It is a common misconception that evolution entails the idea that the universe is uncaused, godless and purposeless. In this sense, evolution equates to atheism - which is why many religious people violently reject it. However, the theory of evolution discusses biological changes in living things. It is not a theory of everything. It does not explain the Big Bang which occurred about 10 billion years before the first life forms on Earth existed. For evolution to take place, matter, galaxies, stars and planets must first form which started at the Big Bang. So, the relevant question is - what caused the Big Bang? It is clear that the majority will answer this question simply by saying: God caused it; He willed it, or spoke it into being. This is the one thing that God must have done, if he did anything at all.  

Scientifically thinking, there are different theries about the first cause of the universe. In 1973, Edward Tryon published an article in which he described the possibility tha the origin of the universe could be the result of a quantum fluctuation. Tryon proposed that the universe spontaneously materialized out of a vacuum as a result of such a quantum fluctuation. In Tryon’s words, “Our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." Quantum uncertainty allows pairs of matter and antimatter particles to spontaneously materialize out of a vacuum and then momentarily disappear. Just as particles can emerge spontaneously from a vacuum, the universe could also have emerged as a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum - a tiny quantum fluctuation that led to the Big Bang. However, in this theory, it would be wrong to claim that the universe emerged from nothing. A ground state, a background spacetime, fluctuating energy, is not nothing. Furthermore, it is unclear whether a quantum fluctuation coud produce not just a single particle but an entire universe.  There is still no experimental evidence to support the idea that the entire universe could be a result of a vacuum fluctuation.

The famous physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that gravity was the first cause.

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”

But one could argue that neither gravity nor any other physical law provides us with a mechanism by which the universe can spontaneously come into existence. As all physicists do not agree with Hawking, we do not know whether it is true that gravity is the ultimate cause of the existence of the universe.

Fred Hoyle’s steady-state model was once a challenge to the Big Bang theory (a term he coined). This model states that the universe is eternal and has no beginning or end. This model states that the average density remains constant as the universe expands because new matter is constantly being created. With the discovery of microwave background radiation in the 1960s, the steady-state model fell out of favor with cosmologists.

Some cosmologists believe that the universe oscillates between creation and destruction, almost like the ancient Hindu concept of the days and nights of Brahma. The mass density of the universe slows down and then reverses the expansion of the universe. This leads to a “Big Crunch”, followed by a new Big Bang. Albert Einstein famously believed in the “God of Spinoza”. In contrast, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing claims that the universe was created from nothing. Jesuit priest and physician Robert Spitzer in his book, “New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy”, argues that the universe was set in motion by God. He bases this case on the laws of physics and the universe rather than supernatural revelation.

Perhaps our universe began in another universe that already existed. In this case, the Big Bang is not even the beginning. It could be that the original Big Bang happened long before. It could be that we have only scratched the surface w hen it comes to understanding the beginning of the universe. Many cosmologists and physicists question whether we can know anything before the so-called Planck time, when the universe was 10^-43 seconds old.

While the Big Bang theory is the accepted scientific theory for the origin of the universe, it does not explain why the Big Bang actually occurred. So far, the ultimate cause of our existence has not been determined. The British-American astrophysicist Joseph Silk says:

"The ultimate mystery is the Big Bang singularity at 10^-43 s, for which theory is completely lacking."¹

The senior lecturer in astrophysics, Carolyn Devereux, put it like this:

"The Big Bang is an explosion that is considered to be the moment in space and time (shortened to spacetime) that the universe started and resulted in the universe expanding. We don’t know what the universe looked like then, or why it exploded, but our model says that it did and that it has been expanding ever since that moment." (Emphasises mine).²

Many physicists and cosmologists such as Spitzer, Laurikainen, Lemaitre, Sandage, and others have written about God. They describe their belief in God causing the Big Bang. They accept the modern scientific description of the creation of matter, galaxies, stars and planets but believe that God started it all. If Einstein were still alive, he would probably believe in a God behind the Big Bang but reject that it was one of the gods of man-made religions such as Christianity and Islam.

What kind of force can be called "God" is also a question of definition. If a natural force can be shown to have existed at the beginning of the universe, some would call that force "God". For many, God is by definition the one who caused the Big Bang - or the fundamental nature of everything.

"What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics." Nikola Tesla

1Silk 1999, 263.

2Devereux 2021,3.

Devereux, Carolyn

2020 Cosmological Clues - Evidence For The Big Bang, Dark Matter And Dark Energy. Boac Raton, Florida, USA: CRC Press.

Silk, Joseph

1999 The Fundamental Parameters of Cosmology. Publications of The Astronomical Society of The Pacific - PUBL ASTRON SOC PAC. 111. 258-263.