The Design Argument : Cosmological Flashcards
FOR : What did Aquinas argue in the First part of his Cosmological Argument? — Unmoved mover
Aquinas argued in the first of his Five Ways that God must be the “First Mover” since all things must be moved by something else, therefore God must be the original “Unmoved Mover”. Aquinas notes that motion in the world must have been put into motion by something else, and since this chain cannot go back infinitely, there must’ve been a first mover. This First mover must be itself unmoved, and the beginner of every movement. However, God being the first mover isn’t only referring to the movement of something but its actuality. For example : if wood could make itself hot then it would already be hot, wood cannot be hot to begin but fire can make the wood hot and actualise this aspect of the woods potentiality. However something would have had to make the fire hot, this cycle therefore leads to a series of infinite changes. But according to Aquinas, infinite regress isn’t possible therefore it is necessary to have first mover — God.
FOR : What did Aquinas argue in the Second part of his argument for the existence of God? — Aquinas’ Third Way
The second part of Aquinas’ cosmological argument states from causation, that God must be the first cause of everything as similarly every effect has a cause and infinite regress is impossible. Aquinas observes a series of causes and effects in the universe, he observes that nothing can be the cause of itself as it would mean that. It would have had to exist before it existed. Logically this is impossible, therefore there must have been a first causer that began the chain of causes. This first uncaused causer is God.
FOR : What is Aquinas’ Third argument for the existence of God in the Cosmological Argument? — Aquinas’ Third Way.
Aquinas argues that God must exist from the perspective of contingency and necessity, as God is a necessary being that exists on his own right and He alone depends on no other being for existence. This is based on the observations of the Universe, that things come into existence and later cease to exist — contingency. Since Aquinas concludes there must have been a time when nothing existed, this would mean the universe cannot have been created from within but from an external cause that has always existed. Thus, there must have been a necessary being that has always existed in order for us contingent beings to exist. Anything contingent could have easily have not existed as easily as it exists, contingent things don’t stay the same — yet everything is contingent. If all things are contingent no other contingent thing can explain why something else exists, thus a necessary being must exist.
AGAINST : What was Russels First objection to the Cosmological Argument? — Fallacy of Composition
Russel and Hume reject Aquinas’ 3rd way as it says that since everything in the universe has a cause, it must mean the entire universe has a cause. They argue this is incorrect as we cannot infer that because “every individual event has a cause” that “the whole universe has a cause”, in other words, just because everything within the universe is contingent doesn’t mean the Universe itself is contingent. It is one thing to state that every human being has a mother but one cannot conclude from this that the universe itself has a mother. For example; the idea of a house, houses are made up of small, rectangular blocks, however this would not mean that an entire house shares these exact traits. A house is not rectangular or small. This is a fallacy of composition, meaning we cannot know that the universe is contingent and so there would be no need to have a necessary being to explain it.
AGAINST : What was Russels Second objection to the Cosmological Argument? — Nothing can exist necessarily
Russel and Hume would both argue that Aquinas’ argument that the world must have been created by a necessary being is incorrect as it tried to reason beyond the scope of experience and so it moves past the point which we have any guarantee that our conclusions are reasonable. Whilst we can hypothesise the existence of a necessary and uncaused being, we cannot conclude that there actually exists such a being.
AGAINST : What is Russels Third Argument to object the Cosmological Argument? — the universe could be a necessarily existent being.
The Cosmological argument suggests that infinity is impossible and that the Universe must have had a beginning. However, Aquinas contradicts himself when he says that infinite regress is impossible yet God is infinitely existing. According to Russel, “the universe is just there and that’s all”, its existence is a brute facts that has to be accepted. Even if the universe did begin, it dies not mean that anything has to have caused to to come into existence.
INTRODUCTION : Introducing the Cosmological Argument.
> The Cosmological Argument is based on the belief that there is a first cause behind the existence of the universe (cosmos).
Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic Theologian that came up with this argument, and wrote about it in the ‘Summa Theologica’.
Aquinas developed his Five Ways to prove the existence of God.
It is a deductive argument, which means it establishes a conclusion to be true from multiple correct premises.
It is also a posteriori argument, meaning it uses the universe and experimental verification in order to prove the argument.
