God Didn't Begin to Exist

This is the first of what will surely be a loose and unorganized collection of thoughts, arguments, statements, and so forth. This, at its inception, is for all intents and purposes a classical type of "journal," simply one that is public for anyone to stumble upon.

Today I came across this logical argument against the existence of God:

(1) Everything existing began to exist.
(2) God didn't begin to exist.
(3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.

I knew it was wrong when I read it but it's actually a pretty tricky bit of sophistry and took me a minute to figure out.

In order for the first premise to be correct, the universe, which exists, must also have a cause. That cause, being existent, will also need a cause. This will continue to infinity, as each existing cause will need a cause.

An infinite number of causes is not possible.
 
This argument attempts to take parts of the cosmological argument and turn them on their head, but conveniently ignores the part of the argument that tells us that an actually infinite number of events cannot occur. If all of the causes that created the universe were dominos falling and knocking each other down, there would never be a beginning to this chain. Every domino would need another domino before it, forever, infinitely, in order to cause the universe. If this infinite chain of dominos had to finish falling before the the final one fell (and caused the universe) it would actually never happen, as the events would be occurring infinitely, and would still be occurring right now.

There is much more discussion on the nature and possibility, or impossibility, of actual infinity, but suffice to say, for this argument to be valid, an infinite number of causes must have caused the universe, which is illogical, and therefore the argument is not sound.

To draw this to its conclusion, because an infinite number of events cannot occur, this requires that the First Cause be uncaused. This is the exception to the observable and logically believable premise that everything that exists had a cause. It is the exception because it must be the exception - without it, we could not have arrived here, on this present day in time, and space, and matter. There must be an explanation to the universe existing, or else it would not exist. If an infinite number of causes cannot be the cause, then the thing that caused it must necessarily be uncaused.

This argument has its own arguments against it (and there are argument against those arguments), but I'd be diverging further and further into tangents.

There are a few ways I could see an attempt could be made to squeeze out of this.

First, the universe doesn't need a cause, it always existed.

I did this one first because it is the easiest:

(1) Everything existing began to exist.
(2) The universe didn't begin to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe doesn't exist.

The universe clearly exists, so I don't think more explanation is needed. But let's say...

Second, the universe doesn't really exist.

I could see someone attempting to make this argument as well. Perhaps, the universe doesn't exist in the way that we understand existence, or perhaps we can't be sure the universe follows the same rules of existence as everything inside of it.

This is a clear cut case of special pleading. As we already know, the universe does not exist necessarily. There is nothing necessary about the universe existing. Essentially, it is not special. This is explained in the argument as to why the First Cause exists necessarily, as if it did not, then nothing else would exist. Something needs to exist to explain why anything at all exists. This thing does not need to be the universe and, due to the nature of the universe (the second law of thermodynamics for example), it cannot logically be the universe.

In order to make the argument that the universe doesn't necessarily exist in the same way that everything within it exists or perhaps that the universe itself follows unique rules that everything in it does not, you would need some sort of evidence to believe it. Otherwise, we have to conclude logically that, based on our understanding of the universe and everything within it, that it does follow the same rules. To claim otherwise requires some sort of logical induction or evidence.

Note that I did not dismiss the original first premise's strength of having these properties: it is reasonable to believe that everything that exists had a beginning to its existence. I had to use separate information, a different argument, to prove that this is not necessarily true of everything. We have evidence to believe that it is more likely for there to be an Uncaused First Cause than for there not to be, due to the logical conclusion that an actual infinite cannot exist. We have nothing of the sort to plead for the case of the universe not having the same properties as everything within it, it is simply conjecture.

It would be up to the atheist to back up this argument with some sort of evidence or logical argument - I can't think of any myself. In fact, I can think of a lot of evidence that proves the universe does in fact follow the same rules of existence as everything within it, including but not limited to the fact that we actually have a lot of empirical evidence about the universe and its nature. Our understanding of the universe is surely minuscule compared to all there is to know about it, but we have a decent grasp on its laws and its nature, enough to conclude that there is nothing necessarily misunderstood about the manner in which it exists.

Surely, if the universe itself were to exist due to some special rules, it would logically follow that the things within it would, too - considering that so far, all of the rules governing the universe have proven to apply to everything within it as well. In order to make this case, you would have to deny the logic behind your own first premise - it is logical to believe that everything that exists had a cause because we can observe it. It is logical to believe that everything within the universe follows the same laws as the universe itself because we can observe it. To make this case, you would dismantle the argument you originally made.

Finally, my last point to make on this, these claims could easily be made of God - and it would be more accurate to do so. God does indeed exist in a way that we don't quite understand. If He was so easily understandable, we wouldn't have so many atheists, would we? God exists outside of our rules of the universe - since He created the universe He would have to - and therefore does not necessarily follow the rules of the universe or of the things within it. God doesn't exist in the way we understand existence, as we understand existence as it is defined within the confines of our universe. The First Cause, or God, is the only thing outside of the universe of which we have any understanding. However, we don't need to make these claims to combat this argument, as we have already roundly invalidated it.

And obviously, third, an actual infinite could really exist.

I already explained this. I'll quote myself for fun:

If all of the causes that created the universe were dominos falling and knocking each other down, there would never be a beginning to this chain. Every domino would need another domino before it, forever, infinitely, in order to cause the universe. If this infinite chain of dominos had to finish falling before the the final one fell (and caused the universe) it would actually never happen, as the events are occurring infinitely.

I can't really think of any other ways to attempt to combat my rebuttal of this logical argument.

In conclusion, the First Cause exists necessarily, uncaused, due to the fact that we require an explanation as to why anything at all exists. This explanation cannot be an infinite chain of events, therefore there must be something that exists necessarily, without a cause, that is the exception to our understanding that everything that exists began to exist.