And the child asked:

Q: Where did this rock come from?

A: I chipped it off the big boulder, at the center of the village.

Q: Where did the boulder come from?

A: It probably rolled off the huge mountain that towers over our village.

Q: Where did the mountain come from?

A: The same place as all stone: it is the bones of Ymir, the primordial giant.

Q: Where did the primordial giant, Ymir, come from?

A: From the great abyss, Ginnungagap.

Q: Where did the great abyss, Ginnungagap, come from?

A: Never ask that question.

Consider the seeming paradox of the First Cause. Science has traced events back to the Big Bang, but why did the Big Bang happen? It’s all well and good to say that the zero of time begins at the Big Bang—that there is nothing before the Big Bang in the ordinary flow of minutes and hours. But saying this presumes our physical law, which itself appears highly structured; it calls out for explanation. Where did the physical laws come from? You could say that we’re all a computer simulation, but then the computer simulation is running on some other world’s laws of physics—where did those laws of physics come from?

At this point, some people say, “God!”

What could possibly make anyone, even a highly religious person, think this even helped answer the paradox of the First Cause? Why wouldn’t you automatically ask, “Where did God come from?” Saying “God is uncaused” or “God created Himself” leaves us in exactly the same position as “Time began with the Big Bang.” We just ask why the whole metasystem exists in the first place, or why some events but not others are allowed to be uncaused.

My purpose here is not to discuss the seeming paradox of the First Cause, but to ask why anyone would think “God!” could resolve the paradox. Saying “God!” is a way of belonging to a tribe, which gives people a motive to say it as often as possible—some people even say it for questions like “Why did this hurricane strike New Orleans?” Even so, you’d hope people would notice that on the particular puzzle of the First Cause, saying “God!” doesn’t help. It doesn’t make the paradox seem any less paradoxical even if true. How could anyone not notice this?

Jonathan Wallace suggested that “God!” functions as a semantic stopsign—that it isn’t a propositional assertion, so much as a cognitive traffic signal: do not think past this point.¹ Saying “God!” doesn’t so much resolve the paradox, as put...

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