"There are consequently two possibilities it seems to me: mysterious matter has always existed and spontaneously blows up on occasion; or there is some sort of animating force in the universe – let’s call it “God” for the sake of argument – that got the metaphorical ball rolling. I can’t work out which of these two possibilities seems the more unlikely, which is why I’m an agnostic."
There is an intriguing third possibility: the start of the universe didn't need a cause.
At the subatomic level, it appears that our intuition goes out the window. If the Big Bang started from sub-atomic origins, just maybe no cause is required.
Reference:
Quantum causal relations: A causes B causes A
Extract: A deeply rooted concept in everyday life is causality; the idea that events in the present are caused by events in the past and, in turn, act as causes for what happens in the future. Physicists from the University of Vienna and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles have shown that in quantum mechanics it is possible to conceive situations in which a single event can be both, a cause and an effect of another one.
