Premise 1
Actually, I didn't say everything needs a cause, I said everything needs an explanation of its existence. As I wrote earlier in the post: "These things have explanations of their existences, either in self-existence or by an external cause." If a thing is self-existant, it exists of its own necessity, and must be eternal. God is like that. I also leave open the possibility that abstract objects like numbers are self-existant, although I conclude that they, though eternal, are also contingent on God.
"What caused God?" you say. This is a really bad argument and atheists should stop using it. As I said, everything needs an explanation, not a cause. God's explanation would be self-existence. Abstract objects could be self-existent, or they could be contingent on another source (here, God). Non-eternal things are necessarily externally caused.
I apologize for being imprecise in my wording. Misleading, even. When I said everything must descend from an initial cause, I did not mean to rule out that a thing may be one of those initial causes, and hence not descended from an initial cause. Also, I called them "initial causes" because they perform the action of causing, not because they were caused. Any initial cause must be self-existent.
Here we're seeing how much this argument ressembles Leibniz' Cosmological Argument, since I must essentially resort to it's premises to establish my own.
Your entire objection to Premise 1 was based on a misunderstanding. Furthermore, you asked "What caused God?" as if this question rules out God as a possible initial cause. If so, there can be no initial cause, since you could always say "What caused x?" In any case, we've already seen that the question is mistaken, and that eternal things don't necessarily need a cause, and self-existing things don't have causes.
Premise 2
Your objection to premise 2 is based on your invalid objection to premise 1.
You say that God as an initial cause is not an element of the set of possible explanations. You apparently say this because of that same question, "What caused God?" (which we've debunked) which applies to any element of the set.
I'm not sure about this next point, but I think you were also saying that including God as a possible explanation assumes God's existence. This is an absurd objection—no offense. Obviously, I must assume God is a possibility in order to try to prove his existence.
Premise 3
You think the Big Bang is a better initial cause than God. I heavily object to this.
First of all, I'd throw your own question back at you, "Who caused the Big Bang?" According to your previous reasoning, this removes the Big Bange from the set of possible explanations.
Actually, this question is valid for the Big Bang, since nobody claims that the Big Bang was a self-existing, eternal entity.
Furthermore, I resort to my point about this initial cause having all maximum or minimum values. The qualities of the Big Bang are all a bunch of arbitrary values.
Finally, scientifically, I don't believe in the Big Bang. It has too many problems.
If something had a mind, why did it choose to start causing then and there. As to why a natural event didn't do it earlier? Because there was no earlier. In a natural explanation, time and space did not exist before everything started.
Even with a mind, time & space didn't exist before everything started. So I guess this whole point goes out the window, anyway.
However, by saying something that had a mind started everything, then this object with a mind would exist. What capacity does this entity exist in if nothing existed?
I may need clarification here. Are you saying: "How did it exist without space? How did it exist without time?"? If so, I don't see any reason a metaphysical entity would require time & space to exist.
In the end, my argument, I admit, is a "bad" argument—not in the sense that it's unsound, as you'd say, but in the sense that it's pointless and hard to use. Why use it at all, if it resorts to some of the same points as Leibniz, but uses them less well?
I'll defend it still.
Apologies for mistaking cause with explanation, but I would like to point out the similarity between the two:
I would say they are slightly similar to say the least, but there is an important distinction, mainly between the abstract and practical. Because of linguistics and semantics and the topic we are discussing, this is a very important distinction. In theory, this helps you around the critical, "what caused the First Cause".
However, that is only because you turn the problem in itself instead of externally. You solve this internal problem by posing this clause:
Why? According to what? This is one of the larger holes in your argument. You assume things require an explanation in the first place. What makes it so? I believe you pose this as an "axiom" because that is how things around us occur. For example, my existence can be explained by an act between my parents.
I believe that is where your induction comes into play. "Everything in the real world requires an explanation for its existence, therefore everything requires an explanation for its existence". The problem is that we are discussing the metaphysical. You cannot rely on empirical inductions and then allude to the metaphysical.
You then bring forth God's explanation:
How do you know when something is self-existent? I don't see an explanation for that. Can you explain "exists in it's own necessity"? If it is simply something it and of itself, I can argue the following:
Note how you described it. If you meant to use an if and only if relationship, as in **something is self-existent if and only if it necessitates itself and is eternal, that would not work. My counterexample is time. Time necessitates itself and is eternal because "eternity" is defined through time. That would mean time is self-existent. I'm not sure if time explains the existence of space or whether space is also self-existent. That would require more thinking.
It seems the concept of time fits your criteria to be God. In some senses, it fits better than God itself.
In the same line, why can't the Big Bang be self-existing?
Strangely, the first part of your reply would be more damaging to your own case than to mine.
"Everything that exists requires an explanation of its existence" is an axiom if I've ever heard one.
You admit that all physical things require explanations of their existences, but not metaphysical things. Rather than attempting to refute this, I'll use it against you.
This would mean that the Big Bang (physical) requires an explanation, but God (metaphysical) does not. And if God doesn't require an explanation, then what use is it to ask what his explanation is, as if that refutes him?
The very point of my argument was to demonstrate the existence of a self-existent being.
Eternity is not defined through time, necessarily. I usually use the term in reference to that which "was" before time and that which might be "after" time—it is that which transcends time. Time cannot be self-existent, because it is not eternal. If a thing existed of the necessity of its nature, it would always exist. But time had a beginning (see here).
If you were suggesting time be the First Cause, I'd respond that time can't cause anything of itself.
Because it had a beginning and an end. It wasn't eternal. If it were necessary, it would exist even now. It doesn't.
My argument stands.