I see this thread has completely been derailed... I figured I might add my 2c on the new topic either way:
What does it even mean for an agent to cause the universe to exist? Was it somehow the case that the universe had the property of non-existence such that this agent caused it to exist? I don't think things are sitting in some weird state of non-existence waiting to be *caused* to exist. For anything to go from x to y, it must mean that it first *existed* in some shape or form so that a certain property could be changed. So, it's more accurate to say that the universe always existed, and this agent made it go from some previously unknown state x into y - the state that we now observe. In fact, this is the *only* way of interpreting this relationship between the agent and our universe, because I have no idea how a non-existent thing can be fiddled with such that it's brought into existence, unless it existed prior to being fiddled with. That's the consequence of causal relations; the *necessary* implication is that the thing being affected *already* exists, because something non-existent can't be affected... it's simply not there to begin with!
What does it even mean for an agent to cause the universe to exist? Was it somehow the case that the universe had the property of non-existence such that this agent caused it to exist? I don't think things are sitting in some weird state of non-existence waiting to be *caused* to exist. For anything to go from x to y, it must mean that it first *existed* in some shape or form so that a certain property could be changed. So, it's more accurate to say that the universe always existed, and this agent made it go from some previously unknown state x into y - the state that we now observe. In fact, this is the *only* way of interpreting this relationship between the agent and our universe, because I have no idea how a non-existent thing can be fiddled with such that it's brought into existence, unless it existed prior to being fiddled with. That's the consequence of causal relations; the *necessary* implication is that the thing being affected *already* exists, because something non-existent can't be affected... it's simply not there to begin with!
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle