re cause trajan cwis unomaha edu stephen mcintyre writes norris athena mit edu writes some stuff deleted fortunately for the convenience of us believers there is a class of questions that can never be reduced away by natural science for example why does the universe exist at all must there be a why to this i ask because of what you also assume about god namely that he just exists with no why to his existence so the question is reversed why can t we assume the universe just exists as you assume god to just exist why must there be a why to the universe remainder of message deleted pardon me for replying to only a portion of your message the reason we can say god just exists and can t say the universe just exists is because the universe is a natural realm and is subject to natural laws in general and the law of cause and effect in particular that is we observe in nature that every cause has an effect and every effect was produced by a cause the existence of the natural realm as an effect itself cannot be its own cause it must therefore have a supernatural cause god on the other hand is a supernatural being and is therefore not subject to such natural laws as the law of cause and effect as a supernatural being god s eternal existence does not imply a previous cause the way the existence of a physical natural cosmos does thus those who believe in the supernatural have a valid basis for accepting the existence of uncaused phenomena such as the eternal god whereas those who deny the existence of the supernatural are faced with the dilemma of a physical universe whose very nature shows that it is not sufficient to explain its own existence this is of course an oversimplification of a complex topic but i just wanted to clarify some important differences between the supernatural god and the natural the universe since you seem to mistake them as being interchangeable mark
