The universe has no beginning

This argument is used in the debate Does God exist?.

This argument is an objection to God exists because there cannot be an infinite past, God is the first cause of the universe and The universe began to exist with the Big Bang.

Keywords: Cosmological Argument, First Cause, God, Past, Infinity, Big Bang, Universe

Summary

The universe only has a cause if it has a beginning. But if the universe has no beginning, there's no need to look for its cause. The universe is self-explanatory, there's no need to assume a God.

Quotes

“The idea that space and time can form a closed surface with no edges therefore has profound implications for God's role in the affairs of the universe. The success of scientific theories in describing events has led most people to believe that God allows the universe to evolve within a set of laws, and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. Yet these laws don't tell us what the universe must have looked like at its beginning - it would still be up to God to wind the clock and decide how to start it. As long as the universe had a beginning, we could assume it had a creator. But if the universe were truly completely self-contained, without edge or boundary, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What room would there be for a creator?”

Stephen Hawking, A brief history of time, Flammarion, Paris, 1989.

References

Justifications

Objections

The beginning is not the origin
God is everlasting
The idea of time without beginning is inconceivable because it is contradictory.
The idea of time without beginning leads us to abandon the notion of time.

Parent debate