The Atheist's Quandary of a Simple Negative Answer to All that is the Universe, Contrary to the Universe of Large Mysteries.

A mystery is a secret revealed but never fully understood.
As a secret, the mystery presupposes being as the act to be of the thing containing the mystery.

The universe is a mystery that contains many interrelated physical and spiritual mysteries.

Behind the mystery is an ultimate reality that accounts for all the mysteries of the universe, which is itself either being or non-being.

If being, then theism is true, for theism proposes that God is being as the actualiser of all creatures.

God is then the principal cause and ultimate mystery that causes all other mysteries within the universe.

If non-being, then atheism is true.

If non-being, then a negation of being is the principal cause of all physical and spiritual mysteries in the universe.

The atheist's negation is then the equivalent to the principal being of theism.

But the negation is itself a negative answer to the question concerning the ultimate cause and principle of all mysteries of the universe.

The negation is itself a quandary, for the answer in the negative does not provide any explanatory value for all of the mysteries and union of mysteries within the universe.

Yet the negative answer is made in the face of a multitude of perplexing problems and theists are supposed to accept such an answer as satisfactory, or tolerated as a possible answer when in fact the answer provides no solution and causes a multitude of problems.

Some of the problems caused by the negative answer are -

1) Non-being is not a mystery, but only the negation of being. The non-mystery does not account for a mystery, let alone a multitude of mysteries. For only a cause with the power proportionate to the mystery can be the real cause of the mystery. As the mysteries within the universe are immense, the negation of being provides no cause to account for the mysteries.

2) Non-being is not an answer to account for any cause at all. For non-being is only a negation and a cause is not ever a negation but that which has being. The negative answer does not provide an adequate response to the question of the ultimate cause of the universe.

3) Non-being is non-ontological, and yet ontology forms the basis as the act to be of all things physical and substantial. Non-being is never the basis for any body, and therefore offers no explanatory value for the existence of any body, let alone any physical mystery.

As these, and many other problems and questions arise from the atheist's answer that non-being is the principal and ultimate cause of all the mysteries within the universe, the atheist has a quandary over the simple negative answer contrary to the universe of large mysteries. The answer is so simple, yet the unresolved quandary is very great.