Sunday Special-Creation of the Universe!

Did God Create Everything Out of Nothing?

The Bible

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Psalm 33:6

The notion that God created everything from nothing has fallen on hard times. A surprising number of philosophers and theologians dogmatically contend that the doctrine of creation out of nothing (ex nihilo) has little scriptural support. Worse yet, leading Mormons overtly contend that matter has coexisted eternally with God. But the opening statement in Scripture—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”—points to the truth that God created everything out of nothing. Indeed, only three options exist, and only one corresponds to reality.
First is the view that in the beginning nothing existed. Neither mass, nor energy, nor the Almighty. Nothing, nothing, simply nothing. Logic, however, screams that nothing comes from nothing!
Furthermore, there is the untenable notion that something existed, but that something was an impersonal potentiality out of which every potentiality—from protein molecules to personal mind—emerged. This idea, however, hardly advances the proverbial ball. As common sense tells us, every effect must have a cause equal to or greater than itself.
Finally, there is the scriptural contention, and of the three it alone makes sense: the universe was created by an uncaused First Cause greater than itself. Time, space, and the universe have not always existed, but God has always existed, and God’s existence is the cause for the existence of all else that exists. While science demands that the universe had to have a beginning, nothing philosophically or scripturally demands that the cause of the universe had to have a beginning. As the writer of Hebrews aptly put it, “By faith [not blind faith but faith grounded in evidence] we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (11:3).
Did God create everything out of nothing? Absolutely! 

The Rig Veda

The Rig Veda beautifully explains what the “nothing” is and it’s verses on creationism from the All mighty give an idea as to how everything occurred.

“Then even nothingness was not, nor existence, There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it. What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping? Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?” Rig Veda (10.129.1)

Me and you are in the realms of materialism, we know the difference between something and nothing - but what about even nothing not existing. This is beyond our comprehension and it is from this that even nothing was created for then something to be created.

Bhraman then reveals the following,

“In the beginning desire descended on it (the creator) - that was the primal seed, born of the mind. The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom know that which is kin to that which is not.” Rig Veda (10.129.4)

So creation occurred from desire according to the Rig Veda. Bhraman, the most high only had to desire something for it to be.

The Qur'an

In the second chapter of the Qur’an, Allah, the most high tells us the following:-

“Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, "Be," and it is.” Qur’an (2.117)

In this particular verse, Allah uses the word Al-Badee’ - the originator. Make note that this word, alongside fatara is exclusive to Allah’s creation, whereas other words such as Khalaqa, which also mean create/created are used with other entities.

There is therefore something unique about the lord himself, and this is where we can peak into the dimensions of existence (subjective and objective realities) to even come close to how great of an effect just desire from the Lord can have in both our material and transcendental planes of existence.

The Bhagwat Geeta (Bg)

In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna does not tell it in detail, because The Bhagavad-gita is the essence of all the 5 Vedas and the creation is already very well described by him (in his incarnation as Vyasadeva) and his devotees in detail in the Srimad Bhagavatam and other Vedic texts.

In the Gita, Lord Krishna speak just the essence:

Bg 9.7 — O son of Kuntī, at the end of the millennium all material manifestations enter into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency, I create them again.

Bg 9.8 — The whole cosmic order is under Me. Under My will it is automatically manifested again and again, and under My will it is annihilated at the end.

Bg 9.10 — This material nature, which is one of My energies, is working under My direction, O son of Kuntī, producing all moving and nonmoving beings. Under its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.

Bg 10.8 — I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me.

Bg 7.4 — Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego – all together these eight constitute My separated material energies.

Bg 7.5 — Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature.

Bg 7.6 — All created beings have their source in these two natures. Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both the origin and the dissolution.

Bg 7.7 — O conqueror of wealth, there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.

Bg 8.17 — By human calculation, a thousand ages taken together form the duration of Brahmā’s one day. And such also is the duration of his night.

Bg 8.18 — At the beginning of Brahmā’s day, all living entities become manifest from the unmanifest state, and thereafter, when the night falls, they are merged into the unmanifest again.

Bg 8.19 — Again and again, when Brahmā’s day arrives, all living entities come into being, and with the arrival of Brahmā’s night they are helplessly annihilated.

Sikhism-Guru Granth Sahib

science. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, all believe Adam to be the original man. Sikhism teaches that only the creator knows the origin of the universe. Guru Nanak wrote that God’s creation consists of a multitude of universes and that no one knows for certain how, or when, creation took place. Kavan se rutee maahu kavan jit hoaa aakaar||
(What was that season, and what was that month, when the Universe was created?)
Vael na paa-ee-aa panddatee je hovai laekh puraan||
(The Pandits, the religious scholars, cannot find that time, even if it is written in the Puranas.)
Vakhat an paa-i-ou kaadee-aa ij likhan laekh kuraan||
(That time is not known to the Qazis, who study the Koran.)
Thit vaar naa jogee jaanai rut maahu naa koee||
(The day and the date are not known to the Yogis, nor is the month or the season.)

Jaa karahaa sirtthee ko saajae aapae jaanai soee||
(The Creator who created this creation-only He Himself knows. SGGS||4)

Where Did God Come From?

Try to imagine nothing exists. There is no sun, no moon, no stars, and no galaxies. There are no elements such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen or oxygen. There are no such things as time, space, matter or energy. There is no universe, no God, nothing! Socrates defined it this way,

If There Ever Was A Time When Nothing Existed, Then Nothing Would Exist Now; Therefore, Something Must Be Eternal!

I love how the late Dr. Walter Martin used to say it,

If anything now exists, either something is eternal or no one plus nothing equals everything.

There is one thing that scientists, theologians, and philosophers agree on and it’s this—You have only two choices:  Either God is eternal and uncreated, or matter is eternal and uncreated—there is no third option.

Einstein Meets Moses

It was 1910 when Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was first published. His  mathematical equation (math being a perfect science) provided a basis for proof that the universe and time itself had a beginning. Einstein’s formula revealed that time, space, and matter (which is energy) had a beginning. Interestingly, his theory (which has never been dis-proven) fit the biblical model perfectly. The very first verse in the Bible says:

“In the beginning (that’s time), God created (that’s energy), the heavens (that’s space), and the earth (that’s matter)!

Einstein

Since Einstein’s theory (which has been proven accurate to within five decimal points) shows that time, space, and matter had a beginning, then our only other option is staring us in the face: God is eternal and uncreated!

Therefore, as Norman Geisler states it, “Asking the question, where did God come from? is a nonsensical question. It contains the false assumption that God was created or had a beginning and then asks: how is that possible? It’s like asking, where did the bachelor get his wife? Or, what does blue sound like? Bachelors by definition do not have wives, and sight is not in the category of sound.”

In the same sense, God is not in the category of created things. The question itself is fatally flawed. Asking the wrong question does not generally produce the right answer. A better question to begin with is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” As for the question of cause and effect, that only applies to things that have a beginning         

This graphic shows a timeline of the universe based on the Big Bang theory and inflation models.

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. The model describes how the universe expanded from a very high-density and high-temperature state, and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), large scale structure and Hubble's law. If the known laws of physics are extrapolated to the highest density regime, the result is a singularity which is typically associated with the Big Bang. Physicists are undecided whether this means the universe began from a singularity, or that current knowledge is insufficient to describe the universe at that time. Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang at around 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity in halos of dark matter, eventually forming the stars and galaxies visible today.

Searched,Compiled and Illustrated by Tejinder Kamboj