Leto, you are miss-defining God and then attacking (dismantling) that argument.

This is called a “straw-

man attack.” I will show this exact same thing by using Bertrand Russell’s and Jean-Paul Sartre’s take on
this matter as an example before I give two examples of the many attributes of the theistic God (Judaism –
Islam – Christian). And you must adhere to what the theistic God is defined as when you attack that
definition of God as understood by these three great religions! Otherwise you are creating a fallacious
argument and then attacking it, which isn’t believed by any Christian, Jew, or Muslim.

Does Causality Apply To God?

In his argument concerning a First Cause, Bertrand Russell also posited that if Christians want to be so
adamant about pressing the causality question in seeking a cause for everything, then the First Cause (God)
must have also had a cause. He said his father taught him that the question “Who made me?” cannot be
answered, since it is immediately followed by another question: “Who made God?” If everything must
have a cause, then God must have had a cause. If something can exist without a cause, it may just as well
be the world as God (Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays On Religion and
Related Subjects. Editor, Paul Edwards, pp. 3–4).

Russell’s objection can be answered by noting that he incorrectly defined the causality principle and
committed a logical fallacy called a category mistake. The causality principle does not say everything
needs a cause. Rather, that which is finite and limited needs a cause; that is, anything that had a beginning
must have had a cause. Russell confused (as do most) two distinct and separate categories… thus the
fallacy.

For example, seeing and tasting represent two different categories. Color is sensed by sight and is
irrelevant to the sense of taste; therefore, the question “How does the color green taste?” is
meaningless. The same is true with the question “who made God?” This confuses the finite category
with the infinite category. Only finite things, or entities, need a cause; they have had a beginning and
come into existence. An infinite being, such as the theistic God, does not have a beginning. An infinite
being must have always existed and is, therefore, uncaused. If it turns out that the universe has always
existed, then it would not need to have had a cause. However, if it can be shown that the universe is finite
and had a beginning, then we can conclude that it must have had a cause.

Is God A Self-Caused Being?

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980, died a theist… for those who care) argued that the principle of causality
affirms that everything must have a cause either inside itself or outside itself. Therefore, we must assume
that if we arrived at a cause beyond this world (viz., God), this cause must have a cause for its existence
within himself. That is, God must be a self-caused being. But a self-caused being is impossible since to
cause oneself to exist, one would have to exist prior to one’s own existence.

Sartre makes the same error as Russell by incorrectly defining the principle of causality. (Not to mention
committing the fallacy of non-contradiction, one of the Laws of Logic.) As I noted above, the principle of
causality does not affirm that everything need a cause but rather that finite things do. Yet Sartre is right in
stating that a self-caused being is impossible. What, then, is God? If God is not caused and He is not self-
caused, what is He? The only logical alternative is the one to which most theists adhere: God is an
uncaused Being. An uncaused Being has always existed and does not need a cause. God is the First Cause
of all finite things because God has always existed (and an infinite number of causes is impossible, as the
paper showed). Consequently, Sartre’s conclusion, that causality must lead to an impossible self-caused
Being, does not follow. My philosophy teacher had never made this connection before. When I explained it
to her, she was impressed that this age old argument that she used to shut theists up in class was
misconstrued to begin with. (An aside: I also caught her on a statement made about feminist philosophers
who believe “that there are many truths.” I refuted this quickly by asking if this was her “one truth.” In
philosophy [or any other field of thought], any self-refuting statement is illogical… she smiled… laughed a
bit, and then conceded. She didn’t know either that Sartre had died refuting his life long work of disproving
God. A shock to say the least.)

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Understood properly, the principle of causality leads us back to something that must be the First Cause, the
uncaused Cause of every finite thing that exists. We – theists – are claiming that God has always existed
as the First Cause of the universe, while, on the other hand, atheists and naturalists insist that the
universe has always existed (I have shown in another post that quantum mechanics is no answer to this).

God Exists Absolutely

By this we do not mean merely that God is always there or that he does not tend to go out of existence.
These things are true, in a sense. But theists mean something more.

God is the source of being, or existence, for all things. Looking at the universe we see that in every creature
there is a distinction between its essence and its existence; that there is a difference between what things are
and the fact that they are. That is why, as we saw, limited things are by nature existential zeros, why they
have a need for being that they cannot themselves supply.

If God is the answer to this question about finite being, then he cannot suffer from this same need. In other
words, in God there can be no such distance between what he is and that he is. That he exists is not a happy
accident, not due to some other being as his cause. Being must be inseparable from what he is; it must
belong to him by nature. More radically put: God must be identical with the fullness of being. That is what
we mean by saying that God exists absolutely.

God Is Infinite
We saw that it is finite or limited being that poses a question for us, that seems to require a condition or
cause for its existence. So God cannot be limited or finite. In other words, God must be infinite, utterly
limitless.

People often think that by the infinity of God is meant immense size or endless duration—as if God were
older than anyone could count or bigger than anyone could measure. But by saying God is infinite we mean
that we must deny of God the kinds of limitation (like age or size) that raised a question about finite being.
Think of it this way. If something is limited, it is limited in terms of something else—it is not what or
where the other is. So limitation involves nonbeing. But God, if he exists, is the very fullness of being. So
there can be no limitation in God. He must be without limit; that is, God must be infinite.

God Is Eternal
Since God is not material, he is not spatially limited. That must be true, for God is the Creator of space and
all the constantly changing material things which occupy it. Now the measure of that change is what we
call “time.” Is God in time? Can he be temporally limited?

We experience ourselves as temporally limited. But most of us believe that human beings are more than
just material things, and that something more is what we call “spirit.” But our spirits or souls are finite in
nature and tied to our body’s matter. And therefore time is an intimate part of the way we experience our
being—even our spiritual being. It takes time to think, as well as (for us) to be. That is why we can often
feel separated from ourselves by vast physical, intellectual and moral distances in time (“How small—
naive—carefree I was back then!”).

God cannot be subject to time. For God is the Creator of everything that changes: everything that raises a
question about its own being. All beings subject to time raise that question. God cannot be like that. This
unboundedness by time is called “eternity.” Boethius’s famous definition of eternity goes like this: Life
without limits, possessed perfectly and as a simultaneous whole. His words are very suggestive. But they
clearly convey one essential thing: God is not bound by the kind of changing being which time measures.
That is what we mean in the first place when we say that God is e-ternal (nontemporal).

The Incarnation does not contradict this; rather, it presupposes it. The Incarnation means that God took
upon himself, in Christ, a human nature, which included time, space and matter. This presupposes that the
divine nature is different from human nature. Part of that difference has traditionally been seen as God’s
not being limited by time, space and matter. Only if a bird doesn’t swim in the ocean but flies in the air can
it enter the ocean from above; only because God is not temporal, can he become temporal.

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THE ARGUMENT FROM EFFICIENT CAUSALITY
We notice that some things cause other things to be (to begin to be, to continue to be, or both). For
example, a man playing the piano is causing the music that we hear. If he stops, so does the music. Now
ask yourself: Are all things caused to exist by other things right now? Suppose they are. That is, suppose
there is no Uncaused Being, no God. Then nothing could exist right now. For remember, on the no-God
hypothesis, all things need a present cause outside of themselves in order to exist. So right now, all things,
including all those things which are causing other things to be, need a cause. They can give being only so
long as they are given being. Everything that exists, therefore, on this hypothesis, stands in need of being
caused to exist.

But caused by what? Beyond everything that is, there can only be nothing. But that is absurd: all of reality
dependent—but dependent on nothing! The hypothesis that all being is caused, that there is no Uncaused
Being, is absurd. So there must be something uncaused, something on which all things that need an
efficient cause of being are dependent. Existence is like a gift given from cause to effect. If there is no one
who has the gift, the gift cannot be passed down the chain of receivers, however long or short the chain
may be. If everyone has to borrow a certain book, but no one actually has it, then no one will ever get it. If
there is no God who has existence by his own eternal nature, then the gift of existence cannot be passed
down the chain of creatures and we can never get it. But we do get it; we exist. Therefore there must exist a
God: an Uncaused Being who does not have to receive existence like us—and like every other link in the
chain of receivers.

Question 1:

Why do we need an uncaused cause? Why could there not simply be an endless series of
things mutually keeping each other in being?

Reply: This is an attractive hypothesis. Think of a single drunk. He could probably not stand up alone. But
a group of drunks, all of them mutually supporting each other, might stand. They might even make their
way along the street. But notice: Given so many drunks, and given the steady ground beneath them, we can
understand how their stumblings might cancel each other out, and how the group of them could remain
(relatively) upright. We could not understand their remaining upright if the ground did not support them—
if, for example, they were all suspended several feet above it. And of course, if there were no actual drunks,
there would be nothing to understand.

This brings us to our argument. Things have got to exist in order to be mutually dependent; they cannot
depend upon each other for their entire being, for then they would have to be, simultaneously, cause and
effect of each other. A causes B, B causes C, and C causes A. That is absurd. The argument is trying to
show why a world of caused causes can be given — or can be there — at all. And it simply points out: If
this thing can exist only because something else is giving it existence, then there must exist something
whose being is not a gift. Otherwise everything would need at the same time to be given being, but nothing
(in addition to “everything”) could exist to give it. And that means nothing would actually be.

Question 2:

Why not have an endless series of caused causes stretching backward into the past?
Then everything would be made actual and would actually be—even though their causes
might no longer exist.

Reply: First, if the kalam argument is right, there could not exist an endless series of causes stretching
backward into the past. But suppose that such a series could exist. The argument is not concerned about the
past, and would work whether the past is finite or infinite. It is concerned with what exists right now.

Even as you read this, you are dependent on other things; you could not, right now, exist without them.
Suppose there are seven such things. If these seven things did not exist, neither would you. Now suppose
that all seven of them depend for their existence right now on still other things. Without these, the seven

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you now depend on would not exist—and neither would you. Imagine that the entire universe consists of
you and the seven things sustaining you. If there is nothing besides that universe of changing, dependent
things, then the universe—and you as part of it—could not be. For everything that is would right now need
to be given being; but there would be nothing capable of giving it. And yet you are and it is. So there must
in that case exist something besides the universe of dependent things — something not dependent as they
are.

And if it must exist in that case, it must exist in this one. In our world there are surely more than seven
things that need, right now, to be given being. But that need is not diminished by there being more than
seven. As we imagine more and more of them—even an infinite number, if that were possible—we are
simply expanding the set of beings that stand in need. And this need—for being, for existence—cannot be
met from within the imagined set. But obviously it has been met, since contingent beings exist. Therefore
there is a source of being on which our material universe right now depends.

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