is difficult to imagine, there would be a void or vacuum. But a void or vacuum is not nothing. It is emptiness, which is different from nothingness, because emptiness is only possible within the context of something else. Even if non-existence were possible, how could the state of nothing create something?
If there is no such thing as nothing, and if there must have been a prime mover to start the chain of cause and effect, then it can only mean one thing: a higher power outside of matter must have always existed without having been created. Existence therefore is a state of being that transcends matter and has no beginning and no end. This state of being is what we refer to as God. Aside from God, there is no other way to identify a prime mover that had no need of being created.
St. Augustine’s Confessions describes God as “being” and “Existence.” This view is supported by passages in Scripture. When Moses asks God to reveal His name (Exodus 3, 13), God replies, “I am who am. Tell them I AM sent you.” (Exodus 3, 14-15) With this response, God gives a description of His nature and provides a clue to the mystery of existence. God’s description of Himself shows that there is no beginning to existence: there is simply existence. And God, who has no origin, is that existence.
The following passage from Scripture also sheds light on the mystery of existence: “I am the Alpha and the Omega…the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.” (Revelation 1, 8) This passage means God has always existed, still exists and will always exist. It makes sense because, as we saw, there is no other possible explanation about the origin of existence.
Since God has always existed, He did not need to be created. In fact, if God had been created, He would not be God (a Creator), but a creature. Although it is difficult to understand how God could exist without having been created, it is even harder to understand how the first piece of matter could have existed without having been created by a higher power that transcends the physical universe. Matter cannot precede existence, so matter cannot be the origin.
Yet we can understand how God has always existed from this perspective: existence has always existed (or alternatively, there is no such thing as non-existence), which can only be explained through the existence of a Being that is not related to matter. This Being is known as God. Thus, unlike the world, God has no beginning and no end. He is Existence itself.
