Cosmological Argument Flashcards
What does a posteriori mean?
Knowledge from experience
What’s an inductive argument?
an assertion that uses observations to make a broader generalization.
by nature, they have some degree of uncertainty.
All the tigers I saw on holiday were orange. Therefore all tigers are orange
What is meant by the term ‘the god of classical theism’
is the term applied to an old concept of God which states that he is the ultimate cause of all things
Is infinite or unlimited in not depending on other things
omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, just ect.
Who was aquinas influenced by?
Aristotle
How many ways did Aquinas have for proving God’s existence?
Five
How many of aquinas 5 ways were the cosmological argument?
Aquinas’s first three arguments—from motion, from causation, and from contingency
List aquinas 5 ways
1 Motion.
2 Efficient Cause.
3 Possibility and Necessity.
4 Gradation.
5 Design
(Most Evil People Get Doomed)
What’s an efficient cause?
The reason something occurs
the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter acting on wood
What is infinite regress?
Never ending
What is a contingent being?
an object that is dependent on something else for its existence
What is a necessary being?
a being that possesses necessary existence.
What is the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
The cosmological argument is an attempt to prove the existence of God by the fact that things exist.
i) Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence,
(ii) The universe began to exist, and
(iii) Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
Which Muslim scholar developed the kalam cosmological argument
Al-Ghazali.
He argued that is everything had a cause, there would be an infinite chain going back into the past.
However if it were infinite, that would mean we would never reach this point in the chain, so the universe must be created
What are actual infinites?
completed and definite, and consists of infinitely many elements.
The actual infinite is not a process in time; it is an infinity that exists wholly at one time.
What are potential infinites?
there is no known point at which the collection or sequence ends. Has the potential to never end
