{"id":3877,"date":"2026-05-26T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomme-stevenson.com\/website\/?p=3877"},"modified":"2026-05-04T14:28:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:28:57","slug":"what-was-there-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomme-stevenson.com\/website\/what-was-there-before\/","title":{"rendered":"What Was There Before?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Before\"The basic question one asks when seeking God is: what was there before? As humans with limited knowledge and finite experience, we struggle to grasp something that has no beginning or end. Our minds are wired for sequence\u2014before and after, cause and effect, start and finish. Everything we have ever known fits within that framework.<\/p>\n

So when we turn our attention to the universe, we instinctively ask:<\/p>\n

What was there before it began?<\/p>\n

No matter how we theorize about its origin, we feel there had to be something prior\u2014something that set things in motion. That instinct is deeply human. It reflects how we understand everything else in life. Every event has a cause. Every effect has a source. Nothing appears without explanation.<\/p>\n

Or so it seems.<\/p>\n

Psalm 33:6,<\/strong> \u201cBy the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the Chain<\/h2>\n

Science has taken us remarkably far in answering the \u201chow\u201d of existence.<\/p>\n

We can trace the universe backward through expanding galaxies to an early, dense state described by the Big Bang theory<\/a>. We can move deeper still, beyond matter into energy, and further into the quantum fields that govern particle behavior. At that level, what appears to be space is anything but empty. It fluctuates. It moves. It produces temporary bursts of energy, governed in part by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But this only pushes the question back.<\/p>\n

If particles come from fields, where do the fields come from?
\nIf fluctuations arise from laws, where do the laws come from?<\/p>\n

We move from one explanation to the next, but the chain never completes. It simply ends\u2014somewhere.<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 3:11<\/strong>, \u201cHe has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where Explanation Stops<\/h2>\n

At some point, every explanation reaches a boundary.<\/p>\n

Philosophers such as Aristotle<\/a> recognized this long before modern science. If every cause requires a prior cause, you are left with two options: either the chain goes back infinitely, or there is something that does not require a cause.<\/p>\n

Later thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas<\/a>, argued that an infinite regress does not truly explain anything. Instead, there must be something that is\u2014something that does not come from anything else and exists by necessity rather than by chance.<\/p>\n

Modern thinkers have challenged that idea. Bertrand Russell<\/a> famously dismissed the need for a deeper explanation, saying the universe is \u201cthere, and that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three different conclusions. Three different stopping points. None of them is fully satisfying.<\/p>\n

John 1:3<\/strong>, \u201cThrough him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Problem with \u201cBefore\u201d<\/h2>\n

Part of the difficulty stems from the question itself.<\/p>\n

When we ask what came \u201cbefore\u201d the universe, we assume time existed before the universe. But according to modern physics, time is not outside the universe\u2014it is part of it. It began with the universe.<\/p>\n

2 Peter 3:8<\/strong>, \u201cBut do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that is true, asking what came before the universe may be like asking what lies north of the North Pole. The question assumes a framework that no longer holds.<\/p>\n

And yet, even if we remove time from the equation, the deeper question remains:<\/p>\n

Why is there something rather than nothing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colossians 1:16,<\/strong> \u201cFor in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four Ways to End the Question<\/h2>\n

When we strip everything down, there are only a few ways to answer that question.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
      \n
    1. \n
        \n
      1. Something has always existed.<\/strong>
        \nReality, in some form, is eternal. There is no beginning to explain.<\/li>\n
      2. Something exists necessarily.<\/strong>
        \nThere is a foundational reality that must exist. Everything else depends on it.<\/li>\n
      3. Reality explains itself.<\/strong>
        \nThe universe is a closed system with no need for an external cause.<\/li>\n
      4. There is no explanation.<\/strong>
        \nExistence is a brute fact. It simply is.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        These are not scientific conclusions. They are philosophical endpoints. Every line of reasoning eventually lands in one of them.<\/p>\n

        What We Are Really Asking<\/h2>\n

        When we ask what came before the universe, we are not really asking about time. We are asking about dependence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n