For that matter, why can't anything, taken as a totality, be self-existent? It doesn't just apply to the universe and to god; it applies to everything.
God is only supposed to "exist" analogically, by the way.
BTW as CG has already pointed but no one seems to have noticed, the statement "there is nothing in this room" does not mean that there is a thing called "nothing" in the room. Good God, to what level of sophistry can one descend?
--- "farmelantj at juno.com" <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> Notice also that the question as to why there is
> something rather than nothing can also be applied to
> God. If there is a God, then why does He exist
> rather than not exist? The usual answer is that God
> is said to be a self-existent being. But one could
> ask, why cannot the universe, taken as a totality,
> likewise be self-existent (See Hume's "Dialogues
> Concerning Natural Religion"). And in any case this
> raises all the questions concerning the notion of
> Necessary Being and along with it, the problems
> associated with the ontological argument, etc.
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