God & BeliefEssay
Science and Faith: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?
The 'war' between science and religion makes a dramatic story, but the real history, and what scientists actually believe, is more surprising and more welcoming.
THE QUESTION LIBRARY ORIGINS
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Physics can trace the universe back a long way, but every answer starts with something already there, so here is what science, faith and philosophy each offer.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Nobody knows, and science alone may never be able to say. Physics traces our universe back to a hot, dense start about 13.8 billion years ago, and it has ideas about what came before. But every physics answer starts with something already there, such as laws, fields or energy. Why there is anything at all is a question for philosophy and faith. Many believers point to God. Others say the universe may simply exist. Careful thinkers stand on every side.
- The German thinker Gottfried Leibniz asked the question in this form in 1714, and his answer was God.
- Physics describes how our universe grew from a hot, dense state, but scientists are not sure what came before that start.
- The quantum vacuum that some physicists call “nothing” is full of fields and energy, so philosophers say it is still something.
- The cosmological argument, built by Muslim, Christian and other thinkers, says the universe depends on a being that must exist: God.
- Others, like the philosopher Bertrand Russell, answered that the universe is “just there, and that’s all.”
About this picture
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), painted around 1695 by Christoph Bernhard Francke. In 1714 Leibniz wrote that the first question we can fairly ask is why there is something rather than nothing.
WHERE THE EVIDENCE STANDS
How sure are we?
- Our universe grew from a hot, dense early state about 13.8 billion years ago.NASA’s overview of the universe describes cosmic inflation around 13.8 billion years ago, the hot early universe, and the microwave background glow from about 380,000 years later.
- Physics has shown that the universe came from absolutely nothing.Physics models of a universe “from nothing,” such as Alexander Vilenkin’s 1982 paper and Lawrence Krauss’s 2012 book, start from the laws of quantum physics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the philosopher David Albert point out that a quantum vacuum is still something.
- What came before cosmic inflation, if anything, and what set it off.NASA says scientists are not sure what came before inflation or what powered it. Proposals exist, such as Vilenkin’s 1982 quantum tunneling model, but none is settled.
- Why there is anything at all, rather than nothing.The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that no experiment could support “there is nothing,” and that any explanation that starts from something already takes something for granted.
- God is the reason there is something rather than nothing.The cosmological argument of Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Aquinas and Leibniz is a philosophical argument, not a lab result. Hume, Kant and Russell raised objections, and the Stanford Encyclopedia shows the debate is still active.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW YET
Nobody knows what, if anything, came before the hot early universe. Philosophers still disagree about whether the question has an answer at all, and whether that answer is God, a universe that must exist, or no reason.
WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS ANSWER
A confirmed physics theory of what came before the Big Bang would push the science part of this answer further back. It would still start from laws or stuff that already exist, so the deepest question would stay outside science.
Nobody knows. It may be the biggest question there is, and science alone may never settle it. But we can say clearly what science has found, where it stops, and how people of faith and of no faith try to go further.
The question is old. In 1714, the German thinker Gottfried Leibniz wrote that the first question we can fairly ask is why there is something rather than nothing. After all, he said, nothing is simpler and easier than something. Leibniz believed everything has a reason. His answer was that the reason for the universe lies outside it, in God.
Many people hope physics will answer it instead. Physics has done a lot. It traces our universe back to a hot, dense state about 13.8 billion years ago. Many cosmologists think a sudden stretch of space, called inflation, came just before that. But NASA says scientists are not sure what came before inflation or what powered it.
Some physicists go further. They describe how a universe could appear from “nothing.” Look closely, though, and their “nothing” is something: empty space full of quantum fields and energy, ruled by laws of physics. Philosophers ask where the fields and laws came from. That is the real puzzle. Any answer that starts with something already there has not yet explained why there is anything at all.
So people answer in different ways. Many believers say God is the reason, a being that does not need a cause. Some skeptics say the universe may simply exist, with no further reason. Others think the question may have no answer that words can give. Each view has thoughtful defenders and serious critics.
We label the ultimate question Beyond science. That does not make it silly or off limits. It means experiments cannot decide it. You are welcome here, whatever you believe.
THE LONG ANSWER
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WHERE THE AUTHOR’S RESEARCH TOUCHES THIS
Author’s hypothesis. In the Introduction to his book, Ricardo Maldonado, author of GOD PLAYS DICE, writes that his lifelong question began at age seven, lying awake and unable to stop asking why anything existed at all. His HD-Blast idea is a proposal about how our universe began: our hot beginning may be the aftermath of a brief release of energy in a higher-dimensional space. The book calls it a falsifiable hypothesis, which means specific future data could prove it wrong.
Even if that hypothesis turned out right, it would not answer the question on this page. The Introduction says the author cannot yet tell what released that energy, and that no one has observed such an event. In Chapter 2, he writes that even if time begins at the Big Bang, the question does not disappear: it becomes “why this beginning?” And in Chapter 10, he pictures the laws of physics as a table on which the dice roll. Like the other physics ideas on this page, the hypothesis starts from a larger stage that is already there. Why there is any stage at all stays beyond science.
Keep asking
Next on the path “Can I feel wonder without a creed?” · step 2 of 8
Night Is Just Earth’s Shadow, and We Are Stardust
Two ordinary truths—the turning of Earth and the atoms inside our bodies—can make the sky feel much closer than it did before.
See this path: Can I feel wonder without a creed?
New here?
God Plays Dice answers big questions in plain words, with sources and one of six honest labels.
Words worth knowing (6)
- Cosmic inflation
- A proposed burst of extremely fast stretching of space at the very start of our universe, before the hot Big Bang.
- Quantum vacuum
- The lowest-energy state of the quantum fields that fill space. It has no particles, but it is not empty.
- Contingent
- Something that exists but might not have existed, so its existence depends on something else.
- Cosmological argument
- A family of arguments that reason from the existence of the universe to a first cause or necessary being, usually identified with God.
- Brute fact
- A fact that has no further explanation. Some thinkers say the existence of the universe is one.
- Principle of sufficient reason
- The idea, defended by Leibniz, that everything has a reason or cause. It is powerful and still debated.
Sources & further reading
(9) · Checked Sep 26, 2026
- Nothingness (Roy Sorensen) ↗Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised 2022)Section 1: no experiment could support ‘There is nothing’; van Inwagen’s probability argument. Section 3: Leibniz’s bias for simplicity; the explanatory trap (the Universal Designer example); some conclude the question is unanswerable. Section 5: the question is ‘so far, a live question’; William James, ‘All of us are beggars here’. Section 10: vacuums have energy and are not empty; Wilczek (1980), Hawking and Mlodinow (2010) and Krauss (2012) claim this answers the question; Krauss defends the change of meaning; David Albert’s reply. Wittgenstein on the question as awe.
- Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason (G. W. Leibniz, 1714; trans. Jonathan Bennett) ↗Early Modern TextsSection 7: the first question we can fairly ask is why there is something rather than nothing, since nothing is simpler and easier than something. Section 8: the sufficient reason for the universe cannot be found in the series of contingent things. The 1714 date is confirmed by the SEP Leibniz entry’s chronology.
- Cosmological Argument (Bruce Reichenbach) ↗Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised 2026)History: Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037), Aquinas, al-Ghazali (1058–1111) and the kalām argument, Leibniz (Monadology §§32–38), Clarke; Hume and Kant’s attacks; necessary beings as brute facts; Russell (1948) ‘just there, and that’s all’, reiterated by Hawking (1987); Rundle on a necessary universe; Craig’s causal principle and Morriston’s criticism.
- Principle of Sufficient Reason (Yitzhak Melamed and Martin Lin) ↗Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised 2023)Opening: ‘a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground’.
- ‘A Universe From Nothing,’ by Lawrence M. Krauss (review by David Albert) ↗The New York Times (2012)Vacuum states are arrangements of quantum fields; the fist-and-fingers comparison; where did the laws of quantum mechanics come from; Krauss acknowledges taking quantum principles for granted. Book details: Free Press, 202 pp. The live page blocks scripted access (HTTP 403); read from the Internet Archive copy of 2025-10-25 (snapshot 20251025101926). Albert calls Krauss a well-known cosmologist; Albert is a professor of philosophy at Columbia and author of “Quantum Mechanics and Experience.”
- Creation of Universes from Nothing (Alexander Vilenkin) ↗Physics Letters B 117, 25–28 (1982)Abstract (via INSPIRE-HEP): a cosmological model in which the universe is created by quantum tunneling ‘from literally nothing’ into a de Sitter space, then evolves along inflationary lines. The abstract also says the model evolves along the lines of the inflationary scenario.
- Universe overview ↗NASAInflation around 13.8 billion years ago; ‘Scientists aren’t sure what came before inflation or what powered it’; hot big bang; microwave background from about 380,000 years after the big bang. Also: ‘Cosmologists think inflation explains many aspects of the universe we observe today’.
- Ask an Astrophysicist: Cosmology questions ↗NASA Imagine the UniverseAnswer to a student: the Big Bang’s hydrogen did not come from ‘nothing’ but from a very hot, dense state dominated by radiation.
- GOD PLAYS DICE, Volume OneRicardo MaldonadoIntroduction: the question began at age seven, ‘unable to stop asking why anything existed at all’; the hot beginning may be the aftermath of a brief release of energy in a larger-dimensional arena; ‘I cannot yet tell you what released that energy; no one has observed such an event’; ‘a specific, falsifiable hypothesis’. Chapter 2: even if time begins at the Big Bang, the question becomes ‘why this beginning?’. Chapter 10: ‘The laws of physics are the table.’
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CONTINUE THE THREAD
Where this question leads.
OriginsAnswer
Why is it so hard to test ideas about what happened before the hot Big Bang?
An earlier history needs a calculable path to a measurement that separates it from competing explanations.
OriginsAnswer
Could there be other universes beyond ours?
Several serious ideas in physics allow other universes, so here is what each one says, how scientists have tried to test them, and how a scientific braneworld differs from the multiverse in the movies.