The Argument of Infinite Regression

Creation stories do seem interesting to me, and seem to vary with the sophistication of the culture creating those stories. Whether gods are conceptualized as expressions of natural phenomena, animalistic, anthropomorphic, paternalistic or maternalistic, amorphous forces, or whatever, the powerful being or force is often seen as the source of all that is, i.e., the creator(s). And why not? Somebody/something has to have created all this. And so begins the Argument of Infinite Regression. So you go back through the fossil record, back to the origins of life, back to the previous generations of exploding stars providing the elements that served as life's building blocks, back to the big bang, perhaps even to theories explaining the big bang and before (colliding "branes" for instance), but at each step of the way one encounters the "So where did that come from?" argument, viewed as the philosophical trump card proving that there must have been a creator for these things to exist.

But why must there be an explanation for how everything began? Must there be a cause for that effect (an underlying premise)? Granted, it is difficult for our tiny brains to conceive of effects without causes (at least it is for my tiny brain), a universe that exists without a beginning. But do all effects need causes, and has this always been so?

If one does not accept the premise that effects need causes, there is, of course, no need to invoke a god on that basis, as the universe at some point can just be. That doesn't preclude the existence of a god; it just means there would be no need for a creator. Interestingly, while in catechism (yes, I am a recovering Catholic), we were "taught" that God always was and always will be. “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 257). That simplistic catechism answer may do a real disservice to the religion, at least for little kids, in implicitly negating the need for a creator. Ockham would not be pleased.

If the need for cause is present, then the obvious and common question becomes, who created the creator? A greater creator? Who created the greater creator? I've heard the answer that God created God. Maybe, I suppose, but as before, if God can blink into existence, the ultimate machina ex deus, why can't the universe, again obviating the need for a god. And don't try the God had the power and intelligence to do so gambit, or that he exists outside of time and space or whatever, as you'll run into the same infinite regression circularity culminating in a really big David Blaine trick. No really, who made God? Lucy's got some splainin' to do.

Next: God and the hard eight