Why is there something instead of nothing?

[The Great Open Dance]

Is the universe a divine gift or glorious accident? Does it come from God or God-knows-where?

This question is the most basic of all the unanswerable questions that we must answer. By “unanswerable,” I mean “cannot be answered with certainty,” unless that certainty is manufactured by the answerer. By “must answer,” I mean that we answer the question with our very lives: how we interpret them, feel them, and act within them. We inevitably choose. For this reason, we should choose consciously.

Our traditions cannot make the decision for us. Fundamentalists may insist on a literal reading of Scripture and claim that Genesis is perfectly accurate as a historical and scientific text. In so doing, they reject scientific claims about the origins of the cosmos, creating an artificial conflict between science and religion.

But science cannot make the decision for us either. Science-believing Christians accept our powers of observation and reason as divine gifts. For these Christians, science is a sacred practice. At this point the Big Bang seems to be the best explanation for the origin of our universe, but we still have a hard time explaining what produced the Big Bang. In attempting to explain the origin of the universe, we end up in an infinite regress: If the multiverse produced our universe, then what produced the multiverse? Or, even more intractably: What produced the physical laws that govern the multiverse?

Eventually, our powers of inference reach their limit. Theists stop the infinite regress by positing God as Creator and Sustainer of the unceasing process. Science can neither prove nor disprove this claim, leaving us, as rational beings, with the freedom, necessity, and consequence of choosing our religious orientation.

A question is an opportunity.

For many people the question “Why is there something instead of nothing?” begins a spiritual search. The question invites us to consider the very real possibility that there could be nothing instead of something, and this nothingness would be absolute. Instead of this vibrant, pulsing universe, and our living experience within it, there could be naught but a cold, dark silence, with no one to lament its emptiness.

But even the words cold, dark, and silent are only metaphorical descriptors of this desolation, which cannot be thought or spoken. Absolute nothingness lies beneath all qualities and beyond the reach of language. It is the tomb of being, and it is a very real possibility. We, and this cosmos that we inhabit, might never have been. At any moment, we could not be, were it not for our Creator and Sustainer.

What is the Creator and Sustainer of our universe like?

Our Creator is our divine parent. In keeping with the warmest strains of his own religious tradition, Jesus calls God the Creator “Abba,” Aramaic for “Father” or, more warmly, “Dad.” In Jesus’s Bible, Hosea provides one of the most affectionate descriptions of God as Abba, writing in Abba’s own words:

When Israel was a youth, I loved them dearly, and out of Egypt I called my children. . . . I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arm—but they don’t acknowledge that I was the one who made them whole. I led them on a leash of human kindness, with bonds of caring. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks; I bent down to them and fed them. (Hos 11:1–4)

Abba—the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, our divine Parent—is not cold, distant, or unfeeling; Abba is present, compassionate, and attentive. In choosing the symbol of YHWH as Father (and Mother, as we shall later see), Jesus is declaring that the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos cares for each individual. The full attention of the ever-increasing infinite is directed at every one of us, personally. Thus, Abba is omnipresent in two ways: Abba is everywhere, and Abba is undistracted. We may feel forgotten in the numberless masses, but we are precious in the sight of Abba—so Jesus assures us. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 64-66)

[msongs]

1. abba made some great dance music nt

[multigraincracker]

2. Infinite time and space.

Every god and universe have to happen over infinite times and places, over and over no beginning or end over infinite space. Infinite big bangs, universes and gods. No beginning or end over unending space.

[The Great Open Dance]

7. Eternal inflation

is an attractive concept to me, but still seems a bit speculative.

[multigraincracker]

12. I have an internal Locus of Control.

I feel everything is random and have no control over what happens. No help changing anything that happens in the world or to me. I can not change the hand that is dealt to me. No begging pleading or praying. The only control I have is how I play that hand.
I'm the luckiest person in the world. Half of it is good luck and half bad luck.

[rso]

3. The nature of reality

There’s an old mystical book called “The Kybalion”, written by adherents of the ancient mystic Hermes Trimegistus, which seeks to explain the nature of things. While it admits that no language can express the ultimate reality, it posits that our feelings during a meditative state can acquire some hints of ultimate reality. It accepts the existence of a universal intelligence which experiences itself through the life-experiences of its own sentient creations.

[The Great Open Dance]

8. Yes

I quote the Hermes Trimegistus in my book: God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. I love that line.

[Blue Owl]

4. It's all a matter of scale

[anciano]

5. A couple of thoughts....

I understand and agree with your definition of "unanswerable" as "cannot be answered with certainty". But the explanation offered for "must answer"' only posits an opinion of "how" we can answer, not a "why" we must answer. And "must answer" implies the necessity of an empirical "why".
I believe the "why" of creation is not within the realm of mortal comprehension or understanding. Nor is it necessary for we humans to invent an anthropomorphic deity and religious rituals to assuage any mortal fears and insecurities. Millions of people are quite content to enjoy the beauty of creation, the turning of the seasons, and the limitations and realities of the human experience without man-made religions.
So returning to the question in the title of the OP, my answer would be a question: why is it imperative for humans to answer the "unanswerable"?

[The Great Open Dance]

9. Well . . .

I do think that sometimes people get a sense of the sacred in the physical universe, and wonder where that sense comes from, and ask themselves if there might be a divine source for the universe. It's more of an aesthetic question than a scientific question.

The other questions, like should I be egoistic or altruistic? be practical or romantic? pursue meaning or money? We answer those questions with how we live our lives, so I think it's good to talk about them and answer the consciously, as much as possible. Respectfully submitted.

[Karadeniz]

6. Karma and reincarnation provide all, i think, we as souls need to know about

our purpose within the "God System." Christian theology (found in the parables) does not espouse a warm and fuzzy supreme power, except for its being the source of the creation of souls. Abba is the divine father of our soul component, not our physical component. Souls are created to bring divine nature to improve lives and the world here.

[The Great Open Dance]

10. Personally,

my stance is that we are embodied souls, or ensouled bodies, and that our aspects are distinguishable but inseparable from one another, hence nondual. Respectfully submitted.

[Karadeniz]

11. Thats right !!!!