Could the universe have come out of nothing without a cause

Daniel_Jordan for initiating this debate. In this first round I will briefly introduce my arguments. I must note that I am not a physicist or any sort of expert in the subject. I will try my best to clarify my arguments with the help of what people who actually understand physics said about the subject. With that said, let's get to the argument part: First of all, for the universe to have come out of nothing we must first establish that the universe is not infinite. This is currently widely accepted among many physicists, but I would like to give some evidence nonetheless. Some really strong evidence is the so called 'cosmic background radiation'. This is radiation that was emitted by the big bang, and it was predicted by theoretical models. In 1996 scientists, with the help of COBE (the Cosmic Background Explorer) found this radiation, proving that there was a beginning. In 2006 John C. Mather and George F. Smoot won the Nobel prize for physics for this discovery [1] So the universe had a beginning, but that doesn't show that the universe could have started without a cause. We don't know why the universe exists, so I can't give proof for a way for the universe to exist without a cause. What I can and will do however, is show that the universe could not have had a cause. If we agree that the universe has come out of nothing (see my previous paragraph) and also agree that the universe could not have a cause, the only logical conclusion is that the universe must have come out of nothing without a cause. This seems like a good point to define the word cause, to prevent annoying disagreements. I propose to use the definition from the oxford dictionary [2]: "A person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition:" From this definition and all other definitions that I could find one thing becomes clear: The cause necessarily comes before the effect. A cause can't possibly follow the effect. (If you'd like I could expand on that, but I will accept is a given fact until any evidence for the contrary is given. If we indeed accept that a cause must exist before the effect, we must also conclude that the cause for the universe existed before the universe existed. However, that is impossible, because there is no 'before the universe existed'. Einstein 's theory of special relativity shows that time and matter are not separate . They are in fact both connected in spacetime [3]. Time does not exist without matter. This theory is supported by loads of evidence from observations in space. This is because Einstein's theory predicts that we can observe distortions in space caused by massive objects. Astronomers use this theory to be able to look around massive objects, something which would be impossible if Einstein's theory was incorrect. [4] To summarize this paragraph: Time and matter are interconnected. Because there was no matter before the universe started to exist there was also no time before the universe began to exist. If no time exist the concept of 'before' is non-existent. There is nothing before the universe began to exist, which means that there can't have been a cause either. I'll try to summarize in a deductive argument: Premise 1: The universe began to exist Premise 2: There was no matter before the universe existed Premise 3: Time and matter are connected in spacetime Premise 4: A cause precedes an effect Premise 5: Preceding something requires time to exist Conclusion 1: Based on premise 2 and 3 we can conclude that time did not exist before the universe began to exist Conclusion 2: Based on premise 4 and 5 we can conclude that a cause could not exist before the universe began to exist. Conclusion 3: Based on premise 1 and conclusion 1 and 2 we can conclude that the universe must have come out of nothing without a cause. I hope that my argument made my position clear, and I am very interested in pro's reply. If there are any questions or concerns about the definitions used I'd be happy to address them, and if anything in my argument is unclear or appears unsubstantiated I'd like to hear that too. I'm looking forward to Pro's reply. Good luck! Sources : [1]: . http://science.nasa.gov... [2]: . http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... [3]: . https://einstein.stanford.edu... [4]: . http://www.space.com...