Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Today would have never arrived if there were infinite days and no beginning. All matter is constantly changing and thus entropy demonstrates that energy is becoming less usable. Causality affirms everything that began to exist has a greater cause. Therefore, the universe began to exist, and the universe must have a cause.
The Beginning
The universe is full of effects for which every effect must have a sufficient greater cause. The universe is mass and energy in motion. Mass is stored energy, and energy is the ability for motion. Motion is an effect that must have a cause because an infinite regress is impossible, and so every motion is set in motion and is not eternal, and therefore, all motion was set in motion. This is all to say again that the universe had a beginning as everything within the universe had a beginning.
Causality
The universe had a beginning with only three considerable causes. Either the universe exists by necessity, began by chance from nothing, or was created by a Creator. Does the universe exist by necessity? Nothing exists by necessity that begins to exists or that would have already existed and always existed. Furthermore, the universe is contingent and thus cannot exist because of necessity. Something could possibly exist by chance. However, the probability that the universe came to exist from nothing is impossible. Nothing comes from nothing. An effect cannot exist without a cause. Something cannot come from nothing. Could one cause have created all material things — the universe? Every effect has a cause and every material thing is changing thus showing that nothing material is eternal. Therefore, there must exist one great cause at the beginning of the great chain of cause and effect that consists of the universe. This cause must transcend matter to have caused matter to exist. Therefore, the cause must be metaphysical — supernatural.
Identifying the Cause
Is the cause of the universe something or nothing? There must exist something since nothing has no effect. Does the cause create an effect? The cause must create or there would be nothing. Is the creating cause mindless or a mind? Natural laws operate the same way repeatedly and only upon what already exists. If the cause were mindless, then it would operate repeatedly without choice. However, for the cause to create something unique, then the cause must operate as a mind and by choice. Since chance cannot create anything with complex order without intelligence, no creator can create with order without a mind. The cause must be personal. The Creator must be a being, an intelligent person. Must the creator have enough intelligence to cause the grand effect of everything that exists? This must certainly be true since no part of the universe can originate from chance. Can the Creator create without power? No. The Creator must have all power as the great original cause for the grand effect of the universe. The Creator must be all-powerful. This Creator is an all-powerful personal Being who caused the universe and transcends the universe. By definition, this is God.
Conclusion
The premises above leave one undeniable conclusion that all physical effects have one metaphysical all-powerful supremely intelligent Creator who is the great cause and genesis of everything in existence. This confirms Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Also Psalm 19:1 affirms, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” In Romans 1:20, the apostle declared, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”
Nature’s God should compel more questions: “Would the all-knowing Creator contain and be all Truth?,” “Would He know all virtue and be the example of all virtue and the epitome of virtue?,” and “Would He be below and submissive to virtue or greater than virtue having created virtue, or would He be virtue in His essence?”
Read more: “Love Exists Because God Exists.”
The Breath of God 
Scott, have you read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins? It’s an absolutely incredible book! I’ve read it 5 times already. Now, I don’t agree with most of his arguments because he belligerently tries to fit God inside the “science box”, he makes some pretty good idea nonetheless and really forces one to at least reprocess their defenses.
While I’m still a 6-day Creationist, Dawkins should should be read by everyone, including Creationists.
What would the eternal something be? Is it matter but not without energy and energy not without motion and motion not without a cause? There’s nothing left to be the eternal cause but a void, nothing, or something metaphysical. We know how something never comes from nothing and how effects come from no cause. Yet, you exclude cause and effect without reason.
What possibilities can there be? You’ve had more than enough comments to present one, but in so doing you have to discard cause and effect though you nor anyone has ever observed the non-existence of such, so one would have to lay aside reason and science. In looking for the cause, is it something or nothing? It must be something since nothing has no effect. It must be either internal or external, but as we’ve noticed, it cannot be internal being self-made. Does the cause create an effect? It must. Is the creating cause a Creator or a non-creator? The cause must be the Creator. Can a Creator create without intelligence? No. The Creator must have enough intelligence cause the grand effect of all existence. Can the Creator create without power? No. The creator must have power and enough to for a sufficient cause for the grand effect of the Universe.
You believe that time is only an illusion. Come on. Did time came from nothing too? No. Time is the order of events, which both certainly exist. Then, everything within time is an illusion according to you. This is the abyss that many would rather wonder in than truth. Then again is there truth? Is anything really true? That’s another stupid question. Answering “no” means there is truth and that makes “yes” the only right answer, so there must be truth.
Oh – in the car analogy, you’ve also reached the conclusion that you’re out of gas, but you’ve tried to show that because of your logic you don’t have to check the gas tank. Even if you logic pointed soundly that the gas tank was empty – which it does not – you would still be required to test your conclusion by actually taking the meter reading.
This ties into your argument, because even if your logic was sound, you would still have to support your conclusion of a divinely intelligent creator with some hard evidence.
Thanks Jens – it’s appreciated. You might enjoy this old posting from Cectic:
Scott:
You’re missing the point. An ‘Eternal Cause’ is, by definition, in violation of cause and effect.
That’s okay. You can argue that cause and effect don’t apply in the case of the prime mover if you like – but then you have to make the distinction between why the concept of the Creator is allowed and why spontaneous generation from the atemporal void does not.
How is this statement:
Semantically any different from this statement:
The concepts of both the Creator and the atemporal void each try to describe the concept of a ’causeless cause’. The only real thing to distinguish them is that the atemporal void is possibly the simplest, most probable thing to ever consider – whereas God is, by definition, the most complex and improbable thing ever conceived. Of the two, the atemporal void is much more likely – and I’ve only considered two of the hypothesese regarding what the ’causeless cause’ might have been.
With just these two examples in mind, do you have any logic or reason to support the case for an intelligent creator over the atemporal void – or do you not?
If your only argument is ‘but God is special’ then you’re engaging in special pleading. That’s rubbish.
Finally:
Not neccesarily.
It should be noted that you still haven’t addressed the fact that the universe could be eternal. One interpretation of the ‘eternal’ universe is that the present moment is all that there is – it is no time at all, and at the same time it is all the time that ever is and ever will be. The illusion of chronological time comes from the fact that the contents of the present moment are in a state of constant flux. The argument here is that the present moment and flux therein are all that have every existed, and that causality is just an illusion borne from our limited perception of the flux in the present. So it would follow from this that there was no ‘first cause’, because the ‘past’ and the ‘future’ are both just ideas existing in the mind, which is itself just a small piece of the content of the present, and it too is in a constant state of flux.
I disagree with this concept, but I can’t disprove it the same way that we can’t disprove any baseless assertion – much like the assertion that there was an intelligent creator. However, two important things should be noted.
Firstly, you have dismissed this potential cosmological explanation for why there is something and not nothing without any basis whatsoever – most likely because you were ignorant of its existence.
Secondly, your entire argument hinged on the ‘elimination of possibilities’ – but as I have very clearly and lucidly shown, not only did you not do any justice to those possibilities that you dismissed so quickly, you also didn’t even prove that your list of possibilities was comprehensive.
It’s like you said: “My car is broken. Either the spark plugs are broken, or it is out of gas. The spark plugs must be working – I don’t have to check, because it would be silly if they just stopped for no reason. Therefore, I must be out of gas.” This sounds all well and good – but not only did you not even check the spark plugs properly, you didn’t consider a flat battery. As a result, your conclusion that the car is out of gas doesn’t follow from your logic.
Jens,
I can see how the simplicity of this fact is insulting and offensive to other worldviews.
The Creator is the eternal cause. Does not Cause and Effect call for such?
I’m glad someone else took the opportunity to whack this mole so I wouldn’t have to. Applause goes to Che. Scott, you have to admit that even by your standards this argument is incredibly weak.
If the answer must be in agreement with causality, that answer cannot be an intelligent creator – for what, then, caused the creator?
If the creator is permitted to be acausal, then why can’t the participatory anthropic principle, the bootstraping of the set of natural numbers through observation of the void, or the proposed nullification of the laws of causality in an atemporal environment also be justifiably posited as a possible explanation?
Thank you for commenting. I do not believe that I assume anything except that readers would be have the intelligence to agree with what appears to be assertions to those who believe in relative knowledge. This is certainly no dissertation, but simple logic using simple laws to reach a simple conclusion.
Sure, there is too much of Universe that we do not know nor will ever know, but that’s not to say that we cannot know. Knowing that every effect has a cause, then all anthropic “principles” are thrown out along with anything disregarding scientific law for the sake of conjecture.
Having only 3 possibilities makes one of them, partially some of them, or all of them correct. In this case, only one possibility stands. Feel free to present another. Something in agreement with causality.
Apallingly weak.
First of all, there are plenty of interpretations of cause and effect that would allow for an eternal universe. I don’t agree with them – but they’re there. And they could be true.
Secondly, you’ve fallen into a ridiculous argument. Firstly, you’ve assumed that there are only three possibilities of what could have been the ‘prime mover’. This is wrong – there are many things that could have been the prime mover – the participatory anthropic principle, the bootstraping of the set of natural numbers through observation of the void, or the proposed nullification of the laws of causality in an atemporal environment just name a few. There’s some very interesting physics research going on into the nature of entropy that could come up with something new. There’s also the option that the prime mover could have been an existing idea that I don’t know about – and also there is the possiblity that the truth of the matter is yet to be considered by our frail mortal minds – and the rather depressing suggestion that perhaps it never will.
So it is clear there are many more than a mere three options. Error the first.
Error the second lies in the overall structure of your argument. You offhandedly surmize that options #1 and #2 are incorrect with no genuine assessment of their potential validity whatsoever, and then state, without any basis in evidence and without any direct support of logic and reason, that because #1 and #2 have been declared false, #3 must be correct.
This is utterly ridiculous. There is always the possiblity that #1, #2, and #3 are all incorrect, and that the real answer is something that we haven’t yet considered. You cannot assert anything as true without some kind of logical reasoning. Essentially, you haven’t given an argument – you’ve given a rather weak and unsupported opinion disguised as an assertion.
Personal credulity is not an argument – it’s a fallacy.