The universe exists - or, as otherwise stated, the universe is " contingent " - therefore, even without detailed knowledge of different universes, we can affirm that it must be caused, and in its " Great First Cause " we recognize God.'
Still the main weight of intuitionalist theism rests upon the conception of God as First Cause.
Trace out the clue of causation to the end, says Hegel in effect, and it introduces you, not to a single first cause beyond nature, but to the totality of natural process - a substance, as it were, in which all causes inhere.
The Cosmological argument proves, with the help of the first-named intuition, that there is one great First Cause; and the Design argument shows the First Cause to be intelligent or personal.
Experience forbids our excluding organic activity from natural causes, also our excluding intelligence from purposeful (zwecktdtigen) causes; hence experience forbids our defining the fundamental force or first cause out of which living creatures arose.'
