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“In 1929 an alarming thing happened. A scientist named Edwin Hubble discovered that the light from distant galaxies appears to be redder than it should be. The startling conclusion to which Hubble was led is that the light is redder because the universe is growing apart—it is expanding! Therefore, the light from the galaxies is affected, since they are moving away from us.

This is the interesting part: Hubble not only showed that the universe is expanding but that it is expanding the same in all directions… As space itself expands, all the galaxies in the universe grow farther and farther apart.

The staggering implication is that, as we go back in time, everything was closer and closer together. Ultimately, at some point in the finite past, the entire known universe was contracted down to a mathematical point, which scientists call the ‘singularity,’ from which it has been expanding ever since. The farther back one goes in the past, the denser the universe becomes, so that one finally reaches a point of infinite density from which the universe began to expand. This initial even has come to be known as the ‘Big Bang.’”[i]

This “Big Bang cosmology, along with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, implies that there is indeed an ‘in the beginning.’ All the data indicates a universe that is exploding outward from a point of infinite density… this singularity is not really a point; it is the whole of three-dimensional space compressed to zero size. This, in fact, actually represents a boundary at which space ceases to exist. Even the terms plead for explanation. The point I wish to make here… at the point of the universe’s origin, there is something rather than nothing… matter cannot simply ‘pop into existence’ on its own.”[ii]

The Cause

“Now then, in my [Plato’s] opinion, one must first distinguish the following. What is it that always is and has no origin; and what is it that comes into being and is not eternal?” If something has come into being, it may come to an ending. But, if something has no beginning, it may not have an ending. The universe has come into being. And, “everything that comes into being, of necessity comes into being by some cause; for apart from a cause, it’s impossible for anything to come to be.”[iii] This includes the universe itself. Since it has had a beginning, it must have an ending. And, since it has had a beginning, it must also have a cause...

[i] William Lane Craig, Tough Questions about Science in Who Made God? 54-55.
[ii] Ravi Zacharias, The End of Reason, 31-32.
[iii] Plato, Timaeus, 28A-B.