Cosmological Argument (THIRD WAY!) Flashcards
Who was St Thomas Aquinas?
An Italian priest, philosopher and theologian
What was the name of St Aquinas’ book/work?
- The Summa Theologiae or Summa Theologica.
- Translates to ‘Summary of Theology’.
- Often referred to simply as the Summa.
- The primary source of the Cosmological Argument.
Name Aquinas’ FIVE WAYS for proving the Existence of God:
- Motion (unmoved mover)
- Causation (uncaused cause)
- Necessity
- Perfection
5.Design
What is the Third Way about?
CONTINGENCY AND NECESSITY
Qualities of the Third Way Argument:
- A posteriori
- Inductive
- Based on observation (empiricism)
Aquinas’ Third Way summary:
Premises 1 - Everything in the natural world is contingent- everything can exist or not exist
Premises 2 - If everything is contingent, then at some time there was nothing, because there must’ve been a time before anything had begun to exist.
Premises 3 - If there was once nothing, then nothing could have come from nothing.
Conclusion 1 - Therefore something must exist necessarily, otherwise, nothing would now exist, which is false.
Premises 4 - Everything necessary must either be caused or uncaused.
Premises 5 - But the series of necessary beings cannot be infinite or there would be no explanation of that series (no infinite regression).
Conclusion 2 - Therefore there must be some uncaused being which exists of its own necessity.
Conclusion 3 - By this we all understand God.
Quote from ‘Summa Theologica’ - Nothing can come from nothing:
“if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist”.
Quote from ‘Summa Theologica’ - God was the necessary being that caused all of this to come into existence:
“the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.”
Gerry Hughes’ Summary of the Third Way:
- Nothing happens without causal explanation.
- A satisfactory explanation cannot appeal to something which “just happened” and was not caused. For example, a satisfactory explanation cannot appeal to “brute facts”,
- The existence of the universe requires an explanation outside itself
- It is reasonable to think of this “transcendent” explanation as God.
How is the argument’s use of empiricism a strength?
- The argument uses empiricism- it is based on the observation that everything has a cause and is contingent.
- Empiricism is a popular method of acquiring knowledge in the modern world- for example, science uses empiricism.
- Harrison: “The epistemic imperialism of science”- empiricism has become the predominant source of all knowledge about the world.
- The fact the argument is grounded in empiricism therefore means it may be seen as acceptable in the modern world.
- Science supports the idea that the universe has a beginning.
- HOWEVER, the final part of the argument is not based on empiricism. There is no observable evidence that the Christian God is the transcendent first cause of the universe. Is this a leap of faith?
Explain an example of contemporary support for the argument:
- Contemporary support from Father Frederick Copleston, in a BBC Radio Debate with Russel:
- “In order to explain existence, we must come to a Being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence, that is to say, which cannot not exist.”
- It is only God who can be the necessarily existent first cause of the universe.
- Copleston draws upon Leibnez’s Principle of Sufficient Reason- there must be a sufficient reason why there is something rather than nothing, especially why this particular universe exists.
Explain Bertrand Russel’s Fallacy of Composition Criticism:
- Fallacy of Composition: What is true of the parts is not necessarily true of the whole.
- A fallacy is a failure in reasoning which makes an argument invalid. The fallacy of composition is the fallacy of inferring that something is true from the whole from the fact that it is true of part of the whole.
- For example, Hydrogen is not wet; oxygen is not wet. Therefore, water is not wet (this is clearly a fallacious argument!)
Another example, all bricks in the wall are small. Therefore, the wall is small. - Russel states: “Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn’t a mother- that’s a different logical sphere.”
- We cannot move from our observations of the parts (things within the world) to a conclusion about the universe (the whole).
Explain Bertrand Russel’s “Brute Fact” criticism:
- Bertrand Russel argued that the existence of the universe is a “brute fact”- a fact that cannot be further explained or explains itself.
- He asserted in a famous 1948 radio debate that “I should just say that the universe is there, and that’s all”.
- For human beings, therefore, given our epistemological limits, the existence of the world must be treated as a basic brute fact that is incapable (for us) of further explanation.
- Response to this: Leibniz- Principle of Sufficient Reason.
“The universe itself is the necessarily existent being.”
Explain this criticism from Hume:
- David Hume says that the universe itself is the necessarily existing being.
- You do not need to go one step further back and say that it is God.
- This approach conforms to Occam’s Razor- (the simplest explanation that avoids over-complicating the argument.)
- If something has to be necessary, why can’t that be the matter which makes up the universe? Why does it have to be an unobservable God? (This is a leap of logic).
- The universe, like a vegetable, could have created itself.
- Response: Aquinas believed that matter would be caused by a necessary being and would still need God as an uncaused necessary being to cause its existence.
“If everything has a cause, then what caused God?”
Explain this criticism:
- The Cosmological Argument is based on the observation that everything must have a cause. But Aquinas then argues that there is something without a cause- God.
- Even if infinite regress is not possible, there is no evidence that the monotheistic Christian God is the necessarily existing First Cause.
- Furthermore, Hume argues that the words “necessary existence has no meaning”
- He argues that there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction. By this, he means the term “necessary being” does not make sense. The words “necessary being” have no consistent meaning. Any being claimed to exist, may or may not exist.
- Theists would argue that it is only God who has characteristics to be capable of being the First Cause (e.g. omnipotence, eternal existence.)
- “Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary is a contradiction. Nothing, that is directly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no Being whose contradiction is demonstrable.” - Hume
