The Cosmological Argument

Question 1

What are contingent beings?

Answer 1

Something that relies on something else for its existence.

Question 2

What are necessary beings?

Answer 2

Something that relies on nothing else for its existence.

Question 3

What is a posteriori knowledge?

Answer 3

Knowledge based upon observation (5 senses etc.)

Question 4

What is a priori knowledge?

Answer 4

Knowledge based upon logic and reason

Question 5

What is the initial mover?

Answer 5

It is the first cause and is unmoved

It began the initial chain of causes, as there cannot be infinite regression

Question 6

What is cosmos?

Answer 6

Refers to the world or universe as a perfect and well-ordered system

Question 7

What can the cosmological argument also be called?

Answer 7

The ‘first cause’ argument

Question 8

What is the basis of the argument?

Answer 8

The universe cannot count for its own existence and there must be a reason for it
This reason is aspatial and atemporal

Question 9

What did Aquinas develop to demonstrate the existence of God?

Answer 9

His Five Ways argument

Question 10

What was the Five Ways argument written in?

Answer 10

The Summa Theologica

Question 11

What did Aquinas argue in the first three ways?

Answer 11

That nothing comes from nothing; the universe exists so something must have made it (this being God)

Question 12

What type of argument is the Five Ways?

Answer 12

The argument is a posteriori, as it begins by examining the natural world around us (using senses/empirical evidence) and then reasons from it

Question 13

When & what was the Russell & Copleston debate about?

Answer 13

In 1948, the two philosophers with very different views debated the existence of God

Question 14

Who was Fredrick Copleston & what did he argue?

Answer 14

He was invited to argue for theism and was a Jesuit priest

Question 15

How did Copleston argue for God’s existence?

Answer 15

He used Aquinas’ third way (contingency)

Question 16

Who was Bertrand Russell and what did he argue?

Answer 16

He was a philosopher of Maths and was invited to argue for the atheist position

Question 17

What were Russell’s views?

Answer 17

Discussion of God was beyond the scope of human reason or experiment
It is therefore meaningless, as was any discussion about the universe

Question 18

What are the strengths of the cosmological argument?

Answer 18

It is a posteriori and therefore it is testable
e.g., in nature we observe that things do not usually happen without a reason
This leads us to conclude that there must be a cause

Question 19

What is Hume’s view?

Answer 19

Hume does not trust a posteriori reasoning as we can never know it to be certain
Although we see the universe as it is no, we did not see the universe at the time of creation
However, it answers the human desire for explanation

Question 20

What is Swinburne’s view?

Answer 20

Swinburne was satisfied even with the partial explanation of accepting the simplest answer
For many people, the fact that the Cosmological Argument offers a complete explanation for the entirety of creation is evidence enough for believing in the argument

Question 21

What does Russell say?

Answer 21

The universe is a ‘brute fact’