Consider a ball suspended by a thread. Two forces act on
it at rest: W=mg and T. The net force is zero, there is no
acceleration. Now release the thread. The force T becomes
zero and the ball starts accelerating. The force W=mg existed
before, but now it becomes Fnet. That is why "force is a
cause of a", not the other way around. (To emphasize this
I say that g is not the acceleration, it is the "strength" of our
gravitational attraction expressed in N/kg. A gravitational
equivalence of E, if you prefer.)
Ludwik Kowalski