Now that I have concluded my podcast discussion of six major arguments for God’s existence, I’m going to post short summations of each argument. Today’s summation is for the argument from the impossibility of nothingness:

If there was ever a time when nothing existed, there would still be nothing because nothing has no potential to become something. Something exists, however, so we know that something must have always existed. The universe is not that something since it originated at the Big Bang, so the eternal “something” must transcend the universe. The eternal something must be immaterial, spaceless, personal, and eternal, which is the basic description of a theistic God.

Here is another, more conversational way of putting it:

A simple reflection tells us that something must be eternal. After all, if you start with nothing, you’ll always end up with nothing. But we ended up with something, which means we must have started with something.  Put another way, since something exists now something must have always existed.  There could never be a time when absolutely nothing existed.  Something must be eternal. The universe can’t be that something because we know it started with the Big Bang. The eternal “something” must transcend the universe. The eternal something must be immaterial, spaceless, personal, and eternal, which is the basic description of a theistic God.

Let me offer one final summary – this time a more expanded version:

If there was ever a time when absolutely nothing existed, then there would be nothing still, because nothing has no potential to become something. Out of nothing, nothing comes. And yet there is something, so we know there has never been a time when nothing existed. Something must have always existed, but what is that something?

We know the universe exists, so maybe it is what has always existed. But there are several reasons to think the universe is not eternal. One such example is the thermodynamic properties of the universe. The energy in the universe is finite and increasing toward entropy. If the universe were infinitely old, we would have reached a state of entropy an infinite time ago. And yet we have not reached a state of entropy, therefore the universe is not infinitely old. It began to exist a finite time ago.

If the universe has not always existed, what has? Whatever caused the universe. The cause of the universe must be non-spatial, eternal, immaterial, and personal, which is a perfect description of the theistic God.