The Problem of “Sum”

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Ever since humankind has been capable of inquiry, we have asked why we are here, where did we come from, what does it mean, and who (if anyone) put us here. Many opinions and arguments have attempted to answer these questions, some with more success than others. Science has managed to shed marvelous light on the history of our existence, both as a species, and as a universe. But every explanation stops short of answering the most baffling question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing?

We ARE. The universe IS. Whether or not it was created does not lessen the marvel of BEING. The Latin of this verb is Sum, and it is the most remarkable fact of existence.

Science has managed to awaken our understanding to many of the deepest mysteries of our existence. Very little remains, the how of which science cannot explain. It can explain how our bodies are composed to the finest detail, how our world evolved to support life and presently moves through the cosmos. It can even explain how at a moment roughly sixteen billion years ago, space, time and matter all began with a big bang. Science can beautifully explain how our world works. But the why still remains. Why are our bodies ordered as they are, why did our world evolve to support life, and move so perfectly through the cosmos, and why did a big bang send forth all of matter in an elegantly unfurling system of spacetime? In short, why is there anything to be explained at all? The most amazing fact of existence is simply that there is something rather than nothing.

Some have said that it is the fact that we can reason, which allows an existence to be observed. There may be countless possibilities for existences and non-existences, and the fact that we are in the one in a billion that allows one to ask the question should not surprise us. This mode of thinking is called the anthropic principle. But the question can always be extended. If there are countless possibilities for other universes or non-universes, whether or not they support thinking life, they are still a something which must be reconciled to our original question.

Descartes said, “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). The Sum surprised him, not the Cogito. There is no greater marvel than simply Sum: the To Be of life. All the complexities and beauty that go into what I am and what this universe is pale beside the simple face that I Am! This is the most basic question of existence.

Every life is necessitated by a prior life. Sum begets Sum. Nothing can make the claim of Sum without owing it to another. Nothing can say “I am” without acknowledging their parent. Even as scientists find success in cloning, the clone owes its Sum to the parent DNA and the facilitating scientist. In every case if we trace life back we will find that it was given. There must be an original I Am, before any living creature can say, “I am.”

This last paragraph of course brings up some touchy questions. Doesn’t Darwinian evolution disprove this archaic notion? Well, contrary to a wide misconception, Darwin never proposed that a living being could arise without a parent, only that a living being could be born from a different type of living parent. (For more on this point, I would recommend reading the final chapter of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species,” when he discusses the potential further scientific development of his theory.) Anything beyond that rests in the realm of theory, not scientific law. In all the time since, science still has not shed light on this question.

But this does bring up the acute disconnect between science and faith such as I discussed in The Nature of Truth . People on both sides of the spectrum feel the two are completely incompatible. As scientists delve deeper into the workings of the universe, they point to the new discoveries as evidence that we are getting closer to explaining away the need for a Creator, while the Christian world rejects each discovery without even reviewing the evidence. I prefer to examine science as the description of the tools with which God works. Science is the language of God. The more layers of science we uncover, the more we learn about the complexity and marvel of creation. On the flip side, we spend so much time analyzing the book of science that we forget to ask who wrote it. And the further we get, we still fail to answer the question of Sum. Why is there something rather than nothing?

Yet even once we accept this fact, for if we are to live any sort of life at all, we must accept that we are, we come against another question, nearly as baffling based simply on the laws of science: Why is it good?

The world is beautiful. We see beauty everywhere—not only in the glories of nature and the cosmos, but in each one of us, with the beating hearts, breathing lungs and working systems of our bodies. We have come to take beauty for granted. The beauty of the world has been there for as long as we can remember. Our bodies are supposed to work, so it does not surprise us that they do. But the very functionality of nature and our bodies are incredible. And if that was not enough, they are also beautiful! Could the human body work just as well without its beauty? Would the world still turn if it was hideous?

Beauty is not only in the appearance of things. Beauty is also manifested in the functionality of things, particularly our bodies. Think of all we can do: that we can see and hear and feel. That that very eye which beholds beauty, operates with an astounding and efficient complexity. From our largest organs down to our smallest cells, the functioning of our bodies is brilliantly ordered and beautiful. Why did existence develop not into something both which functions, and is beautiful?

In the human condition, why is there also something we call pleasure? Survival is enough for most species. Would food nourish us less if it gave no pleasure? Would we be less capable of reproduction if human sexuality did not give the beauty and pleasure we experience in it? In plants and most animals, nourishment and reproduction give no pleasure. The tree gains no pleasure from its photosynthesis. By all logic, and the rules of evolution, our methods should be equally mundane All the needs of survival could have been ordered without pleasure. But they weren’t. This should shock us.

Consider the companionship and love—the community—of the human condition. Our fellowship with one another, in all the forms it takes, is one of the most beautiful of all the gifts existence has given us. To be loved and love in return is the most beautiful experience of life. It is also profoundly good. While much of the world’s beauty can be held selfishly, its wonder corrupted by envy and lust, love is always good. Love causes us to see all of existence as something good. In marveling at beauty and goodness, what we are actually doing is marveling at love. Love is the greatest beauty and the greatest goodness we can know. The world developed and evolved with love written into its makeup—a love which causes it to be beautiful, causes it to give pleasure, allows for companionship, and in a word, is good.

And so we must add to the question of sum—why is there any existence at all?—the question: why is there love?

By asking the second question, we answer the first.

God is love. Love is contained in all things, existing and potential. That there is love necessitates that there is something to love. That something which must be loved, is our existence, our sum. Understanding that God is love makes it necessary for God to create. God is that which must create, and will love that creation. In the beginning, love was so great that creation burst out. It had to. The potential from which existence was actualized was so pregnant with love that it had to be born. If there is love, then there must be existence. Out of a state called nothing, love was the potential which had to become something. Love has no choice but to create and give, and shower blessings onto the existence it birthed.