Science has to treat nothing as a sort of something. Near nothing, which is still real, is a subject for scientific experiment and testing in principle. Science suggests that it is possible in theory. Religion says it is possible too, though it has another kind of near nothing that is something—spirit. Both agree that nothing is not necessarily literally nothing.
So the notion of the universe being made but not from anything is out. Yet it is a core doctrine of Christianity.
Science, in principle, can say the universe did not come from anything. But it will stop there and say it is for thinkers to decide what did the making. But it does not say that at all, and we are asked to believe that science and religion tie nicely together. It is like saying a book about life in a tribe in Africa ties in nicely with one about a tribe on a faraway world. They do not tie. They just don't conflict.
Many believe that science and religion are in conflict. Religion says that faith and science do not conflict but just work in different departments. Many answer that science is about the universe as a physical thing, and that says nothing for or against what brought it out of nothing. So God, as the one that causes all to exist, is supposedly not a matter for science. But the Christian God, who is very involved in the universe now, would clearly have to be a matter for science. If so, it is a scientific theory.
Catholicism says God created and designed all things. By God, it means a being who is more than just good, but who is actual goodness. In other words, if God is a person, then good is a person. This makes no more sense than saying that the word "the" is a person. God is impossible by definition. It is no good to science. Science needs a coherent definition of God.
If there is a creator, then it does not follow that he is God or entitled to be worshipped. He is an it maybe. If we needed anything to account for creation, at most we would only need an intelligence. We do not need this God.
Creation is a magical explanation for how all things come to be. It is a lazy attempt at an explanation - but it explains nothing. Where would science be if we reasoned magically all the time? What if we said the local witch gives you the stomach bug and that God takes it away? Science, in principle, is opposed to such laziness and counterfeit explanations. The fact that believers use a magical "explanation" for creation and not for other things shows that they just want the magic to be safely confined to an event in the long-gone past.
The religious claim that God made all things and put creation through so much travail just to make us is clearly mistaken.
Some say that we have a purpose in life but refuse to say that simply making us might be the purpose. It does not satisfy them, and they want to feel important to God in a deeper way than that! They want to go further than saying we are must-made for the sake of making us and make out we are also here to prepare for Heaven or something. But ultimately we did not need to be made, so we are made for the sake of being made. Even if you did go to Heaven, that could be collateral!
Suppose you throw a brick through a window just because you can. Suppose you create a person just because you can. It is about showing yourself you can do it. It is not about what is done. If we can think of other reasons why a God might do something like this, that does not make them valid reasons or relevant. If I can get meaning out of my life, that does not mean God intended me to.
A creator or an intelligent designer is a matter for science because science presumes that something cannot come out of nowhere and that it was chance that led to all things seeming designed. Note—it does not say chance designed all things! Even if God cannot be dissected in a lab or found by scientific equipment, science can find his activity. If science cannot find the man who is doing up your garden, it can discover that somebody is doing it. The religious claim that God is not a question for science is simply a lie.
A theory can mean something as good as proven or something less convincing but which can explain why some cause exists. Science is about what causes what.
The word God tends to be used like a proper name. But it is not. It refers to a spiritual supernatural being. God is alleged to have explanatory power; thus, God is clearly a hypothesis—if not a scientific one, it is still one that impacts on science. Truth is truth, regardless of what science thinks about it, meaning that you can have several hypotheses, some of which are scientific and some of which are not, but all are called on to build up a worldview.
Even if God is not a scientific theory, that does not mean science has nothing to say about it. It does.
God is meant to be that which alone matters and to be all in all, as St. Paul puts it. So for God to be all in all, he can be—or even should be—a scientific hypothesis for scientists. He would be one for believers too, except in their case he must not be just that. If science is from God, then God will be found in science, even if indirectly, but there will be a clear connection.
Even if you think God is not a scientific hypothesis, you must give that view the status of opinion and tell others to believe he is if they think they should.
To say God is not a scientific matter is just an assumption. Science forbids assumptions—it questions them through testing and experiment to get rid of them so that what an assumption says will now be the verified truth and no longer an assumption.
If science finds no evidence of intelligent design or of God, then there is no God. Period. And as we have seen, the idea of God demands that we take that position. It is not just an atheist thing.
The fact that from nothing nothing comes is the foundation of science. Thus, science holds that it is obvious that something always existed and is definite that, as nothing comes from nothing, no God can bring anything out of nothing. It is not true that science has no interest in how things come to be, but only in how they work. And for science, how existence works is that, as nothing comes from nothing, it follows that there was always something.
Science rejects circular arguments. They are not really arguments at all but disguising a conclusion as an argument.
It would get nowhere if it reasoned, "Water is this combination of elements. These elements exist; therefore, water exists." Even if God - for some reason was forced to say that [in light of the doctrine that God being almighty is compatible with how there are things he must tolerate - such as innocent suffering] and demand acceptance it would tell him to get lost. So it is, in principle, ready to reject God even if he is real!
God is that which must come first. If you assume God, then you have to bring the idea into your science. But to bring God into it violates the hypothetical rule: “If you need circular arguments to live in the world and think, then keep the circles minimal and don’t reinforce them with God." So if you reason, "My reason and thinking are functional and I trust them because they are functional," that looks bad. But saying, "My reason and thinking are functional for God made them so, and I trust them for I trust God," is worse. If you had to use circular reasoning, then that is a step too far. If your reasoning is okay for you to think so, then what do you need to reason there is a God who makes it okay for? Keep it minimal. If the science needs a circle, then God is out and implicitly denied. That entails denying creation out of nothing...