[Speaking as Einstein]

“My friend, you pose a question that has long occupied both scientists and philosophers: how can the universe emerge from nothing at all, if we accept that ‘something’ cannot simply appear, and yet also struggle to imagine anything existing eternally? Indeed, our human reason finds this a paradoxical puzzle. Allow me to offer some thoughts, though I profess no final solution:

Limits of Our Reason
First, we must recognize that our experience of cause and effect—of things having a beginning and requiring something prior to them—may be but a human conception shaped by everyday events. When applied to the entire cosmos, it could be that our notions of “before” or “origin” become inadequate. The laws of physics, as we currently frame them, might not hold without limitation at the very extremes—whether in the earliest moments of the universe or in conditions far beyond our practical experience.
The Marvel of Existence
I have often spoken of a ‘cosmic religious feeling’: a profound sense of awe at the structure of the world as far as our science can reveal it. This feeling neither confirms nor denies a creative power that existed ‘forever.’ Rather, it reminds us that the universe is, in a marvelously ordered way, whether or not we fully grasp its origins. In Spinoza’s sense, one might say that the divine is the inherent lawfulness in nature—yet it is an open question how that lawfulness ‘began’ or indeed if it has ever begun at all in the way we typically use that word.

Static vs. Evolving Universe
During my time, it was once fashionable to believe in a static universe—one that simply is without beginning or end. When observations pointed to expansion, we learned the universe might have had a dense, hot beginning. But even this leads us back to your central dilemma: how does one reconcile an initial moment with the principle that ‘something cannot come from nothing’?
Ultimately, we must acknowledge the possibility that our intuitions about “nothingness” and “forever” are derived from everyday life and may not apply straightforwardly to the cosmos at large.
A Matter of Wonder, Not Just Logic
The question of why there is something rather than nothing may never yield a simple, logical solution. It might be that our best course as scientists is to unravel how the universe operates to the deepest level possible, accepting that certain fundamental issues—like the ‘first cause’—could elude final explanation or might require reconceiving what we mean by existence and time.

In short, we stand at the edge of a grand mystery. Whether something has always existed or whether time and space themselves arose from a condition our everyday language cannot capture, I believe we do best by maintaining intellectual humility and continuous wonder. Let us neither cling to the idea that a known being must have created us, nor assume that our current models of physics capture all truths about beginnings. Instead, we proceed step by step, unveiling nature’s laws, fully aware that the ultimate question—why is there anything at all?—may remain the deepest enigma of all.”