Cosmological arguments Flashcards
How do the cosmological arguments argue for Gods existence?
They start from the observation that everything depends on something else for existence.
For example, you depend on your parents to exist, you depend on their parents and so on.
The cosmological arguments apply this to the universe itself.
The universe depends on something else to exist: God.
How do the cosmological arguments differ from the teleological arguments?
both are a posteriori but it yields fewer details about the nature of God they aim to prove.
(Cosmological arguments aim to show that the universe requires an ultimate cause, or ultimate explanation, but they do not conclude that this ultimate cause is a loving or good or wise being)
How do the cosmological arguments differ from the ontological arguments?
cosmological (and teleological) are a posteriori; They try to show that the existence of God is the best explanation for the existence or nature of the universe.
whereas the ontological argument is a priori; it works from an analysis of concepts and what they mean. It does not draw upon any fact of experience to try to prove that God exists.
name the cosmological arguments
- The Kalām argument (an argument from temporal causation).
- Aquinas’ 1st Way (argument from motion), 2nd Way (argument from atemporal causation)
and 3rd way (an argument from contingency). - Descartes’ argument based on his continuing existence (an argument from causation).
- Leibniz’s argument from the principle of sufficient reason (an argument from contingency).
what are the main objections to the cosmological arguments?
- the possibility of an infinite series
- Hume’s objection to the ‘causal principle’
- the argument commits the fallacy of composition (Russell)
- the impossibility of a necessary being (Hume and Russell).
The Kalam argument
P1) Everything with a beginning must have a cause.
P2) The universe has a beginning.
C1) Therefore the universe must have a cause.
C2) William Lane Craig: Moreover, this cause of the universe must be a personal cause
Explain William Lane Craige’s additional premise to the Kalam
- the cause itself must be uncaused
- it must transend space and time since it creates space and time
- it must be immaterial and poweful
- his creating the universe is a free act which is independent of any prior determining conditions
- so he is a personal creator
What kind of deductive argument is the Kalam argument and give an example
syllogism ( major premise, minor premise, conclusion.)
P1) All men are mortal
P2) Socrates is a man
C) Socrates is mortal
Why is the Kalam argument called a an argument from temporal causation?
(define temporal)
(temproal; the idea of a linear progression of past, present, and future)
Because it is about time, and it is a horizontal argument tracing back in time to an original cause
How could you object to the Kalam argument?
which critiques apply?
- infinite regress
- ‘everything has a cause’
State formally Aquinas’ first way: MOTION
P1) there are things in motion or in some state of change
P2) motion is the reduction of something potential to something actual (eg something cold to something Hot)
P3) a thing can only be moved from a state of potentiality to actuality by a thing already in that state of actuality (eg. a cold object being heated by something that is already hot)
P4) a thing cant be in a state of actuality and potentiality at the same time, such as an item cannot be Hot and potentially hot at the same time.
P5) therefore nothing can move or change itself - it must be moved or changed by something else.
P6) if everything is moved or changed by something else then there would be an infinite regress of movers
P7) reductio ad absurdum, if 6 is true then there would be no prime mover and therefore no subsequent movers.
P8) there must be an unmoved prime mover whom we call God.
How can we object specifically to Aquinas’ 1st way
P3. can be objected to due to examples such as someone being killed by another person, they are being moved into a state of actuality (death) by something that is not already in that state of actuality.
State formally Aquinas’ second way: CAUSATION
P1) every event has a cause and nothing can be the efficient cause of itself
P2) if this order of efficient causes went on infinitely then there would be no initial cause.
P3) if the previous point were true then there would be no subsequent efficient causes and this is evidently false.
P4.)there must be a source of all efficient causes, a first efficient cause that we call God.
State formally Aquinas’ third way: Argument from contingency
P1) Everything that exists contingently did not exist at some point
P2) If everything exists contingently, then at some point, nothing existed
P3) If nothing existed, then nothing could begin to exist
P4) But since things did begin to exist there was never nothing in existsence
C1) Therefore there must be something that does not exist contingently but exists necessarily
C2) This necessary being is God
State Descartes’ cosmological argument formally
P1) I can’t be the cause of my own existence because if I was I would have given myself all perfections ( e.g. omnipotence, omniscience etc)
C1) I depend on something else to exist
P2) I am a thinking thing and I have the idea of God
P3) Whatever caused me to exist must also be a thinking thing that has the idea of God
P4) Whatever caused me to exist must be the cause of its own existence or caused by something else
P5) There cannot be an infinite chain of causes
C2) So there must be something that caused its own existence
C3)Whatever causes its own existence is God
State formally Liebniz’s cosmological argument from sufficient reason
what is sufficient reason
principle of sufficient reason: nothing can be true unless there is sufficient reason for why it is the way it is and not the other way.
P1) Contingent facts exist
P2) no fact can be true unless there is suffiicient reason for it being so
P3) It’s impossible to give sufficient reason for contingent facts using other contingent facts
P4) In order to avoid an infinite regress of contingent facts as reasons for other contingent facts, we need a necessary fact/being that can give contingent facts sufficient reason
C1) There is a necessary being
Which cosmological arguments are arguments from causation?
- Kalam
- Aquinas’ 1st way- motion
- Aquinas’ 2nd way- causation
- Descartes
Which objections apply to the cosmological arguments from causation
- Hume on the causal principle
- the possibility of an infinite series
What is the causal principle
the claim tha everything has a cause (ehac)
What is Hume’s objection (to ehac)
Hume argues that the causal princple is not analytic, we can deny it without contradiction.
I can say ‘I exist uncaused’ without implying a contradiction
Logically these claims may be true or false. This means these claims are not only not analytic, they are also not certain.
If they are not analytic we can only know them through experience.
Our experience supports these claims; they are probably true, but experience cannot establish that a claim holds true universally (all the time), without expception.
So we can’t know for certaim that everything without exception has a cause.
Explain how Hume’s objection can be applied to the Kalam argument
causation is a contingent claim, so we need experience to confirm it. But we have no experience of the originas (cause) of the universe
Furthermore, the beginning of the universe is not an event like events that happen within the universe. So perhaps the universe began but was not caused to begin.
Explain the possibility of an infinite series objection
Which comsological arguments are from contingency and not from causation
- Aquinas’ 3rd
- Liebniz
Does Aquinas’ third way rely on the causal principle?
Yes
P3) If nothing existed, then nothing could begin to exist
What are two more issues for the cosmological arguments?
- Russel: Fallacy of composition
- Impossibility of a necessary being
WHat is a fallacy of composition?
+ eg
This fallacy is an inference that because the parts have some property the whole has that property.
For example.. Each tissue is thin so the boz of tissues is thin.
Explain the fallacy of composition objection
Russel accepts that for any particular thing in the universe, we need an explanation of why it exists, which science can give us.
But it is a mistake to think that we can apply this idea to the universe itslef. Just because everything in the universe is contingent (and so needs an explanation), it doesn’t follow that the universe is also contingent or needs an explanation.
The universe he says, is ‘just there, and that’s all.’
Explain the objection ‘the imposibility of a necessary being’
what applied to
The arguments from contingency conslude that some being exists necessarily .
Hume and Russel argue that the concept of a being that necessarily exists is problematic.
P1) Nothing that is distinctly concievable implies a contradiction
P2) Whatever we concieve as existent we can also conceive as non-existent
C) Therefore, there is no being whose non-existnce implies a contradiction
