"Something from nothing is impossible because 'nothing' has no properties." Then how did God make something out of nothing? Was it a miracle (a religious synonym for ignorance) or can you actually explain that which you claim to explain? Secondly, if nothing has no properties then there is no barrier to the arising of something. Empty space does not block the movement of the planets. Perhaps the something we now observe was somewhere else, or in a different form. How did it get here? What made it change? I don't know and neither do you. "If the universe began, something beyond it had to cause it" You have no proof of this. It merely seems sensible to you. "and that cause has to be eternal by definition" You have no proof of this, and it's not hard at all to imagine a counter-example: Universe A begets Universe B begets Universe C. "an eternal being can will to create without being bound by time" Can you prove that or is this just another opinion? Belief in God is "following the evidence to the kind of cause that fits the effect we see". Except that no evidence points to a Jewish Zombie Space Wizard, or a Greek Lightning swan-fucker (etc) as the Creator. I am doubtful that you can claim the universe was caused, but even if you could you cannot possibly have proof that it was a timeless consciousness outside of the universe, because proof is a concept that describes things in this universe and their relation to each other. You said yourself "nothing has no properties" so there is nothing we can prove about it. You cannot prove that "nothing" is (or contains) a timeless conciousness.