On the way to work this morning I was thinking about the question, “Who made God?” Many people wonder about this question (answer here), but it is a favorite atheist objection to the cosmological argument which posits God as the best explanation for the origin of physical reality (the universe/multiverse). They use this objection in one of two ways. Either they argue, “If the universe needs a cause, then so does God,” or they argue, “If God doesn’t need a cause, then neither does the universe.” Both formulations are faulty, but my intent is not to evaluate the objection here. I bring it up only to highlight that there is a difference between an explanation and a cause. While everything that exists needs an explanation, not everything needs (or has) a cause.
We tend to think of everything in terms of cause and effect, and thus naturally think that God needs a cause too. As an eternal being, however, God never came into being, and thus does not need a cause. People often scratch their head at this. While it makes sense to them on one level, they still want to know why God exists. What they are really looking for is not the cause for God’s existence, but the explanation for God’s existence. Most people are inclined to think this is a distinction without a difference because for everything they are familiar with, the cause of X is identical to the explanation of X: The reason X exists is because Y caused it to exist. With God, however, there is no correlation between cause and explanation.
Philosopher Edward Feser explains the distinction between causes and explanations:
Note that the notion of being self-explanatory is not to be confused with the notion of being self-caused, which is incoherent. Causation is a metaphysical notion, having to do with the source from which a thing derives some aspect of its being. But explanation is a logical notion, having to do with the way in which we understand or make sense of some aspect of a thing’s being. We cannot coherently say that a thing derives its existence from itself or its nature, for that would entail, absurdly, that the thing or its nature exists prior to itself, in an ontological sense even if not a temporal sense. But we can coherently say that a thing’s existence can be made sense of in terms of its nature, for that has to do, not with where a thing “gets” its existence from — an absolutely necessary being doesn’t get it from anywhere — but rather with how we can make intelligible or understand its existence.[1]
The late 17th and early 18th century German philosopher, Gottfried Leibnitz developed a helpful principle that has come to be known as the principle of sufficient reason. Leibnitz argued that everything, including God, does and must have an explanation for why it exists, but distinguished two kinds of explanations. The existence of some things can be explained in terms of some external, transcendent cause, whereas the existence of other things can be explained in terms of the necessity of its own nature. The first are regarded as “contingent beings,” while the latter are regarded as “necessary beings.”
Contingent beings—which include the universe, humans, rocks, etc.—derive their being from an external source. They exist in virtue of something else that caused them to exist, and thus can be explained in terms of that causal agent. Necessary beings, however, are not caused by any external agent. They exist in virtue of the kind of thing they are; i.e. they must exist in virtue of the kind of things they are. They are self-existing, and cannot not exist. God is such a being. He does not derive His being from some transcendent source, but has being in Himself in virtue of the kind of being He is. God’s nature, then, provides the explanation for His existence. Not only is no cause needed for God, but no cause is possible.
So the next time someone raises the “Who made God?” question/objection, be sure to distinguish between explanations and causes. We can answer the question as to why God exists without committing the error of thinking God needs a cause.
[1]Ed Feser, “Greene on Nozick on nothing”; available from http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/12/greene-on-nozick-on-nothing.html; Internet; accessed 03 January 2012.
Thinking to Believe 
October 29, 2010 at 9:26 am
Hello.
I think one of the main flaws in the “God does not need a cause” argument is in the basic nature of a “cause” – a cause is a philosophical construct – an explanation of how something came to being. The actual world we live in is a combination of states (molecular positions / energy-states) and events (changes in these states). Why does anything need a cause or an explanation? I think it is in the nature of the human mind to require explanations for things – we just want to know. Sadly the beginning of the universe is something about which we can only infer how it came about, while our need is for a specific, real explanation. Essentially every state the universe has ever been in requires a previous state with multiple events happening, leading to the next. So yes, even in a physics-based view of the universe, we need some previous state before the big bang, which would directly lead to the creation of the singularity that gave birth to our universe. But physics falls short here, because a condensation of matter in a singularity implies such a condensation of matter, space and time, so that we cannot apply our current methods to this entity. Perhaps therefore this protostate does not require any previous events to start it up.
Now the point you make is essentially the same all theists make – that a god does not require a previous state, cause or explanation, because a god is eternal and what you are doing is redefining a god in such a way that he is able to be self-causing and self-explanatory. That’s all good and well, but I see no reason this can’t be applied to the universe as a whole – if we define the universe as everything there is, including all causes and explanations, then it needs no explanation itself, as it will by definition contain its own explanation and / or cause (if there is one).
Its interesting to see theists arguing these philosophical points, while I have yet to see a theist admit that the cosmological argument is only an argument for deism, which is really only one step away from atheism (as there is no reason to call the god arrived at in this way anything other that “primal cause” or “originating force” or “the universe”). Am I right?
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October 29, 2010 at 11:17 am
If you are prepared to say effects (such as the origin of physical reality) do not require causes (and the notion of causation is a figment of human imagination), that is fine, but I think most people will recognize how irrational and unscientific this is. Things do not just pop into being totally uncaused, and effects do not happen without some prior cause. These are basic metaphysical and physical principles. Without them, all of science would crumble.
You say I am “redefining” God so that He does not require a cause. This is not true. Theism has always understood God to be eternal. Even the Greeks et al understood this as an essential characteristic of God. And it goes without saying that any being who never begins to exist, does not need a cause to exist. Such beings are necessary beings.
Now at this point you ask why we can’t just say the universe itself needs no cause. The reason is simple: the universe is not eternal. It had a beginning, and the principle of causation is that anything which begins to exist requires a cause because contingent beings (like the universe, and you) do not come into existence apart from some external cause.
As for the cosmological argument only providing for deism, why would this matter? No single argument demonstrates all that needs to be demonstrated. Other arguments fill in other parts of the picture.
As for saying deism is only one step away from atheism, that’s ridiculous. Ditheism may be one step away from monotheism, but theism and atheism are separated by a huge gulf. That’s why atheists put themselves into mental fits trying to wiggle out of the cosmological argument. They recognize the huge shift in worldview that is necessary if they even bought into Deism because a theistic and non-theistic worldview are worlds apart.
Jason
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October 30, 2010 at 6:12 am
Just as gravity is a property of our planet, causation is a property of our universe. There is no evidence of causation outside of the universe/multiverse. We look for causation within the universe because that’s where it happens.
I think it’s an error to expect or look for causation outside of the universe/multiverse, unless and until somebody can find evidence of causation occuring in absolute nothingness. If causation is proven to be possible in absolute nothingness, only then would it be reasonable to ask what caused the universe/multiverse.
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November 5, 2010 at 10:56 am
Arthur,
You assume that causation is a physical principle rather than a metaphysical principle. I addressed your objection at https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/answering-the-temporal-necessity-objection-to-the-kalam-cosmological-argument/.
Jason
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November 5, 2010 at 11:28 am
Arthur,
I should add that if one wishes to make causation a wholly physical principle, then one would be committed to the notion that the universe just popped into existence out of nothing without any cause whatsoever. This is irrational. Neither does it explain why we don’t see other things popping into existence uncaused in our universe.
I also find no reason to assume that causal relationships entail temporality. After all, time does not cause anything, so how could the absence of time eliminate the possibility of causation?
Jason
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November 10, 2010 at 7:49 am
Jason,
You state: “I should add that if one wishes to make causation a wholly physical principle, then one would be committed to the notion that the universe just popped into existence out of nothing without any cause whatsoever.”
I’m not arguing that before the universe existed that there was absolute nothingness. Nor am I arguing that causation could not occur prior to the existence of the universe. My argument is that we only have evidence of causation within the universe, so you cannot use causation arguments for the origin of the universe.
(1) It appears that anything that begins to exist within the multiverse requires a cause
(2) Laws that apply within the multiverse do not necessarily apply outside of the multiverse
(3) The multiverse might have began to exist or it might have always existed
(4) If the multiverse began to exist, we cannot conclude whether it required a cause because we do not know whether causation is required – or even possible – outside of the multiverse
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November 15, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Arthur,
You are right to say we only have experience of causation within the universe, but I don’t see how that serves as a defeater of the claim that the universe was caused, or how it prohibits us from applying the concept of causation to the origin of the universe.
In essence your argument seems to be that since I am bound by the limits of my experience within the spatio-temporal world, I cannot speak of how things operate outside of the spatio-temporal world. But this argument goes too far. Not only would it prevent us from speaking about supernatural causation, but about the supernatural at all since the supernatural is outside of our experience in the natural world. That would mean we could not, even in principle, say anything about the nature of God. But this seems patently false. If God exists, there are several things that we could say are true about Him even though all of those attributes are beyond my own experience in the material world. For example, He would be immaterial, spaceless, and eternal.
While all of my experience with cause and effect is necessarily relegated to events within the spatio-temporal world, I see no reason to think the principle of cause and effect is wholly dependent on physicality (apart from assuming naturalism to be true). Indeed, I have good reason to think causation is essentially a metaphysical principle that is not dependent on temporality at all. First, as I noted in my previous post, even in the spatio-temporal world time itself doesn’t cause anything. Time is not part of the causal equation. While cause and effect occur within a temporal framework, time is not causing any effect. Time is incidental to cause and effect, not essential to it. If time is not part of the causal relationship itself, then why think causation is dependent on time?
Secondly, I can make a distinction between two types of causal relationship: temporal, logical. As we’ve discussed before, if a ball was resting on a cushion from eternity past, we would say the concavity in the cushion would be caused by the ball, even though the cause and effect are both eternal. The ball is logically prior to the concavity of the pillow, even though it is not temporally prior. If the concept of causation is coherent (indeed, it is logically necessary) outside of a temporal framework, then that tells me that causation is possible outside of a temporal framework.
Jason
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November 16, 2010 at 1:53 am
Arthur,
I was looking over some of my notes and I ran across a point I had forgotten as it relates to this conversation. William Lane Craig raised the point that all causation may be thought of as simultaneous, and thus temporality is irrelevant to causation even in the spatio-temporal world. While cause and effect happen in time, they don’t necessarily happen over time. Craig writes:
“Imagine C and E are the cause and the effect. If C were to vanish before the time at which E is produced, would E nevertheless come into being? Surely not! But if time is continuous, then no matter how close to E’s appearance C’s disappearance takes place, there will always be an interval of time between C’s disappearance and E’s appearance. But then why or how E came into being when it does seems utterly mysterious, for there is no cause at that moment to produce it.”
If Craig is right, then it may not even be appropriate to construe God’s causing the universe as being outside of the spatio-temporal world, but rather as simultaneous with it.
Jason
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March 31, 2011 at 3:35 am
Hey Jason!! Been having this same sort of discussion with a popular Internet atheist, who is a friend of mine. I wanted to get your take on what he says about this, and how you would respond to him. Your blog definitely sheds light on the nuances involved in this topic. Anyways, here’s what he demands from me:
Scott Clifton Snyder Let’s put it this way:
In order to *explain* God’s existence, you would need to either:
1) Show that His existence is owed to an external cause; or…
2) Give a reason why God’s non-existence is impossible, without first having to assume His existence.
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March 31, 2011 at 3:45 am
Here’s more, after I asked him what “sufficient explanation” and “why X exists” means…
Scott: Internal necessity IS an explanation, IF claiming such gives a reason *why* God’s non-existence is impossible, without having to beg the question by assuming God’s existence first.
This is what you’d have to do. And you haven’t done it.
Otherwise you’re just describing some after-the-fact characteristic about God, and explaining nothing at all about why He exists.
Scott Clifton Snyder 1. A sufficient explanation for God’s existence MUST give us a reason why God’s non-existence cannot be the case, without God’s existence having to be assumed first for the reason to be true.
For example, what sufficiently explains the dent in the side of my truck? It is explained by the fact that the front corner of a Honda Civc hit my car at a certain speed, from a certain angle. This event renders the nonexistence of the dent in my truck impossible (if it didn’t, then the dent in my truck would be left without sufficient explanation). And yet the existence of the dent in my truck does not need to be assumed *first* in order for this event to be the case. This is why it is a sufficient explanation.
Your attempts to “explain” God would be like saying that the Honda Civic could only hit my car at that speed/angle *IF* my car has a dent in it. But this is clearly false, and makes no sense as an explanation, because it doesn’t tell us why the nonexistence of the dent is impossible without assuming the existence of the dent first. Do you understand?
If God’s nature sufficiently explains His existence, then it needs to answer the question of *why* God’s nonexistence is impossible, WITHOUT first having to assume God’s existence. But nothing about your description of God’s nature provides the necessary answer to that question. That’s a problem for you.
Thanks!! Let me know what you think. And sorry for the length.
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March 31, 2011 at 5:01 pm
John C.
I disagree with your friend’s approach. He wants to argue that unless you can show why God’s existence is necessary, you can’t conclude that God exists without begging the question (at least if you want to say God’s existence is necessary). That’s not the way we should be reasoning about this. We don’t first propose the possible existence of some X, and then conclude that it exists only if/after it can be shown to have an external cause or to have a nature that requires it to exist. No. We first identify things that we know exist, and then we seek to determine why they exist. It’s very important to grasp this point: We don’t use the principle of sufficient reason to discover what exists, but rather to explain why what we discover to exist in reality, exists. And there are only two logically possible reasons for why something exists: (1) Something exists because something else brought it into being; (2) Something exists because the nature of the thing is such that it cannot not exist. Since there are only two possible explanations for why anything exists, if you have reasons to eliminate one explanation as adequate, then, by default, it must be the other.
This is the order of reasoning about God’s existence as well. Various arguments for God’s existence (cosmological, moral, teleological, etc.) lead us to the conclusion that God does, in fact, exist. After having established that God exists, then—and only then—do we seek to discover the explanation for His existence. Given the attributes that define God (eternal, uncaused, etc.), it’s evident that the explanation for His existence cannot be found in some external cause. Seeing that there is only one other kind of explanation for why something exists—a necessity of its own nature—we conclude that the reason God exists is because His nature is such that He cannot not exist. We do not need to take it one step further to provide reasons for thinking His non-existence is impossible. If He exists (which we discovered to be true from independent lines of reasoning, and thus we are not begging the question), and if His existence is not caused by an external source, then His existence must be necessary even if we cannot provide an independent reason for thinking so.
This same reasoning applies to the laws of laws of logic and mathematics. Philosophers know these laws exist. The only question is why they exist. There is no known or conceivable external cause for their existence, and thus most philosophers conclude that they are necessary beings. They don’t believe the laws of logic and mathematics exist because they have independent reasons for believing their non-existence is impossible. Conversely, they don’t reject the existence of the laws of logic and mathematics because they don’t have any independent reasons for thinking their existence is impossible. Rather, they conclude that their non-existence is impossible since they clearly exist, and yet do not have an external cause.
Having said all of this, I actually think we can provide an independent reason for thinking God is a necessary being: Only if God is a necessary being can we explain why there is something rather than nothing. Think about it. If there was ever a time when there was absolutely nothing, then there would be nothing still because nothing has no properties, and hence no potential to ever become something. In order for there to be something now, there must have always been something. Could that something be the universe? No. Science highly suggests and philosophy proves that material reality has not always existed. Whatever it is that has always existed must be immaterial and spaceless since it caused matter and space to come into being. Furthermore, it must be powerful and intelligent to produce an ordered universe full of energy. Finally, since there are only two types of causes—events and personal agents—and it is impossible to have an event prior to the first event, the cause of the universe must be a personal agent. Such a being is an apt description of what theists have always understood God to be. God is the something that must have always existed. And whatever must exist is a necessary being, hence, God is a necessary being.
Jason
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April 1, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Thanks so much for the response! I see what you mean on so many things!
I’m afraid that what it comes down to for Scott, is that “God’s nature is such that He cannot not exist”…..is not a sufficient explanation for WHY God exists in the first place.
I think he feels that it doesn’t meet the threshold of the PSR. Either that, or he’s personally defining what “sufficient explanation” ought to mean.
So let’s look at that.
The PSR states that for every entity x, if it exists, there is a sufficient explanation for why it exists.
IS God’s nature a sufficient explanation for why He exists…..as far as the PSR is concerned?
Or does the PSR demand more than just that?
What does the PSR mean by “sufficient explanation”?
I think that’s the hill he’s fighting on. I disagree with him though on that. I think it IS a sufficient reason why God exists. He apparently doesn’t. Perhaps he’s confusing “sufficient” with “intellectually satisfying”.
Your thoughts?
Thank you sir.
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April 4, 2011 at 4:29 pm
John,
In its most basic form, the PSR simply holds that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence. There is nothing that exists that we could point to and say, “X exists for no reason at all.”
It sounds to me like Scott simply does not like the explanation that some X exists “because its nature requires that it exist.” He thinks this is a cop-out, apparently. Three things should be noted. First, how would he explain mathematical laws and logical laws? What is the reason for their existence? Are they contingent beings caused by some transcendent source? Few are willing to cede that they are. But if they aren’t, then they must be necessary beings that cannot not exist. Why? Because their very nature requires that they exist. He might ask “why,” but there is no deeper explanation (in the same way that when you posit your parents to explain your existence, there is no deeper explanation for why you exist).
Secondly, I provided an actual argument for why God must exist: if God did not exist, then nothing else would exist. He has to deal with that argument.
Thirdly, unless he is willing to say that there is no reason why some things exist, or unless he wants to argue that an infinite regress is intelligible, the fact of the matter is that one must arrive at an uncaused cause—a being that must exist, from which/whom all other being is derived.
Jason
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April 4, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Thank you. It makes perfect sense to me. I don’t deny that there really isn’t a “story” behind God’s existence, like there would be behind our existence. And I think that’s what he’s getting caught up on. He seems to think the PSR demands that. But it’s much more simpler than that.
I pointed him to this blog, so hopefully he’ll read it.
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