The Argument

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to exist;
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

In other words, this argument, popularized by William Lane Craig, is that everything which came into existence must have been made to by something else, as things do not appear from nothing. Nothing by definition does not have any power to create (see below). Since most people agree that the universe had a beginning, something made it. Yet there must be something which simply exists and was not created, since and endless chain of creation makes no sense. Indeed, something that was there before the universe did not begin to exist; it always existed.

Can Something Come from Nothing?

The above is a powerful argument, but modern people often still believe they have found a way of escape: with enough time, surely something can be made from nothing, right? Wrong. We understand that one thing could be endowed with the power to create another thing. However, nothing has no power. It is not that it has very little power; it has none. What can arise when there is no force to make it and no power to give it?

Chance

Perhaps you believe that chance is the answer to creation, but an example should clear this up: if you have no connection to any betting agency and have placed no bets on horses, what chance do you have of winning millions of dollars on horse racing today anyway? None. Not a little, but none. Likewise, chance could not have made the universe pop into existence from nothing. If there was nothing, there was no power to act and therefore nothing for chance to describe. Chance only describes the likelihood of one thing causing another; it is not a cause of itself, or the god it has been propped up as.

The Nature of the First Cause

Now, since there are things in existence rather than nothing, something has always existed. Again, there could never have been nothing, or nothing would have ever come to exist. This reasoning does not only apply to our universe, but to any number of universes and supernatural entities. Something must have never begun to exist, yet does exist.

As we have said, since the first cause has always existed, it must be able to exist outside of time—but when things subject to time were created, time began. This occasion could aptly be called The Beginning. Further, this entity must have chosen to act, since if it did not have a rational nature, it could not have created something so consistent and logical and brilliant as the universe; nor would there be any reason for our universe being sustained in existence and not colliding with countless other universes at any given moment. Indeed, the conclusion is that there is a God.

Who Created God?

Remember the first clause in the first argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause. If the universe began to exist, which many people believe, then it had a cause. God did not begin to exist. Something must have had no beginning, and if you think about it logically, only something which could be unchanging and doing everything it wants to simultaneously (and which then suddenly choose to create) could have no beginning. This is explained in Is The Universe Eternal. Don't be bogged down by discomfort at all this, but press on and read Proofs of God's Existence.

Free Will Predates Matter

A similar argument is that if matter is controlled by unconscious forces, then by definition, it does not have a mind of its own. Thus, anything that matter does must be a result of some other act. However, there must have been a first act done to matter, or no matter could ever have done anything. Picture a line of dominos. Unless there is an outside force to topple the first domino, they will do nothing. (Do not bring up the wind or an interfering cat—remember that the dominos represent all physical things. There is nothing else.) The same is true of all things that cannot act on their own: At some point, they were made to act by a being with free will, as only a choice can exist outside of a chain of causes. There are only intentional and unintentional actions.