Many years ago I took a filmmaking class where to goal was to make a short 5-minute film. One of the caveats of this film project was there was to be no dialogue and it must have only 2 actors. That sure put a crimp initially on my creative juices at the time, but then when I eventually did come up with an idea and look back at the process I realized the constraints really honed me in. It actually gave me a structure to proceed, or otherwise I'd be floundering with all sorts of ideas and approaches to execute it.
It seems like the constraints matter within our creative freedom. We are always more productive when we can focus in on something than when we are scattered about with endless choice. Of course, the idea of endless choice is a misnomer as we are born with constraints just by the fact we have a body with particular gifts and inclinations for a limited period of time. We can't be anything, and if we could be, we would be nothing at all. Diffused energy doesn't create anything, it just drains the process and eventually leads to chaos. Instead, we are bursts of congealing energy with a particular idiom and telos.
The cosmos works with constraints also. We have this notion that the universe could have had many other sorts of outcomes than it did, or there was the potential for many possible worlds and universes. And many believe that already with the speculative theories around multiverses. But when you consider all the practical and well considered constraints that went into the laws of nature that were required to create a universe that could create sentient life on this planet in 13.7 billion years, you soon realize that this is probably the best of all possible universes and there was something behind it.
Notice I said something, not nothing, and yet it's not a thing in the way we consider things but a sense of being before things. Still, many of the materialist side of the equation still argue that our something came from nothing. It's a silly thought, that does not explain the thought that knows this. Even if you bring it down to the quantum realm, you are dealing with something that set that in motion. There is no escape from first cause!
I recently read a book by Hugh Ross, where he considers all the possible options we may mean by nothing...
He says,
It [nothing] can mean a complete lack of:(1) matter;(2) matter and energy;(3) matter, energy, and the three big cosmic space dimensions (length, width, and height);(4) matter, energy, and all the cosmic space dimensions (including the six tiny space dimensions implied by string theories);(5) matter, energy, and all the cosmic space and time dimensions;(6) matter, energy, cosmic space and time dimensions, and created nonphysical entities;(7) matter, energy, cosmic space and time dimensions, created nonphysical entities, and other dimensions of space and time;(8) matter, energy, cosmic space and time dimensions, created nonphysical entities, and other dimensions or realms—spatial, temporal, or otherwise;(9) or anything and everything real, created or otherwise.
Oddly, he doesn't mention a lack of turtles. If we consider that every effect must have a cause, it seems (9) is out. If we consider that time and space came into existence at the cosmic creation event, it also must have a cause. Could it be that something beyond space and time be as Source?
With creation, we can also assume that the outer cosmos mirrors the inner soul of man. We can see both without and from within clues to God's existence. (As W. Norris Clarke astutely says, “to understand is ultimately to unify: it means first to discern the parts of anything clearly, but finally to unify them into a meaningful whole in itself and then with all else that we know.”) When we extrapolate and look within, we can also potentially see something arising from something if we go deep enough. Sure, there are some Buddhist schools that claim it is all ultimately empty (defined as not nothing, but having no inherent nature); yet does everything arise as empty from nothing ultimately real with a nature?
With inner phenomena, by nothing do we mean a lack in solidity of the:
(1) five senses;(2) five senses and thoughts;(3) five senses, thoughts, and self-consciousness;(4) five senses, thoughts, self-consciousness, and the basis of cognition;(5) or anything and everything real, experienced or otherwise.
Again, it depends what we mean by nothing. In the beyond-self experience of groundless ground, there is something very vivid and alive that we are part of. We may not be its nature, but we sense a deep participation with it. To claim this is nothing as a lack of anything and everything real, is once again to dismiss the Source of all experience and creation which can not be ultimately empty but remains as the underlying substrate that is in intimate relationship with ALL of EXISTENCE.
I prefer to not call this nothing.