+Noah Pelletier the contingency argument doesn't deal so much with existence vs. non existence. It assumes that Something (all of creation) exists. In fact whether the universe is eternal or finite doesn't matter (although science's pointing to its beginning is a helpful proof for the second premise)! The contingency argument asks whether this Something has to exist. The answer seems to be no, because there is no reason to think Creation has to exist, there is good reason to think the Universe began to exist, and we can imagine it not existing (this last proof I don't find compelling). Since the Something (all of creation) is contingent, it has to be upheld by a Necessary Being who is Unchanged/Unchangeable, and explains it's own existence. As Saint Thomas would say, "this Being, we call God!" Hope this helps. If not, Peter Kreeft has resources on the contingency argument on his website, Trent's book has a chapter on it, and Matt Fradd had a magazine article on it in Catholic Answers Magazine (sorry, can't remember the issue).

I think I understand the argument well. Guess I just can't wrap my head around the universe not existing. Just because I can say it doesn't mean I can conceptualize it. This may be a by product of me being bound by the natural world and I can't convince of the idea of nothing ever existing because that's my only experience. I just bought Trents book so I'll check it out. I still like and use the argument I just think one can make a case for saying that in fact the universe has to exist. Kreeft and Matt are my favorite I'll have to check out what they say. Thanks alot

Exactly. The alternative to a Universe that does exist is that one does not exist. That might be confusing but if I said that there were 10 universes and asked what the alternative was to number 6 existing, i'm sure you'd have no problem with saying that the alternative was that it doesn't exist. The trick is just to let go of the preconception/assumption of this 'universe' being all that there is. I'm not asserting that there is more, just that I don't believe that what we experience is all that there is as i haven't been convinced that this is all that there is. Example: I'm an ignorant human in a desert on Earth. I look around and see only sand. I assume this is all that there is. I am wrong. I could be right if the entire planet was sand but until i get off the planet and see it from all sides, i can't assert that. Same with the 'Universe'. We're in it. We assert 'this is all that is'. We might be right. We might be wrong. Too early to make that assertion. Now to modern science. It states that at one time all matter, time and space was condensed into a singularity. Nothing more. It doesn't say that there is nothing more or that there is more. The hypothesis is that the 'universe' we inhabit is expanding and thus it must be expanding from something. It must have been smaller in the past. The calculations give us a distance back in time to when that expansion started. From what? Don't know. How? Don't know. For all we know the 'universe' we inhabit is a drop of magic white paint dropped into black ink by some clumsy child in another dimension. (For the record, i do not assert or believe that is possible, nor do i say it is not possible)