cosmological argument

Question 1

INTRO

Answer 1

a posteriori, inductive and synthetic -the universe requires a cause and an explanation: God.

Question 2

Aquinas’ First Way: Motion - Summa Theologica)

Answer 2

P: The world is in motion

P: Infinite regress is impossible

P: The world therefore requires a prior cause to put it into motion

P: This prior cause must transcend the world

C: This cause is God who is the ‘unmoved mover’

Question 3

Aquinas’ Second Way: Uncaused Causer

Answer 3

P: Things in the world exist, each requiring a prior cause

P: This chain of cause and effect cannot go on to infinity (rejection of infinite regress)

P: The world must have had a first cause which itself was uncaused

P: This cause must lie outside of the universe

C: This cause is God who is the ‘uncaused causer’

Question 4

Aquinas’ Third Way: Contingency and Necessity

Answer 4

P: Everything within nature which now exists has
not always existed

P: Every object/being is dependent upon a prior, contingent, finite being

P: This cannot go on to infinity

P: There must be one being who is not contingent but which has always existed and is not dependent upon any other for its existence

P: This being must lie beyond the universe

C: This being is God who is labelled a ‘necessary being’: one who is eternal, uncaused and unique.

Question 5

Criticisms - rejection of infinite regress

Answer 5

The possibility of an infinite regress – Aquinas rejects this but with little justification
contradition - universe cannot be infinite but god can be
defenders would argue that god is the exception as his existence is necessary

Mackie provides the analogy of the
infinite number of train carriages. An infinite number of these still
requires an engine to inject energy

Kant - experience is limited, weak as applies human concepts to something we have no knowledge of

HUME AND RUSSELL - it is equally possible that the world has a beginning and that it is eternal

Question 6

Leibniz philosophy

Answer 6

P: For everything that exists there must be a sufficient reason to
account for its existence

P: The world exists, but contains no sufficient explanation within it
for this existence

P: The explanation for the world must lie outside of it

C: The sufficient explanation must be God

Question 7

criticism of Leibniz

Answer 7

Hume - ‘Dialogues on Natural Religion’
(fallacy of composition)
one can account for single instances of cause and effect, but to ascribe an overall cause to the universe is to
go beyond the available evidence

Russell - because every man has a mother, it doesn’t mean that there is a
mother of the human race.

we cant logically move from idea that everything in the world has reason, to say that the universe as a whole must have a reason

Leibniz’s argument falls prey to its own logic: if God is the sufficient explanation to the universe, what is the sufficient explanation for God?