Summary:
• The chapter shifts the question from “Does God exist?” to “Why does God exist?”—a shift influenced in part by near death experiencers who report encounters with God or a Divine messenger.
• Scientists agree the Universe had a beginning, but whether that beginning required a Creator or can be explained by quantum processes remains an open question.
• Science is designed to study only what can be measured physically, which means it is not equipped to study God, the ultimate non-material being.
• The Universe operates under strict natural laws; for example, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Nature encourages humans to assume that everything in existence must have a reason for existing.
• This assumption may come from living inside a Universe of causes and limits, just as a fish might assume everything is wet because it has never known anything else.
• If God created matter, energy, and time, then God exists beyond those limits and whose existence requires no explanation.
Notice that the question is not “Does God exist?” For as long as humans have doubted God’s existence, some have tried to construct rational arguments to prove it. Whether those arguments do persuade depends on the person considering them.
Scientists generally agree that the Universe had a beginning. One classical argument for God’s existence, called the First Mover argument, asserts that because the Universe began, it needed a Creator to get it moving, and that “First Mover” is God. Other scientific models, however, propose that the Universe may have arisen from quantum processes or from a vacuum state. These models do not necessarily eliminate the possibility of a Creator, but they do offer alternative explanations for how the Universe might have begun.
If God did create the Universe, should scientists then try to explain God’s existence or God’s nature? Many scientists avoid such questions—not out of hostility, but because the scientific method is designed to study what can be measured, called empirical evidence, based on a methodological commitment to physical materialism. In other words, only measurable physical processes can be studied scientifically. The tools of the scientific profession are generally not designed to study non-materialism. God is the Ultimate in non-materialism.
Despite the efforts of scientists, philosophers, and theologians, the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven within the limits of this Universe. Many near‑death experiencers report meeting God or a messenger of God—an angel, a luminous being, or a revered spiritual figure. If those encounters were genuine, or even if we simply consider the possibility that they were, then the question “Does God exist?” becomes less central. God exists. A different question emerges: “Why does God exist?”
Why do we ask that question at all? The nature of the Universe encourages us to.
The Universe is profoundly immense: hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. And the Universe is still expanding, according to scientists. As it expands, the Universe is becoming thinner because it is not creating new physical material. The behavior of the Universe appears to adhere to some absolute patterns that scientists call natural laws. Two are called the Law of Conservation of Mass, and the Law of Conservation of Energy. Those natural laws state that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. When new stars are formed, for example, they are formed from existing material, usually the remnants of older stars. The total amount of matter and energy in the Universe remains the same as when the Universe began, almost fourteen billion years ago.
Another natural pattern is sometimes called the “path of least resistance.” For example, water flowing down a mountain does not spread evenly; it moves around obstacles, conserving energy. Much of nature behaves this way, a form of natural efficiency.
For reasons like these, many people admire efficiency. We know that natural resources (matter) are limited, energy is limited, and time is limited, and therefore we believe they should not be wasted. When humans manufacture anything, the process of making it requires us to consume some resources, energy, and time, because the natural laws and limitations of the Universe compel that. Therefore, we tend to assume that every physical thing in existence throughout the Universe must have a reason for existing. If something exists, why does it exist? We want a reason. We might not like the reason, but we expect that a reason exists. If we cannot explain why something exists, then we call it a mystery. And we want that mystery solved. We want a reason.
So, what is driving our desire for a reason? Is it mere curiosity? Or does living in a Universe governed by limits and cause-and-effect encourage us to assume that everything must have a reason to exist?
Now imagine a realm where physical limitations do not exist, where natural laws do not apply, where time itself has no meaning. Many near-death experiencers who say they visited Heaven or Paradise say that time itself does not exist there. In our material Universe, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light; that speed limit is considered a natural law. Yet some NDE experiencers report that when their soul separated from their physical body, they then travelled through outer space at speeds much faster than light. Perhaps they misunderstood what had happened to them, but what if they are correct?
Ideas like this may sound absurd. Yet, even within material science, some scientific theories propose realities very different from our own. Many physicists consider the idea of a “multiverse”—multiple universes, each having different natural laws—to be a scientifically plausible idea. Such universes are hypothetical, but they might exist even if we cannot detect them. But a theory about a realm that is non-materialist, not physical at all, is a theory many scientists argue is not scientific. Science is designed to investigate materialism, not non-materialism. Scientists prefer to study physics, not metaphysics. Metaphysics is a topic for philosophers and theologians, which they have thought about for centuries, but even they sometimes prefer explanations that sound scientific or at least rational from a materialist perspective.
Therefore, when we ask questions about God, maybe the nature of the Universe encourages us to make assumptions that influence the questions we tend to ask. If we lived in a very different universe with very different natural laws, would we ask the same questions? The question “Why does God exist?” emerges from an assumption that everything, including God, must have a reason to exist. The nature of this Universe encourages that assumption.
A fish, living entirely within water, might assume that everything must be wet. We, living entirely within a Universe of causes and limits, naturally assume that everything must have a cause. But perhaps that assumption says more about us than it does about God.
If God created the physical Universe, then God is not made of physical material. God created material. God is not energy. God created energy. So why must God need a reason to exist? Why cannot God simply be, with no explanation required? Theologians have long described God as the one Being whose existence requires no explanation.