Now, it is imposssible to conceive of a universe in which nothing exists except receivers of existence. If nothing exists other than receivers of existence, how does anything exist at all?
That's a good question...
We are driven to see that everything in our experience, all the contingent beings, could not exist at all unless there is also a being which differs from them by possessing existence in its own right. It does not have to receive existence; it simply has existence. It is not contingent: it simply is. That being is God.
And that's not much of an answer. Why a non-contingent God, instead of a non-contingent Big Bang?
The question remains, as it does for any contingent being: why does He exist, what accounts for His existence?
And while we're at it, what accounts for "His" gender?
The reason for His existence, since it is not in anything else, must be in Himself. There is something in His nature that commands existence. God's nature is to exist. God is existence.
"The reason for the Big Bang's existence, since it is not in anything else, must be in it itself. There is something in its nature that commands existence. The Big Bang's nature is to exist. The Big Bang is existence."
What makes your paragraph any more plausible than mine?
Thus we have arrived at the name that God revealed to Moses: I AM. The Existent One.
Yes... by assuming our conclusion.
Philosophy, assured of correctness by the inerrant witness of Divine Revelation,
Okay, stop right there.
What?
Thank you, carry on...
...asks the important questions. The problem with science is that it thinks that its questions are the ultimate questions.
Science does not think. I imagine the thoughts of individual scientists on the subject would vary.
They are good questions, but they need to be kept in their proper place. That is all.
I would say the same for the "ultimate" questions, since I believe they are presently (and perhaps ultimately) unknowable. Focus on them for two long, and you may find yourself seeing answers that aren't there.