So... What Caused God?

"OK... what caused God?"

"Well, nothing.  God has just always been around."

"That seems rather convenient."

This exchange usually occurs when someone argues that God must exist because... well... where did the universe come from?

Even if one puts forward a solid case for why the universe needs some kind of creative cause, one quickly finds that there is more work to do. Because in the mind of a skeptic the idea of God existing infinitely into the past seems just as absurd as the universe doing the same.  So if the universe demands a cause, why not God?    

Answering this question will require us to take a look at two classic arguments for the existence of God.  Most people think of these arguments as trying to prove God's existence from reason - which they do - but they also help us clarify what God  is (and isn't).

So let's dive in.


The Transcendent Cause:

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the most simple theistic arguments. You can find my longer write-up on it [here].  The logical form of the argument goes like this:

Premise 1: Everything which begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe - defined as all space, time, matter, and energy - began to exist.

Conclusion: Therefore the universe has a cause. 

In other words, this argument looks at the whole universe - all space, time, matter, and energy - and proposes that it all came into existence at some point in the past.  After establishing that, one asks what sort of thing could have accomplished this.  And by some simple reasoning, we can arrive at the following qualities:

• Immaterial: Because the thing which brought ALL matter into existence cannot be material itself.
• Timeless: Because this thing brought time into existence.
• Unimaginably Powerful:  Because creating a whole universe from non-being would require this.

Of these three, the first two are relevant to answer the question of "what caused God?"  But that won't be apparent until we look at a second argument.



The Buck Stops Here:

The second argument is the Contingency Argument.  There are many different forms of this one, but the one I put together goes like this:

Premise 1:  Everything which exists has some explanation for its existence - either by the necessity of its nature or in some external cause.

Premise 2: An infinite series of contingent causes is insufficient to provide an explanation of a thing.

Premise 3: Contingent things exist.

Conclusion 1: There must be a necessarily existent thing which grounds the explanation for contingent things.

Premise 4: The universe does not exist with metaphysical necessity.

Conclusion 2: The necessarily existent thing transcends and causes the universe.

You can see a longer explanation of this argument [here].

In any event, what this argument does is point to the "contingency" of everything in our experience.  We see things come into existence, then pass out of existence.  And when that happens, we can look for a cause of some sort.

Further, we can ask what holds those things in existence moment to moment.  That send us down a chain of more basic constitutive elements which cause the more complex realities to exist.

We also see things in a certain state of affairs and know it could be different.  So we can meaningfully ask, "Why are things that way?"  Again, we go in search of a cause.

Now, those causes which we seek to explain those contingent realities are themselves be contingent - so they must have causes too.  And those causes have causes.  On and on you go.

What you get is a great chain extending backward (or downward), but you never fully explain a thing.  Even an infinite number of prior contingent causes would never fully explain the thing at the end because each step just moves the problem one step further.

In the same way that a moving train with a million cars must have an engine somewhere, and a chain holding up a chandelier must connect to the ceiling somewhere - there must be someplace in this great chain of causes where the infinite regression terminates.





That cause must be fundamentally different from all of the contingent things coming after it.  It must contain within itself the reason for its existence.  It must exist by the necessity of its own nature.  It simply must BE.




Putting it together:

We determined from the Kalam Argument that God must be immaterial and timeless.  We determined from the Contingency Argument that God must exist through His own nature.  That is to say, His nature must contain the very essence of existence itself.

What the skeptic objected to was the idea of God existing as a sort of conveniently arbitrary exception to the rule of sufficient causation.  He imagined God sitting around for an infinite amount of time before finally saying, "Hmmm... how did I get here?  Oh well.  I know!  I'll create the universe!" 

That would be absurd indeed, but that is not what is meant when men say, "God".

Rather, one has erred as soon as he tries to imagine God existing in time.  He has erred as soon as he classifies God another being among many.  Rather, in the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, God is "Ipsum Esse Subsistens" - the very act of "to be".  In the words of Aristotle, God is the "prime mover" - the one who moves all things while remaining unmoved.

God is the unique source of all existence, whose existence transcends all the limitations our minds are used to placing on things.  Apart from time, space, and matter - incomprehensibly existing through Himself, God simply IS.

This is why the best name is the one God gave to Moses: "I AM WHO AM."