First Cause

American  

noun

Theology.

1. God.

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first cause British  

noun

1. a source or cause of something

2. (often capitals) (esp in philosophy) God considered as the uncaused creator of all beings apart from himself

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Etymology

Origin of First Cause

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

This reverts to the problem of the First Cause, which is the uncaused cause that gave rise to all other causes.

From Scientific American • Mar. 4, 2018

"Every form of living Christianity," he says, "is pantheistic in that it is bound to envisage everything that exists as having its being in the great First Cause of all being."

From Time Magazine Archive

Aquinas reasoned that each effect must have a cause and that an endless chain must proceed back to a primordial First Cause or Prime Mover.

From Time Magazine Archive

Barth insists that natural theology can only understand God as a First Cause or a Great Designer or some similar abstract idea that in reality is a product of man's own thinking processes.

From Time Magazine Archive

When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.

From Charles Darwin: His Life in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters by Darwin, Charles