Abstract

In his opening case , Quentin Smith has presented an ingenious argument for the claim that the universe is self caused, and hence its existence is self explanatory. He then goes on to claim that the fact that the universe is self caused, and hence self explanatory, is inconsistent with theism. His main argument is based on the assumption that each temporal part of the universe has an explanation in terms of the temporal parts existing prior to it. The fundamental temporal parts that Smith uses are instantaneous universe states. Before going into Smith's argument, we need to mention two technicalities that the impatient reader may skip.