God & Science
Couldn't our universe have come from another universe?
Short answer
That only moves the question back a step. If our universe came from a parent universe, a black hole, an earlier cycle, or a computer simulation, then that too needs an explanation. The evidence points to a beginning even for a larger multiverse, and an endless chain of universes still can't explain why anything exists at all. The ultimate cause must be uncaused, timeless, and beyond every physical universe, which is what we mean by God.
In simple words: Even if our world came from another world, someone still had to make the very first one. That's God.
Response
You may have seen headlines like "Our universe may have been born inside a black hole." In 2025, a team at the University of Portsmouth published a theoretical model suggesting our universe formed when matter collapsed inside a black hole in a larger "parent" universe, then rebounded. Similar ideas have circulated for years:
- Our universe is one bubble in a vast multiverse.
- Our universe "bounced" from an earlier universe that collapsed.
- We live in a computer simulation run by beings in another universe.
- A powerful being from another universe created ours.
These ideas are interesting, and some are serious scientific proposals. But none of them replaces God, for a simple reason: they move the question back without answering it. If our universe came from a black hole, where did the black hole and its parent universe come from? If we're in a simulation, who made the simulators' universe? Each answer is another physical thing that needs its own explanation. Either the chain goes back forever, or it ends in a first cause that isn't another universe.
The evidence points to a beginning for the whole chain. In 2003, physicists Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin showed that any universe that has, on average, been expanding, including a larger multiverse, cannot be infinitely old under the physics we know. Scientists debate what might lie beyond that boundary, and some hope a future theory of quantum gravity will change the picture, but no model of an eternal past has won acceptance. Vilenkin has said, "All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning." Bounce models face a further problem: disorder (entropy) builds up from cycle to cycle, so an infinite series of past cycles would have run down long ago.
Even an infinite chain wouldn't explain itself. Picture a train with endless boxcars: making it longer doesn't explain why it moves. You need an engine. Every universe in the chain is contingent (it might not have existed), so the whole chain needs an explanation beyond itself: a necessary, uncaused being.
The simulation and "alien creator" versions have the same problem. Any simulator or super-intelligent being inside some universe is still a physical, dependent creature in a world that needs explaining, fine-tuning included. Such beings also could not ground objective right and wrong. Only an eternal, uncaused, personal Creator ends the chain.
Finally, none of this threatens the Christian faith. If other universes do exist, God made them too. Through Christ "all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible" (Colossians 1:16). The question isn't how big creation is, but why there is a creation at all.
Key evidence
- A parent universe, black hole, earlier cycle, or simulator would itself need an explanation.
- The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem (2003) applies to any universe or multiverse that has on average been expanding: it cannot be past-eternal under known physics.
- Bounce (cyclic) models face the build-up of entropy from cycle to cycle.
- The 2025 "black hole universe" model is a theoretical proposal, not an observation.
- An infinite chain of contingent things still needs an explanation beyond itself (the contingency argument).
- If other universes exist, Scripture says God created all things, visible and invisible.
Bible passages
- Colossians 1:16-17 All things created, visible and invisible.
- John 1:3 Through him all things were made.
- Hebrews 11:3 What is seen was not made out of what was visible.
- Psalm 90:2 From everlasting to everlasting you are God.
- Revelation 4:11 "You created all things."
Quotes
“All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
Physicist Alexander Vilenkin, quoted in New Scientist (January 2012)
Discussion questions
- Why doesn't adding more universes answer the question of where everything came from?
- What does the boxcar illustration show about an infinite chain of causes?
- If scientists confirmed other universes tomorrow, would that change what Christians believe? Why or why not?