A Universe from Nothing

Not long ago I was having a conversation with an atheist acquaintance on social media about the origin of the universe and my friend suggested “nobody” believes there was ever a time when literally nothing existed. Naturally, my response was something along the lines of “Oh, really?” and I posted the Amazon link to physicist Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe From Nothing, the title of which would seem to refute his claim.

Curiously, he asked if I’d read the book (as if I’m in the habit of recommending books I didn’t write nor haven’t read). I didn’t bother explaining that I’d first read the book approximately six years ago and had written a review published as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner for the now-defunct Examiner.com website.

I briefly entertained the idea of simply republishing the original article here at my website, but that review seemed dated, so I decided not to re-post it. Then, out of the blue, another atheist acquaintance in yet another “discussion” forum posted the link to another six-year-old review of Krauss’ book by David Albert, returning it to the forefront of my mind.

Which brings us here.

Technically speaking, my atheist friend’s argument had been correct in the sense that physicists and cosmologists have explained prior to the creation of our universe, time did not exist because it had no means to measure it, given that our measurements for time are exclusively defined by the universe. Thomas Aquinas famously suggested that our universe began with time, not in time. God created the universe literally ex nihilo, out of nothing.

As the title of his book suggests, Lawrence Krauss also acknowledges the evidence indicates that our universe had an origin. Krauss is an anti-theist, though, so his strong natural bias against theories about the origin of our universe that involve supernatural creators have caused him to make some absolutely ridiculous claims in order to justify his personal atheism.

For example, he wrote,

A crazy question religious people are always throwing out: why is there something rather than nothing? The answer is there had to be. If you have nothing, in quantum mechanics, you’ll always get something.

Krauss, Lawrence M. A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than
Nothing. Page 10.

With all due respect to this college professor, the question isn’t really all that crazy if you’ve paid attention to what his peers have said, or for that matter what he also said in his book on page 172: “Interestingly, Aristotle recognized the problem of a first cause and decided that for this reason the universe must be eternal.”

Why does our universe exist? It’s a pretty important existential question, if you ask me. If we are to trust the work of the physicists who have studied the origin of the universe, we can stipulate that our universe should not exist, but it does. Then, if you go further down the existential road to ask why life exists, you’ll find that the chemists who would be the best to ask will say that logically and probability-wise life shouldn’t exist, either.

The alternative to a universe created from nothing is an eternal universe that has always existed in current form, known as the steady state universe theory. Without question, our universe was created. The scientific evidence strongly supports the theory of a Big Bang singular event. The only truly debatable point that remains is deciding whether to give the credit for the origin of the universe to an intelligent, supernatural creator God or some truly unbelievable, serendipitous good luck that produced a universe capable of supporting complex and diverse life on earth.

Krauss acknowledged this when he wrote,

As Lemaitre recognized, whether or not the Big Bang happened is a scientific question, not a theological one. Moreover, even if the Big Bang had not happened (which all evidence now overwhelmingly supports), one could choose to interpret it in different ways depending on one’s religious or metaphysical predilections. You can choose to view the Big Bang as suggestive of a creator if you feel the need or instead argue that the mathematics of general relativity explain the evolution of the universe right back to its beginning without the intervention of any deity. But such metaphysical speculation is independent of the physical validity of the Big Bang itself and is irrelevant to our understanding of it

Krauss, Lawrence M. A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than
Nothing. Pages 5-6.

The question has been answered. The universe came into existence. The scientific evidence indicates that the universe had a beginning. The only issue remaining to be debated is whether the first cause of the created universe was an accident or supernatural intelligence. Fine-tuning and inflation imply there is some sort of master plan for the universe.

Once upon a time, there was no time. Literally nothing existed. The celestial objects that humans use to measure time didn’t exist. Nothing is a very difficult concept to grasp–of a condition where time, space, and matter did not exist. Not even an atom or molecule–absolutely nothing at all.

If you hold your thumb and index finger an inch apart, there is nothing physical except air molecules in between. Air molecules aren’t “nothing” though — they are merely invisible to the naked eye. Scientists have said that from a point smaller than the tip of a pencil, everything in this universe somehow popped into existence and began to rapidly expand.

The problems caused by a created universe (versus an eternal one) don’t end with its origin; they begin. Equally as problematic is the origin of life, though Krauss would have you believe otherwise:

Now few biochemists and molecular biologists doubt that life can arise naturally from nonlife, even though the specifics are yet to be discovered.

Krauss, Lawrence M. A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than
Nothing. Page 160.

To be blunt, this is nothing more than wishful thinking. No one can doubt that life must have arisen from nonliving matter, but there is ample reason to doubt that it might have happened naturally. Science is not reached by consensus. Krauss has combined the bandwagon fallacy with an appeal to authority. Dr. Krauss only needed to consult with synthetic chemist Dr. James Tour, one of the world’s foremost experts on prebiotic chemistry, and he wouldn’t have made such an absurd claim.

Yet Krauss audaciously wrote,

Just as Darwin, albeit reluctantly, removed the need for divine intervention in the evolution of the modern world, teeming with diverse life throughout the planet (though he left the door open to the possibility that God helped breathe life into the first forms), our current understanding of the universe, its past, and its future make it more plausible that “something” can arise out of nothing without the need for any divine guidance.

Krauss, Lawrence M. A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than
Nothing. Page 103.

Because we know our universe had an origin, we can safely extrapolate that life also had an origin. Like the Big Bang and the origin of the universe, abiogenesis (the origin of life) must have occurred in order for us to exist.

They aren’t “if” but “how” questions. Physicists must ask “how did the universe come to exist?” because the evidence shows the universe had an origin. Then they can try to sort out the improbability problems created by fine-tuning, inflation, etc., giving us new hypotheses about multiverses, strings, or brane cosmology to produce “natural” solutions to the problems.

As I mentioned earlier, a second atheist acquaintance surprised me by posting this somewhat scathing review of Krauss’ book, with which I agreed:

[Krauss] complains that “some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine ‘nothing’ as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe,” and that “now, I am told by religious critics that I cannot refer to empty space as ‘nothing,’ but rather as a ‘quantum vacuum,’ to distinguish it from the philosopher’s or theologian’s idealized ‘nothing,’ ” and he does a good deal of railing about “the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy.” But all there is to say about this, as far as I can see, is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right. Who cares what we would or would not have made a peep about a hundred years ago? We were wrong a hundred years ago.

David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything” NY Times Sunday book review

Krauss is famous for giving lectures taking childish swipes at religious beliefs. In one YouTube video he was caught on camera saying this: “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”

Not really all that clever or original, if you think about it. Joni Mitchell might even be able to sue Krauss for copyright infringement.

Atheism has caused Lawrence Krauss to lose touch with humanity. He’s become an amoral creature without a conscience, someone who cannot even bring himself to condemn incest. Anyone who has read the Bible knows that incest is immoral, and Charles Darwin himself realized that his children’s health issues were probably related to the fact he’d married his cousin. But Lawrence Krauss apparently thinks incest might be copacetic as long as proper birth control measures are taken.

Granted, his indefensible, weak defense of incest doesn’t prove beyond question that Lawrence Krauss knows nothing about the origin of the universe worth mentioning, but it does prove that he’s a reprobate with remarkably poor judgment. For a guy with a PhD, he doesn’t seem to be terribly bright. After all, condoms break. Abstinence is the only method of birth control that has proven to be 100 percent effective. Therefore, it might be wise to take what Lawrence Krauss says not just with a grain of salt, but the whole salt shaker.

Krauss’ rather glib solution to the problem of how we get A Universe From Nothing can be summed up in these two words: quantum mechanics. There’s only one little problem–Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist known as the “father” of quantum mechanics, said this: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”

Nobody includes Lawrence Krauss.