If Christ died on the cross for all of humanity

The First Cause Argument

I would like to continue my explanation where I left off on post #5178 concerning there must be a cause for everything that comes into existence with the exception of God of course, because He did not come into existence, because He has always been in existence, He is eternal, He has no beginning or no end, He is the uncaused cause that brought or caused everything else to come into existence. He is the First Cause, The Creator.

Let me give a brief illustration below which is the First Cause Argument which was the argument originated by Saint Thomas Aquinas who I mentioned on post #5178.

The whole universe is a vast, interlocking chain of things that came into existence. Each of these things must therefore have a cause. Our parents caused us, our grandparents caused them, etc. We would not be here without billions of causes, from the Big Bang through the cooling of the galaxies and the evolution of the protein molecule to the marriages of our ancestors.

The universe is a vast and complex chain of causes. But does the universe as a whole have a cause? Is there a first cause, an uncaused cause, a transcendent cause of the whole chain of causes? If not, then there is an infinite regress of causes, with no first link in the great cosmic chain. If there is a first cause, then there is an eternal, necessary, independent, self-explanatory being with nothing above it, before it, or supporting it.

It would have to explain itself as well as everything else, if it needed something else as its explanation, its reason, its cause, then it would not be the first and uncaused cause. Such a being would have to be God. If we can prove there is such a first cause, we will have proved there is a God.

Why must there be a first cause? Because if there isn't, then the whole universe is unexplained, and we have violated our Principle of Sufficient Reason for everything.

If there is no first cause, each particular thing in the universe is explained in the short run, or by some other thing, but nothing is explained in the long run, or ultimately, and the universe as a whole is not explained. Everyone and everything says in turn, "Don't look to me for the final explanation. I'm just an instrument. Something else caused me." If that's all there is, then we have an endless passing of the buck. God is the one who says, "The buck stops here."

If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing. If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained proximately by the motion of the car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it, etc. But there is no engine to pull the first car and the whole train. That would be impossible! But that is what the universe is like if there is no first cause: IMPOSSIBLE!