So my question is about how to deal with atheist critics and their responses.
It would help if you can tell us what their critical responses are and what arguments they are responding to. But here is an argument just for fun.
1. Ultimately there are two types of causality. One is a natural cause and the other is an intelligent cause.
2. There has to be a reason or cause of why there is something rather than absolutely nothing at all.
3. Absolutely nothing produces nothing because absolutely nothing is the complete absence of reality.
4. There is something, so it cannot be possible that there was ever absolutely nothing.
5. The origin of everything cannot be a being that begins to exist. Also there cannot be a state of affairs where there are only beings that begin to exist since out of nothing comes nothing and thus there is nowhere that these beings can ultimately get existence from.
6. The reason or cause for why there is something rather than nothing has to be the result of something that is itself the source of all possible realities, and also it’s nature has to be a necessary act of existence since it cannot be a being that can possibly cease to exist or begin to exist. There has to be a reality that has existed forever and cannot possibly cease to exist.
In other-words it has to be a reality that exists because it is it’s nature to exist.
7. This necessary reality cannot be a being that in any way potentially exists, since everything that it is is necessarily real and cannot not be real. It cannot have potential states, emergent properties, or new realities in it’s nature since none of that would be a part of what it necessarily is.
8. This necessary existence cannot be a being that changes since change is itself an actualization of potential.
9. It is often said by atheists that physical reality is all there is, but physical reality changes, it has emergent properties, it has potential states, its parts begin to exist. Thus it’s nature, or the collection of beings we refer to as physical, cannot be a necessary act of existence.
10. Since physical reality is not a necessary act of existence, we can say that necessary reality does not have a physical nature. It is not made up of space and time or energy or matter. And we can also say that physical reality is dependent for its existence on this necessary non-physical reality.
11. Since necessary reality is not physical, we cannot infer natural causes since that would only be a suitable explanation for physical phenomenon. Since there are ultimately only 2 types of cause, one being natural, and the other being intelligent, we have no choice but to infer a non-physical intelligent cause since physical effects cannot naturally arise from a part of that which is necessarily real, and that which is necessarily real cannot change into something physical or something that is not necessary.
To be continued…