Where did the universe come from? Answering this question through reason is incredibly challenging because it requires a rational explanation.
By contrast, religion offers an easy answer, requiring no deep thought—one simply invokes an omnipotent god or deity. However, it is clear that gods or deities do not exist, so we must rely on reason.
Through reason, there are three possible explanations for the universe’s origin:
- The universe has no origin and has existed forever.
- The universe has an origin, stemming from something else.
- The universe has an origin and arose from nothing.
The first explanation, which states that the universe has always existed, still faces the issue of explaining where the initial universe came from. Thus, it does not hold up—the universe must have an origin.
If the initial universe had an origin, then where is its source? If we trace back through the chain of origins—initial universe → source 1 → source 2 → source 3 → …—we would never find the ultimate first source. But failing to find the ultimate origin is impossible. Moreover, even if we were to find an ultimate source, we would still need to ask: where did that source come from?
Therefore, the initial universe must have an ultimate source, and that source must have arisen from nothingness. This is the only possible explanation. This “nothingness” is absolute—complete emptiness, where everything is zero. In other words:
Initial universe → source 1 → source 2 → source 3 → … → ultimate source → 0
In simpler terms, the ultimate source emerged from absolute nothingness, which then gave rise to the initial universe, which in turn evolved into today’s universe. Without this explanation, the origin of the universe remains incomprehensible.
To summarize: The universe originated from nothing. From nothingness came the universe, and through long-term evolution, today’s universe formed, bringing forth all things. If we trace everything back to its root, all existence ultimately originates from absolute nothingness. In the simplest terms: nothingness gave birth to the universe, and the universe transformed into all things.