the cause comes before the effect.
Let me give you a summary of my take on this:
In terms of physics, there is no such thing as a true cause and effect. Everything happening on a material level is analogous to a trajectory, like a satellite travelling around the earth. The moon does not cause tides so much as it is a component in a series of interrelated events that include great shifts in the oceans’ waters. What we call cause and effect are events that follow one another in time. I’m not going to get into what quantum mechanics and relativity teach us about the reality of time. Suffice to say that past, present and future happenings occur in four-dimensional space-time, some in which we have participated, that which is occuring right here and now, and some that we have not yet reached. This is because matter acts predictably; it has a structure that being what it is, is invariant. Matter of course, is brought into existence by God, so that it is ultimately all happening in accordance to His will, and its course can be altered should He will to do so.
In the midst of all this physical world, determined by God, we have ourselves as causal agents. We are sort of gods in that way, which is why we easily confuse ourselves with being God. We think of there being cause and effect because we cause things to happen. In science we speak of dependent and independent variables, the former being what results and the latter that which we manipulate. We can discern the laws of nature, predict what will happen as a result of our actions. When we lose sight of what we are and what we are doing, we think there exists cause and effect, when in fact all we are doing is determining where we can intervene to make something happen.
The past-present-future in which we dwell during the entire course of our existence is actually the human spirit as a relational being consisting of a knower, a knowing and a known. We are not merely passive recipients of perceptions and knowledge, but we also can act on that which is other to the actor or self. As causal agents we change ourselves-in-the-world in the moment; once done, an action cannot be undone, and the past is fixed. What is future to the moment in which everything happens depends on a myriad of factors including the ripples of our actions. The future hasn’t happened because we have not yet acted on what life has brought us; it is there however in eternity, including those actions which we have yet to perform. It should be pointed out that this does not negate our basic freedom to act as we will at any point in our lives until the very last.
All that exists does so because it is brought into being by God, transcendent to time and space - in every moment and encompassing all moments, from the beginning to the end. Ontologically the cause comes “before” the effect, but as all time and space are one in Him, temporally speaking this is not necessarily the case. The sacrifice of the Innocent Lamb happened at the foundations of the earth, simultaneously with, preceding, and also consequent to our original sin in the garden at our creation.
