1.2 Cosmological Argument

Question 1

Necessary truth

Answer 1

A proposition that cannot be false under any circumstances

Question 2

Scholasticism

Answer 2

A system of philosophy and theology taught in medieval universities, based on Aristotle and the teaching of Church Fathers.

Question 3

Necessary being

Answer 3

A being who is not dependant on any other being for existence.

Question 4

Infinite regress

Answer 4

Going backwards to infinity without end.

Question 5

Fallacy of composition

Answer 5

Where a conclusion about the whole is based on something that is true about its part: for example, ‘The diamond in this ring cannot be broken, therefore the whole ring cannot be broken’.

Question 6

Aquinas Quote

Answer 6

‘It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.’

Question 7

Hume Quote

Answer 7

‘It seems absurd to inquire for a general cause or a first author’

Question 8

The cosmological argument introduction

Answer 8

• The cosmological argument has taken many varied forms (some inductive and some deductive) but at the heart of the argument is the notion that everything we experience in the world is contingent.
• Contingent things (unlike necessary truths) do not contain within themselves the reason for their own existence, but depend on external causes.
• Most cosmological arguments are a posteriori because they depend on empirical evidence about the universe.

Question 9

Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason (total explanation)

Answer 9

• Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician.
• Nothing takes place without a sufficient reason for it to take place.
• Since everything in the world is contingent, in order to have a total explanation we have to get back to something which is not contingent and does not depend on anything else for its existence.
• This sufficient reason is located outside the world.
• If everything that exists has a cause, the universe must also have a cause and that cause is God.

Question 10

The Kalam Argument

Answer 10

P1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause
P2 The universe began to exist
P3 Therefore, the universe has a cause
P4 If the universe has a cause of its existence it must be God
C God exists

Question 11

The Kalam Argument - Background

Answer 11

• Origins in medieval Islamic scholasticism, ideas traced back to al-Ghazali
• Deductive argument because it argues from the general to the particular. If the premises are true they guarantee the conclusion.
• Argues from the existence of universe to the existence of God.
• There must be a self causing necessary being.

Question 12

Aristotle’s reductio ad absurdum argument in METAPYSICS (assuming the opposite of what your trying to prove and then demonstrating the absurd consequences that follow).

Answer 12

Considered two competing claims:
1. The universe has an ultimate cause
2. The universe has no ultimate cause.
Concluded that claim 1 must be true: there is an ultimate cause of the universe which set the chain in motion but which, itself, has no cause.

Question 13

Aristotle’s argument in premises

Answer 13

P1 The universe has no ultimate cause so the chain of cause and effect has no beginning.
P2 If this is the case then nothing caused the chain
P3 If nothing caused the chain then there would be no chain
P4 But there is a chain of cause and effect
C Therefore the original assumption is false.
C Therefore there is an ultimate cause which itself has no cause.

Question 14

Problem’s for the Kalam Argument

Answer 14

• The universe could have an infinite past which never reaches a first cause.
• The Kalam argument supposes a cause comes into existence without a cause. How do we account for the fact that the universe exists at all? What if science simply hasn’t discovered it. The Big Bang Theory seems to support the argument for a first cause at the root of the universe.

Question 15

Aquinas in his Summa Theologica

Answer 15

• Offered five ways of demonstrating God’s existence/
• Inductive arguments and use a type of reductio ad absurdum.
• FIRST and SECOND ways are CASUAL ARGUMENTS, explain that motion and causation are dependant on a higher power which is itself uncaused.
• THIRD WAY based on contingency of the universe & seeks to prove the universe is dependant on God.
• Argues that an infinite regress is not possible.

Question 16

The first way: Motion

Answer 16

Argues that an object moves only when an external force is applied to it. These movements cannot go back to infinity in an infinite regress of movers; there must’ve been a primer which itself was unmoved.

This ‘unmoved mover’ began the movement in everything without being moved itself.

Question 17

The second way: causation

Answer 17

Aquinas identifies a series of causes and effects in universe and observes nothing could cause itself as this would mean it would have had to exist before it existed and that is logically impossible.

Aquinas rejects an infinite regress of causes and argues that there must have been a first cause which started the chain of causes and that this first cause is God.

Question 18

The third way: contingency

Answer 18

If all beings are contingent in the world then at one time nothing would’ve existed because there would have been a time before the contingent beings came into existence.
Everything contingent has a cause.
There must be a necessary being who is not dependant on any other being for its existence.
This being is who everyone calls ‘God’.

Question 19

Strengths of Aquinas

Answer 19

1.He does not attempt to demonstrate a uniquely Christian God or a ‘perfect God’, by not arguing for this he makes his argument simpler and move easy to prove.

2. Our observations of the world and universe support Aquinas’ arguments - inductive arguments are based on probability.
3. Cosmological arguments seem supported by inductive scientific arguments like the Big Bang Theory, which backs up the idea that the universe had a beginning.
4. Instead of an infinite regress of non-self explanatory causes, its much simpler to suppose that the universe depends for its existence on God - who depends on nothing outside of himself for his existence.

Question 20

Weaknesses of Aquinas

Answer 20

1. Inductive arguments are only probable so do not provide the certainty of God’s existence that religous faith looks for.
2. There could be an endless series of causes there doesn’t have to be a prime mover.
3. Ideas surrounding contingency require further explanation which can only be found outside the series in something that is self explanatory. It might be preferable to conclude that God, the infinite and self explanatory being - is the first cause of the universe. What was God doing before he created the universe? We are left with an infinite regress of God actively choosing not to create the universe.

Question 21

Hume on Cosmological arguments

Answer 21

1 We have no direct experience of the creation of the universe and therefore we cannot speak meaningfully about it.

2 Asks whether anything that existed from eternity could have a cause as that implies a priority in time.

3 Criticises sufficient reason - those are looking for an explanation that cannot be found.

4 Makes an attack on Aquinas called the fallacy of composition. Hume argues it is a fallacy to think that because there is some attribute common to each part of a group then this property must apply to the group as a whole.

Question 22

Kant on Cosmological arguments

Answer 22

1 Because our knowledge of the world is limited to the phenomenal world of space and time it is not possible to speculate on what may or may not exist independently of space and time.

2 Saying ‘all black cats are black’ is a necessary proposition because to deny it it creates a contradiction. The statement ‘God exists’ is not a self-evident proposition. If the concept of necessity cannot be applied to God, then Aquinas’ argument is undermined.

Question 23

Further argument: Copleston

Answer 23

The question of the cause of the universe is meaningless; the universe is a brute fact which does not require a complete explanation