John asked:

Hi, I'm new to philosophy and I'm sure this has been discussed many times, so please bear with me!.

There are two possibilities: Either the universe has always existed (which is presumably impossible)
or there was a time when the universe did NOT exist and then all that matter was created out of
nothing (which, according to our current knowledge of physics, is equally impossible as matter cannot
derive from nothing!).

Of course, if the universe was 'created' then this begs the question: 'Who was the Creator?', then
'who created the creator's creator?', etc. - Any suggestions?

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The first thing to point out is that neither of the initial possibilities you mention is a logical impossibility.
There is no logical impossibility in the notion of a universe whose history can be traced further and
further back, at no point reaching a 'first event in the history of the universe'. Neither is there any
logical impossibility in the idea of a universe whose history traces back to a specific date, before
which there 'was nothing'.

You say that the latter is inconsistent with our current knowledge of physics. That would not be
sufficient for ruling it out if the alternative was thought to be logically impossible. The correct
conclusion would be that current physics must be wrong.

Given that the alternative of a universe with an infinite history is not logically impossible, it is still
remains open to the physicist to argue that the ultimate physical 'constant' is not matter but
probabilistic laws according to which at every time and at every place there is a non-zero probability
of matter appearing where previously there was no matter. The laws have existed for an infinite time,
matter has only existed for a finite time.

I am not talking about any specific physical theory (such as quantum mechanics), but rather possible
physical theories, or theories that might hold in some logically possible world.

However, the issue of whether the history of the universe is finite or infinite is arguably not the
problem that brings God into the picture.

In the Cosmological argument for the existence of God, the problem is not time but causal
dependency. A universe stretching infinitely back in time is no more difficult to conceive than a
universe stretching infinitely into the future. The regress becomes vicious only when we look to
events in the past as an adequate explanation of how things are now. A perpetually conditional
explanation is no explanation at all.

So the argument goes, There has to be a Creator who exists outside the infinite series of causes and
effects, who timelessly 'causes' the whole infinite series to exist. The Creator does not exist in time,
so the question of when the Creator came into existence does not arise. The Creator is 'cause of
itself', so the question of who created the Creator does not arise.

I am not defending this argument, only expounding it!

I myself do not understand what it means to say that something is the 'cause of itself' or 'exists
outside of time'. However, ifthe straight choice is between a proposition which is logically impossible
and a proposition whose meaning one does not fully understand, then reason dictates that we have to
opt for the second alternative.

Geoffrey Klempner