Scientists generally agree that the universe – defined as everything in existence – has not always existed. It came into existence with a bang about 13 billion years ago. This bang was a big one, so they named it the “Big Bang.”

Before the Big Bang, there was no space, no energy and no time – not even empty space, zero energy or stopped time. There was nothing.

And then everything was created out of this nothing. We call this everything “creation.” It’s the tangible universe around us, seen and unseen. It’s the energy, the matter, and the progression of time.

As a matter of logic, creation must have been created. And also as a matter of logic, whatever caused creation to be created is, by definition, the creator of it.

How the creator created creation, we haven’t a clue. Oh sure, there are theories that our universe is one of many “parallel” universes, blah blah blah, but there’s zero evidence for any of those theories. Those theories are mainly semantics games. They really just beg the question: If our universe is a “parallel” universe to some other one – some other creation – then how was that one created if not by a creator?

In short, if you acknowledge that the universe – creation – exists, you cannot deny that it was created by a creator. The rest of organized religion is just puny humans quibbling about the nature of this creator, in the tribal, shallow ways they do. They’re not striving for understanding; they’re arguing that their creator is better than yours.

Whatever.

On the other hand, if you deny that the universe exists, you should stop reading and immediately check yourself into the hospital.

Here’s where it gets interesting. In order to create the universe – in order to create creation – the creator must have been around (but around what?) before the universe came into existence. The laws of cause-and-effect go only one direction in time.  Yesterday’s effect cannot be produced by today’s cause. The creation could not be caused by something occurring after it happened.

But the universe is defined to include everything, which includes a creator. And so, unless you deny the laws of cause-and-effect by contending that the creator was created in the creation and somehow cast a cause backward in time to create the effect of that creation, this creator must have existed before it existed. But how can something exist before it exists?

These violations, of not only physical laws but basic laws of logic and cause-and-effect, seem the very definition of a “miracle.”

Given that the creator created all of creation – and did so before the creator even existed, or, alternatively, the creator itself existed before it existed – I can only conclude that this creator is capable of anything. Virgin births, Red Sea partings, growing my hair back, you name it.

That the creator that created creation is omnipotent does not alone validate any particular religion – the mere fact that the creator is capable of something does not prove it did that something. It just says that, scientifically speaking, anything and everything is possible.

Remember all of that in this season of goodwill and at other times as well. Be merry – I have a hunch that our miraculous, puckish creator is. And humble.