Cosmological Argument Flashcards
Describe the C.A
- The CA infers the existence of God from claims about the entire universe
- Based on the claim that God must exist due to the argument that the universe needs a first cause due to the impossibility of imagining infinite regress
- The universe requires an explanation: an active, external creator, assumed to be God, is the explanation
- According to the CA, the first cause would be a being capable of causing other events which is not itself caused - ‘uncaused cause, unmoved mover’
- This is an a posteriori, inductive argument
Describe Aquinas’ third way/the argument from contingency
- ‘the third way is from the nature of possibility and necessity’
- everything in the world is contingent, (starts and ceases to exist and couldn’t not exist) therefore at some point nothing was in existence
- Aquinas states that everything which exists was caused to exist by something else , therefore there must be a being whose existence is necessary and not limited by time - God
Describe Aquinas’ argument from Motion
- everything in the world is moving and changing
- Nothing can move/change by itself
- there cannot be an infinite regress of things changing other things, so there must be a prime mover - God
Describe Aquinas’ argument from causation
- everything in the world has a cause and nothing is the cause of itself
- There cannot be an infinite regress of causes, therefore there has to be a first cause to begin the chain of causation - god
Summarise Copleston’s arguments in support of Aquinas’s CA
- offered the definition of god as a supreme personal being on whom the universe depends
- ‘If God does not exist, humans and human history can have no toiler purpose than the purpose they choose to give themselves ‘, essentially arguing that God is the source of moral values and without him there can be no absolute good/evil
- It is reasonable to suggest God exists and ask how the universe began as the universe is contingent and contingent things require an explanation
- A necessary being is needed to explain the universe
- He shifts from deductive (saying that there must be an explanation) to inductive (there is), and uses the analogy of police work to support this - that would be impossible without the assumption of explanations
Describe Russells’ criticisms of Copleston
- He refused to accept the definition of God as a ‘supreme personal being’, arguing the regress of causal events cannot be held responsible for the existence of everything
- Russell disagreed that God is the source of moral values - he said you can be an atheist and still hold them
- Russell argued that the idea of a necessary being is a contradiction- the only important explanation for anything consists of immediate causes. Russell said the argument for finding the cause of the existence of the universe was meaningless
- Russell attacked Copleston’s logic: arguing he makes an unjustified illogical leap from each thing being contingent to the universe itself being contingent - the universe exists as brute fct
- Aquinas’ third way commits the fallacy of composition
What is the fallacy of composition?
Fallacy of inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of part of the whole
Describe Russell’s criticisms of the C.A
- Dismissed Aquinas as a man who ‘possessed little philosophical spirit’, who before he even begins to philosophise already knows the truth as it is declared in his catholic faith - he therefore lacks reason and brute fact is a better inductive proof
- Fallacy of composition: Aquinas’ failure in reasoning makes his argument invalid. Aquinas assumes that what is true of humanity’s existence is true of the cosmos - illogical leap. It could easily have been that everything contained within the universe is contingent but the universe itself is not
- He rejects the idea of a necessary being: believes all metaphysical concepts are meaningless, as they can’t be empirically verified. God therefore cannot be logically true as he can’t be experienced through our senses
Describe the response from supporters of the CA to Russell’s criticisms
- the third way doesn’t claim that God’s existence is logically necessary - it is instead metaphysically necessary, so this objection fails
- When Aquinas talks about god as a necessity he isn’t talking about logical necessity
Describe Hume’s criticisms of the CA
- Hume was an empiricist
- Argued that humans make the mistake of allowing their imaginations to make connections between cause and effect
- Aquinas is therefore wrong to do this - he observed cause and effect in the world, and observed the existence of the universe, so combined those things together when in reality they are seperate
- It is not therefore proof of God causing the universe to exist - ‘Why must we conclude that the universe had to have had a beginning’ Hume instead suggests that the universe could simply be brute fact, and might not require a cause. the fact it begins doesn’t mean God is responsible
- The fundamental premise of the CA that every event must have a cause can neither be proved nor established - as we have no experience of the creation of the universe, we cannot speak on it, as we cannot observe the cause
- ‘Even if the CA was valid, it still would not establish what its supporters claim. if there had to be some first cause, why couldn’t this be the material world?’
Describe Kant’s arguments in support of Hume
- Agreed with Hume: the very idea that the universe must have a first cause only applies to the world of sense and experience - we haven’t experienced the cause
- ‘We shall thus save ourselves much severe and fruitless labour by not expecting from reason what is beyond its power’
- Kant didn’t accept that it was valid to extend the knowledge we possess to questions that transcend our experience
- The CA thus fails because it begins by appeal to our knowledge of the world and ends with something we have no experience of
Strengths of the CA
1) Swinburne: it is a strong inductive argument as it leads to a conclusion that it is likely that the god of classical theism is the unmoved mover. Supported by Ockham’s razor - the simplest and most likely explanation is God
2) It is a posteriori - the argument is based upon empirical evidence. it bases assumptions upon the observable world, rather than just mere definition
3) Easy to understand - everyone has experience of cause and effect therefore it is easy to apply to this
4) Scientific support - the Big Bang Theory states that the universe has a beginning and therefore it isn’t infinite
5) Nobody can argue against the existence of the universe and their experience of it - as we are able to measure time this suggests that there is a beginning to the universe as in an infinite universe we wouldn’t be able to measure time
6) It find a cause - it satisfies the need for the cause of the universe. For theists this provides understanding and support for their faith as well as meaning and purpose for their existence
Describe the Weaknesses of the Cosmological Argument
1) The fundamental premise contradicts itself - suggests infinity is impossible yet god exists is a logical contradiction, therefore the conclusion that god exists is flawed
2)Doesn’t offer any firm support for belief in the God of classical theism - thus a weak argument for atheists. fails to justify the existence of GOd, instead only hinting at the possibility of the universe having a first cause
3) Brian Davies: it doesn’t by itself establish the existence of God
4)Fallacy of Composition
5) Scientific theories weaken the CA as they suggest there is no need for God as the universe is either eternal or created by a spontaneous event
describe the status of Aquinas’ argument as a proof
- Hughes argues that God is an unobservable entity whose existence it would be impossible to deny
- Existence of the universe requires an explanation outside of itself and it is reasonable to think of this as GOd - Hughes argues this is a satisfactory explanation
- Quarks are unobservable scientific phenomena whose existence is accepted without empirical verification. God too is an unobservable entity whose existence it would be impossible to deny as the universe needs an explanation outside of itself
Describe how Aquinas’; argument could be considered unsatisfactory as a proof
- Only deductive arguments can give absolute proof
- Cosmological argument is inductive so it will never be certain
- it will never convince atheists
