Cosmological Argument Flashcards
Outline the premises of the Kalam Argument
- Things that begin to exist has a cause
- The universe began to exist
- The universe has a cause
Outline a counter-argument and response for the 1st premise of the Kalam Argument?
Counter Argument:
-WLC; electrons cause pass in and out of existence at any point without explanation
Response:
-Einstein; we do not have adequate knowledge of physics
Outline a counter-argument and response for the 2nd premise of the Kalam Argument?
Counter Argument:
-The universe could have been around forever
Response:
-Hilbert’s Hotel
Outline a counter-argument and response for the 3rd premise of the Kalam Argument?
Counter Argument:
-Quentin Smith; universe could have caused itself
Response:
-The cause MUST have some characteristics of God
Explain Aquinas’ First Way
The way from motion:
- Everything that exists has the potential to become something else, but it needs an external force to do so (e.g. wood + fire = ash)
- Everything that ‘moves’ [physically moves/quality/quantity] has the potential to be moved, all it needs is an outside force
Explain Aquinas’ Second Way
The way of causation:
- Nothing can cause itself
- If something is not caused then it would not exist as nothing would created it
Explain Aquinas’ Third Way
The way of contingency:
- The universe existing is not necessary, thus it is contingent
- Contingent things must have been brought into existence by something necessary to start the chain of all existence
Therefore, God is the necessary being that caused the universe
Outline two objections and responses for Aquinas’ First and Second Way (include responses)
- God may have started the universe, but after that everything was caused by something else, so after the first cause he is unneeded
- In response, God must also sustain the universe. Plus he is distinct from the universe as he created it, and eternal - Aquinas states that nothing can cause itself. Yet he also states that God is uncaused
- In response, the point of the argument that for everything to always have a cause, one thing must not
Explain Bertrand Russell’s criticisms of the Cosmological Argument (include responses)
-Russell says we should accept that the universe is there, and that’s all there is to it
- He also says that the argument commits a ‘fallacy of composition’, which means to apply what is true for parts of something to the whole. In other words, just because everything in the universe has a cause does not mean the universe itself has a cause
- In response, there are essential similarities between part and the whole of things in the universe, and this may be true of the universe as a whole too
Outline Hume’s criticisms of Aquinas’ Third Way (include responses)
-There is no such thing as ‘necessary existence’ because any claim about what exists (e.g. God exists) can be imagined otherwise until experience proven one or the other to be true through experience
- I can imagine the beginning of existence without a cause, so it follows that there could be in reality a beginning of existence without a cause
- In response, just because imagining something popping into existence uncaused, does not mean it is possible considering all we know about reality
List the premises of Descartes’ Cosmological Argument
- There are four possibilities to explain my existence: myself, I have always existed, my parents, God
- Cannot have caused myself as I am not perfect (only something perfect can cause the idea of perfection, and causes must be greater than effects)
- I have not always existed as I would be aware of that
- The cause of my existence must be external
- Parents may have caused embodiment but not my thinking mind
- The cause is either caused by something else, or it’s own cause
- There cannot be an infinite regression of causes
Therefore, only God, an uncaused and necessary being could have created me
