Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Premise 2: The universe (all space, time, and matter) began to exist. Therefore: the universe has a cause. This cause is necessarily spaceless, timeless, and immaterial and probably personal — a.k.a. God

1. The Cosmological Argument
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe (all space, time, and matter)
began to exist (The Big Bang)
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
This cause is necessarily spaceless, timeless,
immaterial, and powerful; plausibly
personal; and, known, conceptually, as God.
Picture from NASA
Argument adapted from Dr. William Lane Craig’s On
Guard and Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Frank Turek’s I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

2. Premise 1: Everything that begins
to exist has a cause
•To deny premise 1 is to deny the Law of
Causality – the bedrock of virtually all
scientific inquiry.
•To deny the Law of Causality is to deny
rationality -- in which conclusions
(effects) are thought to be the rational
product of reasons (causes).
•(Philosopher, skeptic) David Hume: “I
never asserted so absurd a proposition
as that something could arise without a
cause.” (Geisler and Turek, 75).

3. Premise 2: The universe began to
exist
• Most scientists agree that the universe had a definitive,
singular starting point at some point in time ~ 13.7
billion years ago – at the Big Bang
• At the Big Bang, the universe did not explode into a
previously empty space, all space, time and matter
came into existence. The universe literally exploded out
of nothing
• "At first the scientific community was very reluctant to
accept the idea of a birth of the universe… Not only did
the Big Bang model seem to give in to the Judeo-
Christian idea of a beginning of the world, but it also
seemed to have a call for an act of supernatural
creation." -- J.M. Wersinger, Professor (Emeritus) of
Physics, Auburn University (Craig, Ch. 4)
• Though many have postulated alternative theories,
there are several lines of evidence for the now standard
Big Bang Theory, forming the acronym S.U.R.G.E.

4. S.U.R.G.E evidence for P2 -- the universe
began to exist
S. – The Second Law of Thermodynamics
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics lets us
know that systems will become increasingly
disorderly -- with decreasing amounts of usable
energy -- until they finally reach equilibrium
• For the universe, equilibrium = heat death;
temperature and pressure would be the same
everywhere
• If the universe were eternal, by now, it would be
without order or usable energy
• Like any closed system, the universe is winding
down like a clock that was wound up some finite
time ago

5. S.U.R.G.E evidence for P2 -- the
universe began to exist
U. – The Universe is Expanding
• 1927 – Edwin Hubble found that light from
observable galaxies looked redder than expected
• This “red shift” is most likely due to the stretching
of the wavelengths of light as the galaxies grew
more and more distant from the Earth.
• As Dr. Craig illustrates below, galaxies are like
buttons attached to a balloon. As the universe
(balloon) expands, the immobile galaxies (buttons)
actually appear to move further and further away
from each other.

6. S.U.R.G.E evidence for P2 -- the
universe began to exist
R. – Radiation Afterglow
• 1965– Nobel Prize-winning scientists Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson discovered the afterglow from
the Big Bang explosion -- cosmic microwave
background radiation (CMBR)
• Cosmic microwave background radiation is the
remaining light and heat from the Big Bang
• The light is no longer visible because the
wavelengths have been stretched by the expanding
universe, but the heat from the initial explosion is
still able to be detected
• Picture of CMBR from NASA.gov

7. S.U.R.G.E evidence for P2 -- the
universe began to exist
G. – Great Galaxy Seeds
• Great Galaxy Seeds -- variations or ripples in the temperature
of the cosmic background microwave radiation that allowed
matter, via gravity, to amalgamate into galaxies
• 1989 -- NASA launched Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
satellite; project led by astronomer George Smoot
• COBE found finely-tuned ripples in the CMBR.
• Any slight variation in the great galaxy seeds would either not
allow for galaxy formation or would result in the universe
collapsing back into itself.
• Because the seeds are so exact (down to one part in one
hundred thousand), Smoot dubbed them the “machining
marks from the creation of the universe” and the
“fingerprints of the maker.” (Geisler and Turek, 83).
• Picture from NobelPrize.org

8. S.U.R.G.E evidence for P2 -- the universe
began to exist
E. – Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
• Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (~ 1915-17)
much to his (initial) chagrin, predicted that:
• Time, space, and matter are interdependently
relative – “Can’t have one without the others”
(Geisler and Turek, 83)
• All space, time, and matter co-relatively came
into existence at some point in the remote
past; the universe had a beginning.
• The theory has now been verified to five decimal
places.
• Using the theory, scientists predicted and
discovered evidence for the expanding universe,
cosmic microwave background radiation, and the
great galaxy seeds.

9. A Personal Cause of the Universe?
• If a faucet has always been on
(cause), the sink will have, virtually,
always have been wet (effect).
• But if something or someone freely
chooses to turn a faucet on (cause),
the sink will only be wet (effect) after
the cause.
• Similarly, if the cause of the Big Bang was always…
banging… the universe (effect) would always have
existed. But, the universe has not always existed.
• So it seems reasonable to infer that the cause of the
Big Bang freely chose to cause the Big Bang
• A free act of the will is the only case in which "a
timeless cause can produce a temporal effect."
(Craig, Ch. 4)

10. The Cosmological Argument
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe (all space, time, and matter) began to
exist (The Big Bang)
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
• If premises 1 and 2 are more plausible than not,
then the conclusion (3) logically follows.
• The cause of the universe is necessarily spaceless,
timeless, immaterial and powerful enough to cause
the Big Bang
• Because it seems plausible that the cause of the Big
Bang was not constantly Big Banging, the cause of
the universe is plausibly personal.
• A spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful,
personal cause of the universe – conceptually, God.