I see no reason for the use of the word ‘transcendent’ to describe such a cause. However, there is an important, illuminating distinction to be made – the uncaused cause of the contingent constituents of the Universe could either be a necessary non-temporal personal cause as Max would prefer, or a necessary non-temporal impersonal cause like that which an atheist would be agreeable to.

So, which is it?

In order to weigh these two options, I suggest that we think about what it actually means for persons to cause events intentionally in order to see if it is compatible with Max’s end-game which includes a timeless personal creator. If there is anything obvious about personal causes, it is that persons can cause events by two basic kinds of intentions;

a. Intentions to change the current state of affairs.

b. Intentions to maintain the current state of affairs.

Now, because we are talking about possible uncaused causes of the contingent constituents of the Universe, we clearly need to be thinking about the first kind of intention – an intention to change the state of affairs. This is because whatever that uncaused cause caused, it certainly was a change to the state of affairs and not simply a maintenance of it.

However, notice that an intentional act to change the state of affairs is only coherent if it takes place within a pre-existing context of time. Allow me to explain myself here.

Some agent (call him Craig) wants to make some change in his world – lets say he is currently not drinking water but he wants to.

To get to the point where Craig begins to act to bring about a state of affairs where he is drinking water, Craig would have first needed to realize that given the FACT of his current thirst and the VALUE of Craig’s preferring a state of nonthirst over thirst, he should be drinking water.

T1. A realization of a want/need/preference.

T2. A decision on the means you plan on employing to fulfill the need/preference

T3. Craig begins to act to bring about a state of affairs where he is drinking water.

T4. Craig is drinking water. His preference is fulfilled.

Notice how T1 – T4 must all be temporally distinct. This means that, prior to T4, there are 3 additional temporally distinct moments each requiring temporal passage – from this we can conclude that any Personal cause that intentionally changes states of affairs must take place within a pre-existing temporally rich context – the opposite of a timeless, personal God. And so, when these important distinctions about agent causation are added to Max’s argument in order to strengthen it, it becomes more of an argument for an impersonal necessary , timeless non-intentional being and undermines the first step in his cumulative case for the existence of the ChristianGod. Ofcourse, all of this assumes that it was a successful argument in the first place – remember, I only granted the conclusion for the sake of bringing these important points to light.