1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
As Peter S. Williams points out here, many atheists attack a straw-man version of this argument that goes something like this:
1. Everything has a cause.
2. The universe is a thing.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
As you can see, the cosmological argument doesn't claim that "everything has a cause." When presented correctly, it states that "everything that begins to exist has a cause." However, this doesn't stop the atheist from many times asking the oft-repeated question, "If everything has a cause, then what caused God?"
Williams offers a solution to this problem. He suggests offering a version of the cosmological argument that goes like this:
1. Every dependent thing needs something to depend on.
2. The universe is a dependent thing.
3. Therefore the universe needs something to depend on (God). [1]
Williams explains:
"This argument avoids the 'Who made God?' problem by replacing ‘every thing needs a cause’ with ‘every dependent thing needs something to depend upon’. Once this is done, we can answer the 'Who made God?"'question by saying that God simply exists without having a cause, because God is not a dependent thing. God is an independent thing.
In other words, the answer to the 'Who made God?' question is: 'No one made God, because God isn’t the sort of being that needs to be made.'
The existence of an un-made maker (God) answers the question: 'What made the universe?' The cosmological argument shows that to avoid accepting this answer, atheists must show that denying the premise ‘the universe is a dependent thing’ is at least as reasonable as affirming it." [2]
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnotes:
1. Peter S. Williams, "Who Made God?", 2005.
2. Ibid.
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