Is the Eternal imperative?

The 'creation from nothing' theory is not Biblical. It clearly says in Genesis 1: 2 'And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters'. That means there was 'waters' at the beginning. The earth/matter was unformed. The deep/space was without energy. The only thing that was there was water. That's what the Bible says. So the right question to ask is: What is meant by water?

Although scientists may believe that the universe had a beginning from nothing, they can’t tell us who was there to start it all. The strongest argument for God to be the creator of everything is the Cosmological argument: God is the cause of the beginning of the universe, which is attested by physics and cosmology and that was argument made by William Lane Craig here.

Bible at many places makes it clear that God is eternal:

Rev.22:13

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Psalm 90:2

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

For a moment imagine a time when there was nothing in existence neither God existed nor the universe or even the voids (empty space). Not even energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts or any physical laws. There was absolute nothing or absolute non existence. In this state of nothingness, the question that arises: how something had its origin from this state of “absolute nothing”?

“Absolute nothing”, is complete “non-existence”. No energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc., and no minds to consider this complete "lack-of-all". The mind of the reader trying to visualize this would be gone as well. But, in this "absolute nothing”, there would be also no mechanism present, to change this “nothingness” into the “something” that is here now. Nonetheless, because we can see and perceive that “something” is here now, the only possibility then is that “absolute nothing” was somehow instrumental in creating this “something”.

The fact is: This “absolute non existence” is not same as our mind’s conception of non-existence. In this absolute non existence neither the mind nor anything else is present. Because our minds exist, our mind's conception of non-existence is dependent on existence; that is, we must define non-existence as the lack of existence. But, non-existence itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence, does not have this requirement; it is independent of our mind, and of existence, and of being defined as the lack of existence. Non-existence itself is on its own, and on its own, completely describes the ENTIRETY of what is there and is thus an “existent state” (which is inconceivable with our existent mind). Thus this “existent state” was instrumental in creating this “something” from itself. To our finite mind it is “absolute nothing” but that “State” is God eternal.

Therefore God is existing from eternity. He is a unique Force, capable of producing something from what we define as “absolute nothing”. It is an Eternal Entity that has been the initial cause of everything that we perceive-universe and everything that universe comprises of.

The idea you are referencing - that God started everything from nothing - is called creation ex nihilo. It is by far the most common Christian understanding of how the world came to be.

In Genesis, the first words we have say that:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

This presupposes that there was nothing, then God acted, and then there was something. This is not altogether unlike the Big Bang, in which there was {nothing | nothing that bears any resemblance to our world}, and then something happened, and there was the universe.

The term eternal imperative is not one with which I am familiar, but Aquinas' cosmological argument and more specifically the argument from contingency may be what you are referring to.

While rarely the first argument we turn to, it hasn't necessarily been rejected. The very simplistic idea is that because things exist, there had to be a thing that caused them to exist, necessarily proving God. The "First Cause" argument is still relatively popular.

You will note, however, that the argument itself is not contingent on science - it is derived theologically, using methods of logic which originally came from theology and philosophy - a set of techniques that "science" later incorporated into the scientific method.