Cosmological Argument Flashcards
1
Q
Aquinas First Way
A
- The First Way
- This is the argument from motion, taken directly from Aristotle:
- All moving things have a source of motion.
- There must have been some original source of motion, unmoved by anything else.
- This we call God, the ‘unmoved mover’.
2
Q
Aquinas First Way
A
- The First Way
- This is the argument from motion, taken directly from Aristotle:
- All moving things have a source of motion.
- There must have been some original source of motion, unmoved by anything else.
- This we call God, the ‘unmoved mover’.
3
Q
Aquinas Second Way
A
- The Second Way
- This is the argument from causality:
- Everything which exists must have a cause of its existence.
- There cannot be an infinite chain of causes stretching back into the past.
- There must have been some first cause uncaused by anything else.
- This we call God, the ‘uncaused cause’.
4
Q
Aquinas Third Way
A
- The Third Way
- This is the argument from contingency.
- Everything which exists is dependent on something else for its existence and might at some stage not exist (it is contingent).
- At one stage, everything did not exist.
- There must be some thing dependent on nothing else for its existence, the source of all contingent things.
- This we call God, who must exist.
5
Q
Copleston’s Argument
A
- Copleston argued from contingency relied on Liebniz’s principle of sufficient reason arguing that this could not be found within the collection of contingent beings found in the universe.
- Liebniz asked why there is something rather than nothing – there needs to be ‘sufficient reason’ why something is the case.
- Sufficient reason refers to a total explanation as to how the universe as a whole is in existence
6
Q
Russell’s Response
A
- Russell questioned the need for a sufficient reason, and whether such was possible anyway.
- He questioned if it possible to go from contingent causes within the universe to a necessary sufficient and external reason.
- Russell maintained that the world ‘just is’ – it is a brute fact.
7
Q
Hume’s Critiques
A
- Hume questioned why the world would need a first cause or a beginning – why is infinite regress (a never-ending sequence of cause and effect) impossible?
- Hume also challenged our understanding of cause and effect – just as event a follows event b does not guarantee that event a is the cause of event b – the fallacy of the affirmation of the consequent. We put cause and effect together by habit rather than fact.