Conventional wisdom has concluded the Universe must have come from somewhere, and the idea that it was ushered into existence by some primordial nascent event appeals seductively to human intuition.

But before something can act or be acted upon - change or be changed - it must exist.

On the surface, this simple assertion seems to be an unnecessary iteration of basic common sense, but in reality, it contradicts a primary doctrine of both religious and scientific dogma. If the assertion is true, then cause and effect is, itself, derived from the phenomenon of existence. And since no phenomenon can be "caused" by its own subordinate "effect", any hypotheses of creation must be deemed contrary to logic. It means the physical presence of the Universe wasn't the product of causation and it never had a beginning - not with Genesis and not with a Big Bang.

The process of change involves two basic elements: a cause and an effect. You can't have one without the other, so if the cosmos was created, it must have been caused by something. But the inference of any progenitor violates the initial contention that nothing pre-existed the event of creation. And even if you ignore this glaring discrepancy, if everything that exists was created, then whatever sired the Universe must, too, have been the product of some predecessor, which, in turn, must have been predated by an eternal procession of ancestry. The endless cycle of chicken-and-the-egg redundancy that results from any cause and effect approach to the enigma of existence implies no logical beginning.

There are, of course, those who would suggest that whatever created the cosmos wasn't subject to the laws of nature. Theologians profess an omnipotent deity created the heavens and the Earth in an act of divine inspiration. Contemporary cosmologists tout the progressive red-shift of light from distant galaxies as proof that a Big Bang Universe is still spewing from the bowels of some spontaneously spawned singularity in a process not governed by the canons of physics as we know them today.

You may freely choose to repeal the laws of nature in favor of whatever belief system you might wish to embrace, but thereafter and forevermore don't try to profess that your argument is rational. Once logic and reason have been suspended anything is possible, even the absurd. And if one exemption can be conceded, why wouldn't that same concession apply to every element in the cosmos?

So how do you explain the physical presence of the cosmos?

Cause and effect (change) is a process. Processes are governed by fundamental laws of nature called principles. If existence engenders cause and effect, then it logically follows that the architecture of existence must be based upon a principle instead of a process.

And such a principle does; indeed, exist. It is the prevailing dynamic that governs the domain of cause and effect. It is found at the heart and soul of every equation. It is a familiar axiom, universally known and accepted. Its influence is ubiquitous, yet since the advent of scientific inquiry, its real significance has been overlooked and undiscovered.

Ironically, the answer to the enigma of existence lies hidden in plain sight.