The Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem, for instance, proves that any universe, that has, on average, a rate of expansion greater than one
absolutely must have have a finite beginning.
In fact, Vilenkin had this to say regarding the beginning of the universe,
“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)
Emphatically, then, this feeling that the universe is infinitely old, beginningless, or eternal has no basis in any respected mainstream scientific theories of the universe.
This creates the necessity for a first uncaused-cause. After all, something cannot come from nothing as you already correctly believe. As
previously established as well, this first uncaused efficient cause must, perforce, be transcendent, beginningless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, unchanging, omnipotent, personal and good, i.e., God. This understanding, of course, is as perfectly natural to the Neurotypical as compassion and empathy.
No where in Vilenkin‘s works on cosmology does he mention God, Maximilian.
Second, Vilenkin is a “theoretical physicist”, not a experimental physicist, which mean his model on cosmology hasn’t been rigorously tested.
You don’t understand what the word “theoretical” mean, do you?
Until his model can be tested (which required verifiable evidences), it isn’t a scientific theory.
A “theoretical” model is only a “proposal”, and there are many models and hypotheses (hence many proposed hypotheses), most of them are untested, so they are not science.
Vilenkin‘s model is still theoretical.
The Big Bang is the only model that have been tested, but there are some part of the theory, that are still theoretical, like the very first second after the initial expansion, like the singularity, Planck Epoch, the Grand Unification Epoch, the Inflationary Epoch, the Baryogenesis.
All of this took place in the fractions of second after the Big Bang, and it remained untested and theoretical.
But the rest of the Big Bang theory is solid, from the Nucleosynthesis to the formation of the first stars.
The Nucleosynthesis stage started 3 minutes after the Big Bang, and it referred to when nuclei formed around proton (hydrogen atoms) and around protons and neutrons (helium and lithium atoms), but these were ionised, meaning no electrons were bound to these atomic nuclei yet.
Electrons didn’t bond with the atoms, until the universe was cooler in the Recombination Epoch, which started 377,000 years after the Big Bang, where the atoms became electrically stable or neutral because the charges balanced each other out. This bonding to the nuclei, had the dual effect. It made the universe transparent for the first time, and allowed photons (light) to travel freely through space.
This light or photons that we can detect and measure, is what it is known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMBR.
CMBR is earlier than the first quasars and the first stars.
There are earlier epochs than the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Epoch, like the Hadron Epoch (formation of protons and neutrons from quarks) and the Lepton epoch (eg electrons), the quark-gluon epoch (of course, the formation of quarks and of gluons), and many other epochs, between the Baryogenesis and Nucleosynthesis Epoch.
Each epochs took place because the universe continued to expand, which made the universe increasingly cooler.
The further back in time, the hotter and denser was the universe., where the universe in plasma state. The Recombination Epoch that I had already mentioned was the transition that turn the universe from opaque to transparent.
The Big Bang leave the universe as open question, prior to the Planck Epoch. Other models tried to explain, if there was any “before” the Big Bang, but all of them are theoretical, including the model advocated by Vilenkin.
Vilenkin’s model isn’t science until he is able to test it.
