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If everything in the universe has a cause, what caused the first cause?

The problem with creation is this: God is infinite, so nothing outside it can exist. What is limited by something outside itself is finite. On the other hand, the finite being must exist for there to be any creation at all. This is how the problem was solved in earlier times: what is finite is composed of two principles, essence and existence. The finite entity does not have any genuine existence; its existence is derivative, i.e. through another, and no finite being can explain the existence of any other finite entity because it too would have its existence through another. Hence, whatever is finite is explained only by reference to the infinite. The Infinite, on the other hand, is a simple entity, it’s very essence involves its existence, hence its existence is not through another. Plotinus regarded this infinite being as self-caused, but to be the cause of oneself is to suppose a distance from oneself. It seems, however, his intention was only to point out that God is the uncaused cause of all things. Only what is finite requires a ground, but God is self-grounded, which is to say it does not need a ground. The reason for its existence is within itself. The opposite of this view is Heidegger’s - Dasein’s being-in-the-world is the not-self grounded ground of Dasein. This is to say that the finite being’s existence is groundless, and it simply finds itself thrown within the temporal world. The modern view is that the particular or the finite is real, and if there is a God at all, He is the unknowable beyond of finite beings. This is the affirmation of the self-sufficiency of finitude from God. The Idealist view is different; the infinite or the universal is what is alone real, and the particular, so far as it can be regarded as existent at all, is existent through what is other than itself, and this another cannot be another finite being. The self-grounded ground is an actual infinite and so not in need of something external to ground itself.

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