Mysteriously moved keys and theistic explanations of the world

There is a chilling scene early in the blockbuster horror flick "Paranormal Activity" where Katie walks into the kitchen in the morning and finds keys on the floor. We've all been in a similar situation. Our keys (or some other personal item) is not where it should be. And so we seek for an answer. What ... or who moved my keys?

Unfortunately for Katie, she was in a horror movie and so it turned out that an angry demon moved her keys. For most of us the cause is not quite so exotic or (shiver) malevolent. But we still ask the same question.

Note the form of this question: What ... or who moved my keys? It assumes a very basic set of options: either the cause of my keys moving is an agent cause or it is a non-agent cause. An agent cause is one that is produced by an agent (an agent being a substance of a rational nature which acts with intentions, ends or purposes so as to achieve those ends). Human beings are agents that produce agent causes. Katie's boyfriend Micah is an agent and he could have been the cause of her keys falling on the floor. (Sadly he wasn't.) The demon that is tormenting her in the film is another example of an agent that acts causally. So is Neil Diamond, perhaps some higher primates, and certainly God.

A non-agent cause is any cause that is not the result of the purposeful actions of an agent. Perhaps Katie placed the keys precariously perched on the edge of the counter and gravity took over. Ahh, gravity. One of the four basic forces and a classic example of a non-agent cause in the world.

So there we are. Katie is standing there in her kitchen, looking at her keys in the middle of the floor, and pondering that first basic question: what cause brought my keys to be where they are? Was it an agent cause or a non-agent cause?

By this point you're starting to look at your watch and impatiently grumbling: what is the point of this discourse?

So let's wrap this up. Atheists, agnostics and other skeptics often delight in pilloring religious belief by pointing out how allegedly arbitrary theistic views of the world are. "You believe in the Christian God, Father, Son and Spirit? Well why not believe in pixies living in the trees too? And how about the Great Pumpkin? Ho ho ho. Silly Christians!" Blah, blah blah.

Let's set aside the details of specific religious and non-religious belief systems for the moment. The essential question we must ask is this: is belief in God in principle arbitrary? Because if it is not, then that's a game changer.

And it is not. We can blow Katie's question up so that it no longer applies merely to a set of keys on the floor but to all that exists. And then we ask the same question: is the cause of all that exists an agent or a non-agent? In short, we ask of the universe what we ask of the keys: what or who? And there ain't nothin' arbitrary about that.