GOD: Cosmological arguments

Question 1

What is the gist of The Kalām argument?

Answer 1

The universe began and something other than the universe must have caused this.

Question 2

What is a cosmological argument?

Answer 2

There is some feature of the universe that can only be explained by the existence of God.
E.G. Descartes’ trademark argument.

Question 3

What is the standard form for The Kalām argument?

Answer 3

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning.
(The word “begins” is important in this principle. If it said that everything has a cause then that would have to include God. Since God did not begin, this principle wouldn’t apply to God.)

P2: The universe began to exist.
(The series of temporal events is finite (i.e. the universe is finitely old).)

C1: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its beginning.

P3: The cause must have the attributes that God is thought to have.

C2: Therefore: God exists.
(William Lane Craig gives reasons he thinks the 1st cause is God).

Question 4

What are the reasons William Lane Craig gives for the 1st cause being God?

Answer 4

Uncaused because an infinite series of causes is impossible.
Outside of time and space (and so non-physical) because it caused all time and space
hugely powerful because it created all matter and energy.
Cause must be personal - the only way to explain how an eternal cause can produce an effect with a beginning. Something made the choice to begin the universe and only God meets this description.
God is pure actuality, there is nothing ‘potential’ about God.

Question 5

What type of argument is The Kalām argument?

Answer 5

Deductive
A posteriori - Need to experience the universe for this argument to work.
Temporal causation - God caused the beginning of the universe.
Causation and contingency - God is the cause of contingent beings.

Question 6

What is the gist for Aquinas’ 1st Way (atemporal argument from motion)?

Answer 6

Everything in the universe changes. Everything that changes is caused to change by something else. Something must be the first thing to cause change. This is God.

Question 7

What is the gist for Aquinas’ 2nd Way (atemporal argument from “sustaining” causation)?

Answer 7

Everything in the universe is sustained in existence by something else. There must be something that sustains the whole universe. This is God. So God exists.

Question 8

What is the standard form for Aquinas’ 2nd Way (atemporal argument from “sustaining” causation)?

Answer 8

P1 - The universe contains sustaining causation which can be ordered (i.e. D causally sustains E etc.)

P2 - Nothing can be the sustaining cause of itself (nothing can sustain its own existence) - it must be sustained by something distinct from it.

P3 - If there were an infinite series of sustaining causes, there would be no first sustaining cause.

P4 - If there were no first sustaining cause there could not be any other sustaining causation.
(This causal power needs to originate somewhere in order to be ‘passed on’.)

C1 - Therefore, given P1 (i.e. that there are sustaining causation) there must be a first sustaining cause.

P5 - God is this first sustaining cause.

C2 - Therefore, God exists.

Question 9

What is the standard form for Aquinas’ 1st Way (atemporal argument from motion)?

Answer 9

P1 - The universe contains motion (i.e. change from potentially X to actually X).

P2 - Nothing can change itself (because that would require it to both be potentially X and actually X which is impossible) - it must be changed by something distinct from it.

P3 - If there were an infinite series of changes caused by changes, there would be no first changer.

P4 -If there were no first changer there could not be any change.
The ‘motion’ would need to originate somewhere in order to be ‘passed on’.

C1 - Therefore, given P1 (i.e. that there is change) there must be a first changer.

P5 - God is this first changer (God is “pure actuality”/actus purus).

C2 - Therefore God exists.

Question 10

What are examples for Aquinas’ 1st Way (atemporal argument from motion)?

Answer 10

The Earth is changing as it’s moving, cogs are making it move but the cogs are changing too. The reason cogs are changing is God.

Question 11

What are examples for Aquinas’ 2nd Way (atemporal argument from “sustaining” causation)?

Answer 11

Everything depends on something else to sustain itself.

Flowers depend on soil,

which depends on the weather which depends on planets weather systems,

this depends on the movement of other planets and this needs something that can self-sustain, (God).

Question 12

What type of argument are Aquinas’ 1st and 2nd Ways?

Answer 12

Deductive + a posteriori
1st way - atemporal causation (God = the cause of change/motion).
2nd way - Atemporal from sustaining causation (God = the cause of causation).

Question 13

What is the aim of Aquinas’s 3rd ‘Way’ from contingency?

Answer 13

It attempts to prove the existence of God and seeks to prove the existence of God as the only explanation of why the universe contains a particular feature.

Question 14

What is the standard form of Aquinas’s 3rd ‘Way’ from contingency?

Answer 14

P1: If everything were contingent (as some things are) then there would be a time when nothing existed.

P2: If this were so, then nothing would exist now, (because nothing can come from nothing).
P3: But things do exist now.

C1: Therefore not everything is contingent - there must be something that exists necessarily.

P4: Every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another or not.

P5: An infinite regression of necessary causes is impossible.

C2: Therefore, there must be one necessary being whose necessity was not caused by another, and this all people call God.

Question 15

What are examples for Aquinas’s 3rd ‘Way’ from contingency?

Answer 15

The Earth exists contingently (as it could have been the case that it did not).

It is also the case that in past the Earth did not exist (i.e. before it formed).

Question 16

What is the type of argument for Aquinas’s 3rd ‘Way’ from contingency?

Answer 16

Deductive - The relationship between the premises is such that if the premises are true, the truth of the conclusion is entailed with necessity.
A posteriori.
Causation & contingency - God is the cause of contingent beings.

Question 17

What is the aim of Leibniz’s argument from contingency?

Answer 17

It attempts to prove the existence of God.
It is a cosmological argument.
It seeks to prove the existence of God as the only explanation of why the universe contains a particular feature.

Question 18

What is the standard form of Leibniz’s argument from contingency?

Answer 18

P1: All contingent events/things need a sufficient reason for why they exist, (the principle of sufficient reason).
This is because, being contingent, it is possible that they could have not existed. It would be false that they exist, unless something else made it true.

P2: If they exist as they do because of other contingent events/things (in an infinite series in the present/past), then this would not be a sufficient explanation. (Each reason given as part of the chain would be contingent, and the infinite series is still itself contingent so would require a sufficient reason).

C1: Therefore, there must, ultimately, be a sufficient (i.e. non-contingent/necessary) reason for the contingent series.

C2: Therefore a necessary “substance”/being exists - this is God.
God would fit this description as if God exists, then God exists necessarily.

Question 19

What is an example for Leibniz’s argument from contingency?

Answer 19

A contingent truth - The Earth revolves around the Sun is a contingent truth. This is because it could have been the case that the Earth did not revolve around the Sun, but it does because the Earth was formed near the Sun (this is the reason it is contingent on).

This is not a sufficient reason though, because the formation of the Earth near the Sun is itself contingent on some other truth, etc.

Question 20

What type of argument is Leibniz’s argument from contingency?

Answer 20

Deductive - the relationship between the premises is such that if the premises are true, the truth of the conclusion is entailed with necessity (It refers to the logical necessity of a contingent truth having a sufficient reason, which ultimately must be a necessary truth).

Justified a posteriori - part of the argument is justified on the basis of experience.
Because it refers to contingent truths, which must themselves be justified through experience.

This argument refers to atemporal causation -the relationship between contingent truths and their sufficient reasons is not understood across time, but instead acting as justification.

Question 21

What is the difference between Descartes’ Trademark argument and argument based on sustaining causes?

Answer 21

The trademark argument - Uses our idea of God to prove God’s existence.

The argument based on sustaining causes - says that the only possible cause for our continued existence is a supremely perfect being (I.e. God).

The difference is how they are proving God’s existence.

Question 22

What is the gist for Descartes’ causal cosmological arguments for God’s existence?

Answer 22

God has to be the cause of my idea of a God, and God has to be the cause of my continued existence: all other options are ruled out.

Question 23

What is the standard form of part 1 of Descartes’ Trademark argument? (God as a cause of my Idea of God).

Answer 23

P1 - All of our ideas come from our senses, or they are invented by us or they are innate.

P2 - My idea of God cannot have come from my senses (it has not come to me unexpectedly as other ideas from my senses do), and I could not have invented the idea myself ( I can’t add to or take away from the idea unlike other ideas I have invented).

C1 - Therefore the idea of God is innate.

P3 - The innate idea of God that I have is ‘a supremely perfect infinite being’.

P4 - There must be at least as much reality in the cause as in the effect (and this applies to the reality represented within ideas just as it does to actual objects/events) (The ‘causal adequacy principle’).

C1 - Therefore, only an infinite God could be the cause of this idea.

C2 - Therefore God must exist.

Question 24

What is the ‘Casual adequacy principle’?

Answer 24

The total cause of something must contain at least as much reality as does the effect.

Question 25

What is the standard form of part 2 of Descartes’ Trademark argument? (God as cause of my continued existence).

Answer 25

P1 - I exist as a being (from one moment to the next) with an idea of a supremely perfect being.

P2 - I cannot be the cause of myself as I would have made myself perfect (i.e. I would be God) and I know I am not.

P3 - No other finite beings could be the ultimate cause of my continued existence (e.g. my parents, or other beings) as this could not give an ultimate explanation of the idea of God that I have (even if they, with their idea of God, caused me with mine, we could then still ask where their idea of God came from, and this cannot continue forever).

P4 - I cannot have just always existed with no cause, as a cause is needed to sustain anything finite from one moment to the next, and I do not myself have the power to do this (if I had this power I’d know that I had it).

C1 - Therefore, the only possible cause of my continued existence (as a being with the idea of a supremely perfect being in my mind) is a supremely perfect being (i.e. God).

C2 - Therefore, God must exist.
God keeps us in existence like a battery keeps a lightbulb lit.

Question 26

What is the type of argument for Descartes’ cosmological argument/s for the existence of God (Trademark argument)?

Answer 26

An a priori deduction.
Both processes of elimination:
1st cause - Refers to existence/creation
2nd cause - Refers to sustained existence.