In his excellent new book, Return of the God Hypothesis, philosopher of science Stephen Meyer argues that three developments in science over the past seventy years or so, give powerful support to the belief that the universe and life are the product of an intelligent, personal agent, i.e. God.
The three developments are 1) the strong evidence that the universe had a beginning, 2) the astonishing degree of fine-tuning of the parameters, forces, constants and initial conditions of the universe which make it a suitable habitation for life, and 3) the enormous amounts of information encoded in every living cell.
Taking just the first of these, if the universe did have a beginning then it must have had a cause. That cause must itself be something that transcends the universe since if it were part of the universe then the universe would've caused itself, which is absurd.
Since a beginning of the universe entails that all the space, time, matter, energy and physical laws that exist in our universe today came into being in the finite past, whatever caused these must itself be non-spatial, non-temporal and immaterial. It must be the source of all the energy and physical laws which exist. It must also be incomprehensibly intelligent and powerful.
In other words, a beginning to the universe is strong evidence for the existence of God.
If one holds to the view called naturalism, however, one would not expect the universe to have had a beginning because naturalism holds that the universe is all there is. There's nothing outside the universe that could bring it into being.
The fact that, on naturalism, a beginning to the universe is both unexpected and unwelcome is one chief reason why so many naturalistic scientists resisted the evidence for the Big Bang until that evidence became overwhelming in the 1960s, and it's what seems to motivate some scientists today to find some alternative explanation that would enable them to avoid a cosmic beginning.
Meyer talks about it in this brief video:
Meyer puts the word "before" in quotes in the video because time comes into existence when the universe does. Thus, since "before" is a temporal preposition it technically makes no sense to talk about what existed "before" the Big Bang since there was no time and no "before."
Anyone who has an interest in the intersection of science and theology will find Meyer's book a very rewarding read. It's thoroughly researched, winsomely written and cogently argued. Put it on your summer reading list. You can order it from my favorite bookshop Hearts and Minds Bookstore.
