Does the Universe need to have a cause?
"Various processes in the universe can be displayed as a succession of states in such a way that the preceding state is a cause of the succeeding one. If we look deeper at such processes, we see that there is always a dynamical law prescribing how one state should generate another state. But dynamical laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations, and if we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about a cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the Great Blueprint of God's thinking the universe. The question on ultimate causality is translated into another of Leibniz's questions: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (from his Principles of Nature and Grace). When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes."
-Professor Michael Heller
Michael Heller, 2008 Templeton Prize Laureate, speaks to this question in his book "Creative Tension" (Templeton Foundation Press, 2003):
Cosmological Singularity and the Creation of the Universe
Generalizations: From Quantum Mechanics to God
Chaos, Probability, and the Comprehensibility of the World
Q&A: 2008 Templeton Prize winner, New Scientist, March 12, 2008