On what needs to be caused

In order to get the cosmological argument to work, you have to find a set of things that needs to be caused, while God does not need to be caused. William Lane Craig argues that we have good reason to believe that the universe had a temporal beginning, and that the Big Bang theory shows this. What that means is that the Big Bang theory, which in popular culture is presumed to be an atheistic theory, is actually embarrassing for atheism, since it agrees with the Bible that there WAS a beginning. Craig maintains what whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist, the universe has to have something other than itself cause it to exist. On the other hand, God, according to the definition, never began to exist, so he needs no cause of his existence.

Other versions of the cosmological argument maintain that whatever exists contingently, has to have a cause of its existence. The universe is the sort of thing that might or might not exist, so we have to explain why it exists. God is the sort of being who, if he does exist, has to exist, and needs no further explanation. Therefore God must exist, to explain the existence of the universe.