The Impossibility Of "Absolutely Nothing"

It is objectively impossible for absolutely nothing at all to exist.  There are two main groups of people who resort to impossible claims about nothingness, the two groups being atheists and theists (especially Christian theists in my experience), though I certainly do not mean that all atheists or Christians have uniform beliefs.  There are several things that exist even in the complete absence of both physical matter and conscious minds, even if those minds are not animating a body (like the description of Yahweh in John 4).

No, I will not primarily address how the uncaused cause must exist [1], though that is erroneously how many other apologists might handle the issue of absolutely nothing.  It is impossible for absolutely nothing to exist even if there is not a single atom and not a single conscious mind in existence, not even the mind of God.  Logic, truth, and space are not nothing, but they neither are made of matter nor are they minds/consciousnesses.  They are immaterial things that simply exist by necessity regardless of what else does.  Logic is the set of laws that govern all of reality and describe what does and does not follow from certain concepts; truth is the way reality is; space is simply an area where matter could be placed (and thus is itself immaterial).

Logic and space cannot create anything, though, since the laws of logic merely describe reality or govern concepts and since space is only a place where matter could reside, even if there is no matter inhabiting that space at all.  Thus logic and space are distinct from the uncaused cause.  But, on one hand, to say that "nothing" at all existed before the Big Bang is asinine even on an atheistic worldview, since truth, reality, logic, and space would still exist; on the other hand, it is equally asinine to say that God created logic, space, truth, or reality, since these things cannot not exist, with or without God.  If God, other minds besides that of God, and matter did not exist, there is still such a thing as truth and reality, because there is still a way reality is.  The laws of logic would still exist, because reality is still what it is and certain conclusions still follow from certain premises.  Space would still exist, because there cannot not be an area where matter could exist.  It is not possible for any of these three things to not exist.

Even the uncaused cause only exists by necessity because contingent things do--things that exist only because of some prior cause.  I can certainly imagine a reality (the word "world" will be avoided here, since a world is a physical plane and no matter exists in this hypothetical realm) where there is neither a creation nor a creator.  It is logically possible for there to be a reality where there is no God, and thus no creation, although this is not how reality actually is in actuality.  In a reality without either a deity or creation, the only things that could exist would be things that do not depend on any minds or matter for their own existence.  And the only things in this category are logic, truth, and space.

All created things (the physical cosmos and contingent minds) could not exist without an uncaused cause.  But when people, theists or atheists, describe or attempt to describe "absolutely nothing" in reference to reality pre-Big Bang, l usually find myself inwardly cringing at how both sides often overlook the most basic necessary facts about reality before the Big Bang--with or without a deity.  Even without a god there is not nothing prior to the Big Bang, and God did not create everything besides himself [3].

It is entirely correct to say that God exists necessarily because the natural world exists, for it is logically and mathematically impossible for the natural world to not have a beginning and it is impossible for something to create itself or come into existence without a cause.  But it is a mark of either unintelligence, a lack of thoroughness in not making assumptions, of reflection of a lack of education by rationalists (not that social prompting is necessary to realize these things) to believe that it is even possible for nothing to exist at all.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/god-did-not-create-everything.html