The reason atheists struggle with questions like this is because they know that if the universe began to exist, then it had a cause. This idea has been around since Aristotle, who discussed the uncaused “first cause” or “The unmoved mover.” I found a decent summary of Aristotle’s argument here:
Aristotle’s theology is based on his perception that there must be something above and beyond the chains of cause and effect for those chains to exist at all…. Everything is subject to change and motion, but nothing changes or moves without cause. Tracing how things cause one another to change and move is the source of many of Aristotle’s most fundamental insights…. [A]ll causes must themselves be caused and all motion must be caused by something that is already in motion. The trouble with this belief is that it leads to an infinite regress: if all causes have antecedent causes, there is no first cause that causes motion and change to exist in the first place. Why is there change and motion rather than stillness? Aristotle answers that there must be a first cause, an unmoved mover, that is the source of all change and motion while being itself unchanging and unmoving.
An uncreated being that caused the entire universe sounds an awful lot like God. Of course, unbelievers reject that possibility so they’re faced with a dilemma: how can they claim the universe began to exist without appealing to a Prime Mover? One way is to assert that time and energy are themselves eternal and uncaused!
I see at least five problems with believing the universe is eternal.
IT’S NOT SCIENTIFIC
The first problem with believing in an eternal universe is that it really isn’t a scientific claim. How is saying that the universe is infinitely old significantly different from saying it was created by an eternal God? To me, it merely seems to ascribe divine-like qualities to nature. Nature becomes the god of unbelievers and “Nature just is” is a faith statement similar to saying “God did it.”
Now, the lost are welcome to believe whatever they want to believe - just please don’t pretend this belief is enlightened, thought out, and it's certainly not scientific!
ENTROPY
It’s an accepted Law in science that systems degrade over time. No system is perfectly efficient so some energy is lost. Over time, all systems fail and will no longer produce energy. This is why we know that something like perpetual motion is impossible. Any system that produces work will always start with more energy (useful energy) and end with entropy (useless energy).
Sometimes, people will argue that entropy only applies to closed or isolated systems. They love to point out, for example, that earth isn’t a closed system because it receives energy from the sun. But the stubborn truth of entropy is that it applies to all systems. My car, for example, is an open system. I have to add gas, change the oil, replace worn out parts, and continuously maintain the vehicle but - eventually - it will succumb to entropy and become scrap.
Besides, the universe is a closed system. No new energy is being added. Over time, all the stars will burn out, all motion will stop, and everything will have reached total entropy. This has been called “the heat death” and would be the eventual fate of the universe if Christ were to not return.
If the universe were infinitely old, it should have reached total entropy already - there should be no useful energy left. To claim that useful energy has remained constant over the infinite amount of time that has supposedly already passed, is to claim that something like perpetual motion is possible after all!
Since the universe hasn’t reached total entropy already is de facto evidence that the universe cannot be infinitely old.
TIME
This point may seem more philosophical but, I think, it’s one of the most stubborn problems with claiming the universe has been here for an eternity.
There’s an old joke that goes like this: “Chuck Norris has counted to infinity…. Twice!” What makes the joke funny is that it would be impossible to count to infinity - even for Chuck Norris //rkbentley chuckles//. I could count for the rest of my life time and merely reach bigger and bigger numbers. In a thousand lifetimes, I could never reach infinity. I wouldn’t even reach “half” of infinity. And are you ready to have your mind blown? Even after a million life times of counting, I would never be any closer to reaching infinity than when I’d first started counting!!
Infinite or eternal are terms our finite minds struggle to grasp. Infinite means it has no end. We could count until we run out of names for the numbers and there would still be an infinite amount of numbers left to be counted. Get it?
Here’s the problem, then, for the unbelievers. To say the universe is infinitely old is to say we have arrived at this time after an infinite amount of time has already passed. That’s nonsense. It’s funnier than the Chuck Norris joke; at least the joke is meant to be funny.
THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING
As we look around in the universe, we observe about the same number of stars no matter which direction we look. It would be very reasonable to conclude from this observation that we are somewhere near the center of the universe. Of course, the universe is very, very large and since we cannot see the edge of it in any direction, it makes it hard to be sure that we're in the center. It would be like being in the ocean with no land in sight; you would really have no idea if you're in the middle of the ocean or just outside sight of the shore. To really know we're in the center, we'd have to have more information.
In the mid-19th century, Dutch physicist, Christian Doppler noticed that sound waves changed frequency relative to the observer when the source was in motion. He dubbed this phenomenon, “the Doppler Effect” and believed it would apply to all waves including light and radiometric waves. In the beginning of the 20th century, we were able to observe this phenomenon in the light from distant stars. The light from the stars was “redshifted” indicating that the light wave was being stretched and that the star was moving away from us. As we began to survey more and more stars, we realized that the stars uniformly seemed to be moving away from us at a constant speed.
The implications of what was being observed was huge. Obviously it meant the universe was expanding but more than that, the general movement of the stars directly away from us further seemed to confirm our position near the center of the universe. In this enormous universe, the odds of us coincidentally being in the center are mind numbingly small. If God had intended us to be in the center of the universe, then the remote odds of it happening randomly don't matter.
The fact that we seem to be at the center of the universe isn’t really my point right now. Instead, I want to draw attention to this simple fact: if the universe is expanding, we can extrapolate backward only so far until all the matter would be at a single point. In other words, the universe had to begin expanding at some point in the past, but it cannot have been expanding forever.
I don’t believe in the Big Bang, of course, but it wouldn’t matter if I did. Whether the universe began to expand 14 billion years ago or 6,000 years ago, both preclude an infinitely old universe.
THE BIBLE SAYS THE UNIVERSE BEGAN
Genesis 1:1, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
People seldom stop to think about it but what does this verse mean when it says, “In the beginning”? In case it isn’t obvious, it’s talking about the beginning of time. Time is a property of the universe, a property which was created simultaneously with space and matter (i.e., “the heaven and the earth”).
Time hasn’t always existed. The clock began ticking at one time and it was here, in the beginning. If the universe has existed forever, then the clock never started ticking - it has always ticked! Such a ridiculous claim directly contradicts the clear meaning of the very first verse in the Bible.
Call me simple, call me dogmatic, call me any name you want but I will choose the clear meaning of the words of the Bible over the fanciful theories invented by men with corrupt minds and deceitful hearts.
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