The alternative is to simply believe that the universe has always existed. But that appears even more difficult to believe than the idea that it began.

To delve into the question of God is to delve into the question of existence. One of the deepest, and simplest questions we can ask is, why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why are we even here, able to ask the question?

If anything begins to exist, it had to have a cause. If something begins to move, something had to set it in motion. Since we have no reason or experience with uncaused things in our universe, it is reasonable to conclude that something besides the universe caused the universe to exist.

Before the observations of twentieth-century astronomy, some astronomers and cosmologists held to the steady-state theory: the idea that matter is eternal. After observations had increasingly refuted the steady-state theory, it left atheistic scientists with a problem. As Robert Jastrow, founder and former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, put it, “The astronomical proof of a Beginning places scientists in an awkward position, for they believe that every effect has a natural cause, and every event in the Universe can be explained by natural forces, working in accordance with physical law.

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