Everything that exists has a reason to exist
Summary
Quotes
“Now we need to move on to metaphysics, using the great principle, not commonly used, that nothing happens without sufficient reason; that is, nothing happens without it being possible for someone who knows enough about things to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so, and not otherwise. Once this principle has been established, the first question we are entitled to ask is: Why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Moreover, supposing that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason why they must exist in this way, and not otherwise. Now, this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cannot be found in the succession of contingent things, i.e. bodies and their representations in souls; because matter being indifferent in itself to motion and rest, and to such and such a motion, we cannot find in it the reason for motion, and still less for such a motion. And even though the present movement in matter comes from the previous one, and this one from a previous one, we are no further ahead, if we go as far as we like; for the same question always remains. Thus, it is necessary that the sufficient reason, which no longer needs another reason, be outside this sequence of contingent things, and be found in a substance which is their cause, and which is a necessary being, carrying the reason for its existence with itself; otherwise we would not yet have a sufficient reason where we could end. And this last reason for things is called God.”