Existence is a conundrum wrapped in a mystery.
Most people are taught, or exist with beliefs that tend to be Newtonian, gravity makes things fall and parallel lines never converge, but reality is very fuzzy at the edges, it is an Einstein universe. At the level of Quantum Physics the laws obey a new master, space is curved, time is relative and parallel lines converge.
If we accept that this universe is assembled from parts that all have a cause, then it's probably reasonable to suggest that the universe itself has a cause. It is also correct to assert that evolution can not be regressed an infinite number of times or as you are aware you could never arrive in the present. So evolution has a cause and this universe has a cause. The Cause must be vastly superior to, different to and completely outside that which it has Caused.
If then some essence we call all sorts of things, including, God, is the first Cause, this explains nothing. If God is changeless, un-caused and the Creator, or Causer, then if there was a single moment when Creation did not exists, then God can not be God and Cause could not take place. Clearly it did. If one moment God was a Creator by potential only and the next He was the Creator, this speaks to a change in condition and God can not be preexisting and unchanging and thus, God can't be God.
My point here is that Creation has no beginning and no end, so in a sense your friend is correct, without knowing the full extent of his point.
The next point to consider is that nothing can come from absolute nothingness. Even God can't Create with absolute nothingness, so it is reasonable to suggest that you, me and everything else have no real beginnings. We have been transmogrified over and over again from a beginning that has no beginning. It is the human soul or spirit that is our reality. This is something completely outside of physical reality. At conception it begins an eternal journey back to the source of its Creation. This is not a journey of distance, rather of refinement and the acquisition of virtues. Even in this state there must be some standard of time or no progress would or could be possible. Without some type of time there is stasis.
So Creation is not temporary, it is eternal. It has no beginning, nor end and it is constantly evolving. All human knowledge is relative and limited to human capacity which does not even register when compared to absolute knowledge. We are an essential fragment of that absolute knowledge, because a God without its Creation can't be God.
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