Created or uncreated? Is the universe eternal or is it that it was created by an eternal God? Certainty regarding the nonexistence of God cannot be claimed without assuming access to nearly all knowledge. All accumulated human and computational understanding combined accounts for less than a percent of what is knowable. Therefore, the claim that God does not exist is not a demonstration of complete reason, but rather a faith based position rooted in assumptions about what lies beyond current knowledge.

A second issue within the atheist position is its treatment of God as being outside the domain of scientific inquiry. If God does exist, then science is not only compatible with His existence but contingent upon it. The structure of the physical universe, its mathematical coherence, observable laws, and delicate balance of forces, strongly suggests intentionality. The constants of physics, such as gravity and the strong nuclear force, are finely tuned to an extent that the slightest deviation would render life impossible. This precision does not logically follow from randomness. Rather, it demands an explanation rooted in design (Zalta, 2005; Friederich, 2017). (hawking.org.uk)

At the same time, the deeper issue is not only whether the universe is ordered, but why there is a universe at all. What came before the Big Bang, then what came before primordial soup? No matter how you splice it you arrive at a need for a creator or that is uncreated. If everything inside the universe is contingent, then the explanation cannot be only more contingent things, or else the explanation is endlessly deferred. The cosmological argument presses this point: contingent reality calls for an explanation that is not itself contingent, a necessary reality that grounds why anything exists rather than nothing (Reichenbach, 2004). (hawking.org.uk)

This is why the question of “before” cannot function like it does in ordinary experience. Stephen Hawking described the problem this way: “Time is defined only within the universe. To ask what happened before the Big Bang is like asking what happens north of the North Pole” (Hawking, as quoted by Fermilab, n.d.). The point is not that inquiry ends, but that if time itself has a beginning with the universe, then whatever explains the universe cannot be merely one more object inside time and space. (history.fnal.gov)

Belief in a designer provides a more rational foundation for understanding the existence of order, complexity, and purpose in the universe. A designer explains causality, directionality, and coherence, rather than leaving them to chance or undefined processes. Christianity builds upon this foundation by positing that the creator has not remained distant, but has revealed Himself in history. As an illustration used in Christian reflection, the only way for a character in a play to know the creator is for the author to write themselves into the play (Lewis, 1955, as discussed in Theolatte, 2017). (theolatte.com)

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that, based on epistemological limits, scientific structure, and philosophical necessity, it is just as irrational to deny the existence of God as it is to affirm it. Both positions operate on presuppositions that cannot be empirically proven in totality. However, belief in a creator is logically based fundamentally, because it provides an intelligible stopping point to the regress of causes, and a coherent ground for why reality exists, why it is orderly, and why it is rationally graspable. Christianity does not retreat from reason; it invites reason to follow evidence toward its origin. And that evidence, when evaluated without precommitment, points beyond the material to the divine.

References

Friederich, S. (2017). Fine tuning. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. (hawking.org.uk)

Fermilab History and Archives. (n.d.). Stephen Hawking amazes at Fermilab. (history.fnal.gov)

Reichenbach, B. (2004). Cosmological argument. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. (hawking.org.uk)

Theolatte. (2017, December). The night the author entered the story. (theolatte.com)

Zalta, E. N. (Ed.). (2005). Teleological arguments for God’s existence. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. (hawking.org.uk)