Cosmo Mocks Cards

Question 1

(Key feature) Causation

Answer 1

• attempt to show universe has a cause
• Hume: no repeated observation (C and E)
• Kant: arises in spatio-temporal world, confined to observable world (‘has no meaning whatsoever’)
• Mill: criticises uncaused first cause

Question 2

(Key feature) A posteriori

Answer 2

• based on observation + experience

- all experience causation

Question 3

(Key feature) Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason

Answer 3

• ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ (of nothing, nothing comes)
• ‘Nothing will come of nothing’ (Shakespeare)
• to say the universe has a cause rejects this principle, means something came from nothing

Question 4

(Key feature) Hinges on one fact

Answer 4

• Sheer existence of the universe

- desire to ask the question- ‘why is there a universe?’

Question 5

(Key feature) Argument from contingency

Answer 5

• contingent=need not have occurred
• events in universe= contingent
• only occurs if caused to occur= chain of causes
• must have started by a necessary being/event
• must be God
• does not hinge on universe having a beginning

Question 6

(Key feature) Kalam

Answer 6

• islamic scholars, C13
• beginning=cause, universe= cause
• must be distinct from effect
• non-physical identity

Question 7

(Key feature) Chain of Causes

Answer 7

• caused by previous event, which also caused
• must originally have been 1st cause
• no uncaused first cause= infinite regress

Question 8

(Key feature) Question of Time

Answer 8

• infinitude has already occurred and is being added to
• Aquinas: rejects infinite history- if there was no first cause how did the sequence occur at all
• ‘big bang theory’ (hot ball of neutrons explodes) suggests beginning of universe [proof: radiation, amount of elements account to calculations, no other way to account for helium]
• Hawking’s space-time curvature: finite in size, no beginning or end, self contained “what place, then, for a creator”

Question 9

(Key feature) Question of Contingency

Answer 9

universe exists contingently
necessity and contingency connection between subject and predicate (triangle) relation of ideas
Hume: existential statements are synthetic
Kant: existence is not a predicate (performs a function), doesn’t change description or definition
Frege: x doesn’t have existence, at least one thing corresponds to the concept of x

Question 10

(Strength) Causation

Answer 10

• Leibniz (pre H, K+ M) principle of sufficient reason: ex nihilo nihil fit
• science always believes in a cause

Question 11

(Strength) Scientific theories

Answer 11

BIG BANG
- suggest beginning
- dense, hot, conc. neutrons ‘primeval nucleus’ -
exploded
neutrons began to clump together forming the first ‘heavy hydrogen’ nuclei
- evidence: (1948) traces of radiation from the initial explosion (1965) this radiation was shown to exist, Calcs of relative amounts of elements in the universe based on the theory accord well with observations in the universe,
no other way of accounting for inordinate amounts of helium in the universe
QUASARS
- opposes Hawking’s Space time curvature
- thought to represent past explosions
- implies ‘big bang’ beginning

Question 12

(Strength) Philosophers

Answer 12

COPLESTONE
- rejected idea of infinite regress: contingent beings could not have brought about their own existence
- logical to look outside universe for its cause
- Copleston answer to Russel: an adequate explanation is one which cannot be argued against. God is a complete explanation
SWINBURNE
-considered God the simplest explanation
- ‘there could in this respect be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only one cause…‘

Question 13

(Weakness) Causation

Answer 13

• HUME:
  You can only infer a causal connection of an event type C leading to an event type E after repeated observation, haven’t repeatedly seen universes created, ∴against a posteriori reasoning
• KANT:
  Similar experiential objection: talking of causation outside of spatio-temporal world of existence has “no meaning whatsoever” (uncaused first cause would have to already be within universe)
• MILL: (critique of chain of causes argument)
  experience shows all events being caused by an antecedent one, so uncaused (First) cause can’t be hypothesised or proved a posteriori

Question 14

(Weakness) Scientific theories

Answer 14

Model of space-time curvature: Stephen Hawking
- Alternative radical PROPOSAL [‘can’t be deduced from another principle’]
- 4 dimensions of space and time form a ‘surface’ which is finite in size and has no beginning or end, similar to the surface of a sphere
with quantum mechanics can explain all complex structures of universe

Question 15

(Philosophers Support) Aquinas

Answer 15

• rejection of infinite regress (infinite chain of contingent beings could only ever consist of contingent beings, which would never be able to bring itself into existence)
• Aquinas and the Five Ways: (most famous Christian application of the argument)
  ways he believed ‘demonstrated the existence of God, unlikely an atheist would be convinced by them
• constant regression until beginning (God) is reached
• C13 Xian thinker “if no beginning/First cause then there can be no subsequent events”

Question 16

(Philosophers Support) Leibniz

Answer 16

• predates Hume, Kant & Mill
• “Principle sufficient reason”:
• “ex nihilo, nihilo fit”

Question 17

(Philosophers Support) Copleston

Answer 17

• Copleston and Russell radio debate 1947
• Russel doubted whether it was meaningful, let alone important, to argue the case for a cause of the universe, and, having established that for him it was ‘a question that has no meaning’, ‘What do you say- shall we pass on to some other issue?’
• For Copleston this was an unsatisfactory response and he later responded “if one refuses even to sit down at the chessboard and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated.’
• Copleston supported Aquinas’ rejection of infinite regress

Question 18

(Philosophers Support) Scientists- big bang

Answer 18

• Support big bang, shows the believe in a cause

- could argue that the big bang itself could’ve been caused and this cause could still be God.

Question 19

(Philosophers Against) Hume

Answer 19

• Hume’s challenges to the cosmological argument
  >Why presume the need for a cause?
  >Why look for the explanation for the whole?
  >Is the concept of a necessary being meaningful?
• Hume argued that the notion of a necessary being is an inconsistent one because there is no being the non-existence of which is inconceivable. Even if there was such a being, why should it be God? Even if were reasonable to postulate a necessary being, why should it be a God of classical theism?
• Hume further observes that the argument begins with a concept familiar to us, the universe, but claims to be able to reach conclusions about things that are outside our experience.
• You can only infer a causal connection of an event type C leading to an event type E after repeated observation, haven’t repeatedly seen universes created, ∴against a posteriori reasoning
  discuss logical necessity as relation between concepts
  Maybe this isn’t only type of necessity; that a thing can be ‘necessary’ (e.g. could neither be other than it is, nor not be at all) without being logically necessary

Question 20

(Philosophers Against) Kant

Answer 20

• Similar experiential objection: talking of causation outside of spatio-temporal world of existence has “no meaning whatsoever” (uncaused first cause would have to already be within universe)
• existence cannot be necessary: necessity is relation between subject and predicate but EXISTENCE IS NOT A PREDICATE (the word just performs a function). ∴to say that x exists, is to say there is a thing which corresponds to my concept of x. If existence is a predicate, then an existing thing (eg. Horse) can never correspond precisely with the concept of it (e.g. the concept of a horse) – for the concept does not have the property of existence.
• Maybe this isn’t only type of necessity; that a thing can be ‘necessary’ (e.g. could neither be other than it is, nor not be at all) without being logically necessary
  e. g. Aristotle and Aquinas refer to eternal truths as ‘necessary’
• Kant talks of the necessity of laws and nature as a ‘factual necessity’

Question 21

(Philosophers Against) Mill

Answer 21

• (critique of chain of causes argument)
  experience shows all events being caused by an antecedent one, so uncaused (First) cause can’t be hypothesised or proved a posteriori

Question 22

(Philosophers Against) Russell

Answer 22

• radio debate 1947
  Russel doubted whether it was meaningful, let alone important, to argue the case for a cause of the universe, and, having established that for him it was ‘a question that has no meaning’, ‘What do you say- shall we pass on to some other issue?’
• the notion of a necessary being is an inconsistent one because there is no being the non-existence of which is inconceivable. Even if there was such a being, why should it be God? Even if were reasonable to postulate a necessary being, why should it be a God of classical theism?

Question 23

(Philosophers Against) Aristotle

Answer 23

• Aristotle Prime/unmoved Mover, Argument : God initiated the universe but then left it to its own devices
• Aristotle and Aquinas refer to eternal truths as ‘necessary’

Question 24

(Philosophers Against) Stephen Hawking

Answer 24

• Model of space-time curvature

Question 25

(Philosophers Against) Frege

Answer 25

• (Believed existence was a 2nd order predicate)
  (to him, to say that x exists is to say ‘x exists’ means not that x has the property of existence, but that there is at least one thing that corresponds to the concept x.
  e.g. saying 3 horses in a field – number of horses is a second order predicate because it doesn’t tell you anything about the horses.
• discuss logical necessity as relation between concepts
  Maybe this isn’t only type of necessity; that a thing can be ‘necessary’ (e.g. could neither be other than it is, nor not be at all) without being logically necessary

Question 26

(Philosophers Against) John Hick

Answer 26

• God’s existence is one of ASEITY (i.e. God is independent of all that is not God – to exist independently of any conditions).
  ∴God’s existence can be understood as necessary in contrast with contingent (i.e. superfluous, dependent) existence of the universe and all of its contents.

Question 27

(Philosophers Support) Swinburne

Answer 27

• Swinburne: “it is extraordinary that there should exist anything at all. Surely the most natural state of affairs is simply nothing: no universe, no God, nothing. There is something. And many things”

Question 28

Is a compelling argument…

Answer 28

• God is the ultimate complete, adequate explanation for the universe, and
  -SALVAGE ARGUMENT OF CONTINGENCY FROM THE CRITICS DE RE NECESSARY, aseity latin self-generation
• God’s necessary existence is established de re. The very nature of things in the universe demands that God exists necessarily and not contingently. Copleston defines such a being as one that must, and cannot not, exist.
• Provides a way of explaining the universe
• (Classic Theological Idea of God: self-dependent, omnipotent, incorruptible, indestructible
  ∴would appear God simply IS and cannot NOT be.
  I.e. no event could have brought God into existence nor cause God to cease to exist
  (because either would limit the power of God)
• However it may be argued that the understanding of God as a creator is part of the traditional understanding and does not contradict any of the other traditional divine attributes; if you can see a long grey trunk protruding from the bushes, there is probably an elephant attached.
  BUT IS COMPELLING BECAUSE in the sense that it helps to affirm the theist

Question 29

Isn’t a compelling argument..

Answer 29

• The argument does not demand the answer to be the God of classical theism. Even if it it’s the best explanation for the origin of the universe, it DOESN’T PROVE that God exists.
• Causation doesn’t necessarily involve creation, rather an ongoing, personal process that requires the continual activity of God –rather suggests a Prime Mover.
• To arrive at the existence of God from the premises of the cosmological argument involves an inductive (inferential) leap, which takes us further than the premises legitimately allow us to go
• Provides a way of explaining the universe, although it cannot be guaranteed to be the correct one.
• Ultimately, the argument cannot explain God, only postulate God as an explanation, and if we are not satisfied with the idea of God as a being who himself requires no explanation, the argument will fail.
• cosmological arguments do not lead to the traditional Western understanding of God as an omnipotent personal moral authority