aquinas' cosmological argument is too ambigious to be sucessful

intro

• the cosmological argument is the argument for the existance of God starting with the observations of the universe which point to the existance of God.

• aquinas supports the existance of God and develops his argument through the 3 ways, supported by leibniz and F copelstone, the argument sucessfullu demonstrates the existance of God

• however, scholors such as Kant and JL mackie highlight the ambiguty within aquinas’ argument through its inductive nature and logical fallacies.

• THESIS → thus aquinas’ cosmological argument is not sucessful because of the logical fallacies within the argument which make them uncessful due to ambiguity

para 1 → aquinas’ first way, motion

• A = emprical evidence and obersavation of the way in which the world works, shows how everything needs something external to itself to move

• A = denys the possibilitly of infinte regress as there must be a first unmoved mover who started the chain reaction (whom is God)

• A = sucessful since through seeing motion in the world we can relefect this true of the universe itself, there is no ambiguity within the argument

• C = JL Mackie highlights the ambiguity within aquinas’ CA argument through the dismissing of infinte regress.

• C = more logical to not have a start nor end, aquinas’ argument just displays where the human mind sees cause and effect within the world.

• C = aquinas has made ambiguty within the CA through the logical fallacy which he makes in way one through him arguing a speical case and making jumps in logic to suggest that the unmoved mover to which he sees, is the thestic God

para 1 → evaluation

• overall aquinas’ CA is ambigious through its jump in logic and special case arguments, which undermine the success due to creating ambiguty within the argument

para 2 → aquinas second way → causeasation

• a01 - everything in the universe is based upon cause and effect which requires a first uncaused causer and no infinte regress. this first uncaused causer is God

• A = leibnitz supports, developing through the princple of suffient reason, where any contingent fact about the universe must have an explanation behind it, thus aquinas’ CA is sucessful since it pressents God as the fact behind the universe

• A = helps to elevate any ambigiuty as it gives a reason as to why there must be a God behnind the universe

• C = kant, causealitly is just the way in which the human mind works, it is how we expeirence the phenomonal world and not the numinoul world.

• C = ambiguty is thus created by imploring cause and effect into the universe

• C = further implored by hume, and his critque of the inductive argument, as just because there is cause and effect withn the universe itself, it doesnt mean that there is an uncaused caser who is God causing it

• C = a logical fallacy has been created as jump in knowledge and assumpions have been made

para 2 → evaluation

• ambiguity is pressent within aquinas’ argument which makes it unsucessful because of its inductive nature

para 3 → aquinas’ third way, contingancy

• a01 → universe either exists or doesnt exist, must have being nothing at one point, meaniing a nessaciry being created everything

• A = F coplestone supports, fufiling the principle of sufficent reason, by suggesting that aquinas gives a full and suffiecnet reason, meaning his argument is sucessful and not too ambigous

• C = B russel → princple of suffiecent reason has not been fufiled, as the universe is just there and has no explanation otherwise

• C = aquinas argument would suggest that the entire human race would come from one mother

• C = just because there is contingancy within the universe, it doesnt mean that the universe itself is contingent

• C = way 3 faiks due to logical falllacy thus ambiguity has occured since a jump in knowledge has been made

para 3 → evaluation

• ambigious because of logical fallacies