Cosmological Argument

Theme 1: Arguments for God's existence- inductive

What is a posteriori argument?

An argument based on experience/knowledge- starts with observations about the universe, namely that it exists and that our experience tells us things that exist have a reason/cause for their existence.

Aquinas quote from Summa Theologica and its meaning

“When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist. Hence the existence of God, in so far, as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.”

We cannot directly observe God, so we use backwards reasoning. We observe the effects and actions of a God so therefore there must be an existence of a cause of these actions which must be God.

- criticises the ontological argument.

Aquinas cosmological argument

• proposed one of the most famous versions of the cosmological argument in his book- Summa Theologica. He proposed five ways to prove God’s existence- the first three are the cosmological arguments.

• He was very influenced by Aristotle. Aquinas proposed that although we cannot see God, we can know about God from his effects. This approach to knowing about God based on reason and observation of the natural world is called NATURAL THEOLOGY.

FIRST ARGUMENT: MOTION

• We observe that some things in the world are in motion. These must be put into motion by something else.

• When things are put in motion it is a change from potentiality to actuality. Nothing can undergo this change unless put in motion by something that is in a state of actuality.

• COMPARISON: fire is actually hot. wood is potentially hot. the fire makes the wood burn and therefore makes it hot.

• Aquinas rejects infinite regress. there must be a FIRST MOVER who is UNMOVED, that must be GOD.

SECOND ARGUMENT: CAUSATION

• We observe that in the world things are caused by something else, and that thing before it and so on.

• NOTHING IS THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF ITSELF.

• Aquinas says that there must be a first cause and that this chain of causes cannot stretch back to infinity. The first cause cannot be caused by anything else- this must be God.

• If there is no first cause then there cannot be an ultimate effect that we observe or any intermediate causes leading up to that.

THIRD ARGUMENT: CONTINGENCY

• we can observe that in this world it is possible for things to be or not be. at one point in time they didn’t exist but they were brought into existence by something else. eventually, they will cease to exist again. - these are contingent things.

• If everything that exists is contingent then at some point there would be nothing in existence. - if this is true then it would be impossible for anything to exist because they wouldn’t have anything to bring them into existence. then we would not observe anything existing now.

• There must be something that exists necessarily, on which other things depend on for their existence- a sustaining cause. This necessary being is God.

Define Infinite Regress

a chain of motion/causation stretching back to infinity

Define Motion

movement or change

define potentiality

the possibility of being or becoming something

define actuality

being that which something is supposed to be

define the first/prime mover

the initial cause of all motion in the universe, unmoved/unchanged (state of actuality) by anything else (i.e. God)

define efficient cause

(influenced by Aristotle)- that which causes change or motion to come about (what we typically think of as a cause)

define first cause

the initial cause of all change in the universe; uncaused by anything else (i.e. God)

define contingency

depending on something else for your existence'; when a thing that has to be brought into existence by something else

define necessity

something that must exist; it does not depend on anything else for its existence; it always has existed and always will.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

What philosophical and scientific justifications does Craig provide for premise that

(2) The universe began to exist

The philosophical arguments

If the universe never began to exist, then there has been an infinite number of past events prior to today, but Craig rejects the possibility of an actual infinite. If an actually infinite number of things could exist, then various absurdities would result. Craig attempts to show the impossibility of an actual infinite existing with reference to several thought experiments.

Hilbert’s Hotel

The mathematician David Hilbert gave a famous thought experiment known as Hilbert’s Hotel. He asks us to imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Suppose that all the rooms are full.  There is not a single vacancy throughout the entire infinite hotel; every room already has a person in it. Now suppose a new guest shows up at the front desk, asking for a room. “No problem,” says the manager. He moves the person who was staying in room #1 into room #2, the person who was staying in room #2 into room #3, the person who was staying in room #3 into room #4, and so on to infinity. As a result of these room changes, room #1 now becomes vacant, and the new guest gratefully checks in and all the previous guests have still been accommodated. But before he arrived, all the rooms were already full!

 

Let’s now suppose, Hilbert says, that an infinity of new guests shows up at the front desk, asking for rooms. “No problem, no problem!” says the manager. He moves the person who was staying in room #1 into room #2, the person who was staying in room #2 into room #4, the person who was staying in room #3 into room #6, each time moving the person into the room number twice his own. Since any number multiplied by two is an even number, all the guests wind up in even-numbered rooms. As a result, all the odd-numbered rooms become vacant, and the infinity of new guests is easily accommodated. In fact, the manager could do this an infinite number of times and always accommodate infinitely more guests. And yet, before they arrived, all the rooms were already full!

The Library

Imagine a library with an actually infinite number of books. Suppose further that there is an infinite number of red books and an infinite number of black books in the library. Does it really make sense to say that there are as many black books in the library as there are red and black books together? Surely not. Furthermore, I could withdraw all the black books and not change the total holdings in the library. Let us also assume that each book has an actual infinite number of pages. There would be just as many pages in the first book in the library as there are in the entire, infinite collection. If someone read the first book, she would read just as many pages as someone who read every page of every page of every book in the library.

 

Both examples, Craig says, result in absurdity. As such they show that the existence of an actually infinite number of things is absurd and therefore the universe could not be an actual infinite series of events.

Scientific confirmation

Craig argues that science has now confirmed that the universe had a temporal beginning with the Big Bang, something that medieval philosophers like Al Ghazali could not have know for certain. While they had philosophical reasons for rejecting the claim that the universe was infinite, science has now confirmed this to be the case according to Craig.

 

The Big bang theory proposes that the universe is expanding. As you trace the expansion of the universe back in time, everything gets closer and closer together. Eventually the distance between any two points in space becomes zero. At that point you’ve reached the boundary of space and time. The Big Bang model implies that past time is finite and had a beginning. Because space-time is the arena in which all matter and energy exist, the beginning of space-time is also the beginning of all matter and energy. It’s the beginning of the universe. There is nothing prior to the initial boundary of space-time. 

 

Of course this depends upon the Big Bang theory being true. Craig maintains that it is. There is, as we have seen, a number of key pieces of evidence that offer strong support for the Big Bang theory, such as the red shift and CMBR.Physicists have proposed many alternative theories besides the Big Bang but Craig says that those that do not have an absolute beginning have been repeatedly shown to be unworkable. The only viable alternative models have been those that propose

Conclusion?

Conclusion – the universe had a cause of its existence

 

On the basis of both philosophical and scientific evidence, Craig says we have good grounds for believing that the universe began to exist. It therefore follows that the universe has a cause of its beginning.

 

Craig then reasons about what we can say about this cause. He says that this cause must be itself uncaused because an infinite series of causes is impossible. It is therefore the Uncaused First Cause. It must transcend space and time, since it created space and time, so it must be immaterial and non-physical. It must also be unimaginably powerful, since it created all matter and energy. Now the cause of the universe is permanently there, since it is timeless. So why isn’t the universe permanently there as well? Why did the universe come into being only 14 billion years ago? Why isn’t it as permanent as its cause? Following Al Ghazali, Craig maintains that the answer to this problem is that the First Cause must be a personal being endowed with freedom of the will. His creating the universe is a free act which is independent of any prior determining conditions. His act of creating can therefore be something spontaneous and new. Freedom of the will enables one to get an effect with a beginning from a permanent, timeless cause. Thus, we are brought not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe but to a Personal Creator. It’s the only way to explain how an eternal cause can produce an effect with a beginning like the universe.

 

Craig therefore concludes that the cosmological argument gives us powerful grounds for believing in the existence of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, Personal Creator of the universe i.e. God. 

Humes Challenges to the Cosmological Argument

A response and an evaluation

 

1.    The cosmological argument commits the fallacy of composition.

While we know that things in the universe have a cause, this does not mean that there is a cause of the universe as a whole. It is equivalent to saying: ‘every human being has a mother, therefore the whole human race has a mother.’

 “The WHOLE, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct counties into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular cause of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.”

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Hume is questioning why someone would need any other explanation of a series of twenty events (or even an infinite number) when you have explained the cause of each event individually.