Could God have created the universe?

The universe works according to a set of unbreakable scientific laws that can be understood by humans. According to Stephen Hawking, these “laws of nature” can also be used to explain its origins and even to clarify the role of God in creating the Big Bang.

Historically, the origins of humanity and natural phenomena like storms and eclipses were attributed to God. Science has long since offered clearer and more consistent explanations for these things, but the question of what preceded the Big Bang has largely remained a grey area.

As complex as the universe seems, it formed from just three ingredients: space, energy, and matter. Together, they caused an incredible burst of inflation that formed the universe. But where could these three ingredients have come from?

Albert Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 established that mass and energy are essentially the same. This means that the universe has just two core ingredients – energy and space – which spontaneously formed during the Big Bang. But how could something form out of nothing?

The laws of physics involve a concept called “negative energy”. It’s like a deficit. Making a hill, for instance, requires digging a hole. The space created in the hole is the equivalent of negative energy. This is crucial to understanding the mystery of how the universe began.

The Big Bang produced an equal amount of positive and negative energy simultaneously. The positive side (mass and energy) is what we can see. The negative energy exists today as space itself: the universe is like a giant storing device for negative energy.

All positive and negative energy adds up to make zero. This is another law of nature. Stephen Hawking argues that if the components of the universe add up to nothing, you don’t need a God to create it.

Quantum mechanics tells us that something can come from nothing at a subatomic level: particles appear and disappear randomly. Since the universe was once smaller than a proton, that means it could have simply popped into existence in accordance with the laws of nature.

Time does not exist within a black hole. Given that universe itself began as an infinitesimally dense black hole, time could not have existed beforehand. Stephen Hawking argues that if there was no time before the Big Bang, there was no time for a God-like creator to exist in it.

TL;DR: Scientific laws prove that it’s possible for something to come out of nothing, including the universe. Time couldn’t have existed before the Big Bang, therefore there was no time for God to exist. According to Hawking, the simplest explanation is that God didn’t create it.