The Time Niche

Science as we know it is totally involved with time and attempts to understand events and things within the context of time. Because science strongly influences our education, most people today use science as the primary means of making decisions about truth. Science is wonderful as far as it goes but science eventually confronts a point in time it cannot breach. That point is the dividing line between time and eternity.

If eternity is a reality, it follows that our universe merely occupies a niche in eternity. But what a niche! The physical aspect of the natural universe is so vast it also seems beyond understanding. Physical science indicates the universe appears to exhibit a definite age of about fifteen billion years, however, even billions of years will not begin to fully occupy an eternity.

Anything having an age is a function of time and requires a beginning. There is no significant disagreement among physicists or astronomers that the universe had a definite beginning. They also believe it will have an ending. The debate begins when ideas are introduced about the cause behind the event that brought the universe into existence. This is the point where I believe we are given a logical glimpse of eternity.

The scientific consensus is that something happened in an instant that started an incredible chain reaction and eventually produced everything we now see. The event scientists refer to as the “big-bang” is peculiar because nothing can be seen on the other side of it to explain why it happened. Scientists have identified the sequences of events in the chain reaction produced by the “big bang,” and they have presented explanations that go back to the first few moments of the event but can go no further. At the instant time began it appears something incredibly big happened as a result of nothing.

Since time requires a beginning, we are faced with two possibilities. The first possibility is that something did precede the “big bang.” The second possibility is that nothing preceded the “big bang.” If nothing preceded the first moment of time it means the universe and all that we can see had no cause. Since we can’t logically buy into that idea (the no cause option), we are left with the high probability that something did precede the “big bang” and it could likely be eternity and whatever occupies eternity.

Coincidentally, eternity is where God claims to live and exist.