Contingent Vs. Necessary Cause

Is God the Only Solution to an Infinite Regress?

Photo by Dan Schiumarini on Unsplash

This article is one of a series of articles introduced by Flawed Reasons to Believe in God. If you’re new to the series, you should read the Introduction before (or after) reading the material below.

We humans cannot wrap our finite brains around infinity. So it is unsurprising that when we think about why there is something rather than nothing, we think of a Universe that came into existence at some finite time in the past. It also seems intuitive that an uncaused first cause must have launched the causal chain. But human minds are ill-equipped to navigate the waters the Universe establishes. We do not know whether or not it is possible for something to have no cause. Both positions are unfalsifiable at this time. I challenge you to demonstrate your conclusion if you think it is obvious.

I will grant that one or the other position must be the case, even if we cannot yet prove it. It’s a true dichotomy, so the laws of logic require one and only one position to be true. Since we don't currently know whether universes can come to exist without a cause, let’s say they can’t and see where that gets us. Does the uncaused first cause have to be a sentient being with enough power to create a universe, or can a naturalistic uncaused first cause do the trick?