cosmological argument

Aquinas first cause

• Everything in the world is in the process of motion, changing from potential to actual

• Nothing moves itself – something only moves when moved by something else

• There can’t be an infinite regress of movers- chain of movers cannot go back infinitely

• So, there must have been a first mover that was itself unmoved – that thing we call God.

aquinas second cause

• We observe that there is cause and effect in the world

• Nothing can cause itself – something is only caused when caused by something else.

• There can’t be an infinite regress of causation.

• The uncaused causer means God causes cause and effect but has not caused Himself.

aquinas third way

• Everything in the universe is contingent, meaning it relies on something else for its existence.

• Aquinas argues that since infinite regression is impossible, there must be a necessary being that is separate from our existence and contingency

Hume criticism FALLACY OF COMPOSITION

• just because things within the universe have causes, it does not mean the universe as a whole has a cause

• Aquinas's argument is considered invalid because he makes a leap of logic

• Russell supports this argument, stating that just because every man has a mother does not prove the human race has a mother

Hume criticism Cause and Effect

• assume there is a relationship between cause and effect

• Fallacy of Affirmation of the Consequent: The mistaken logic that every effect needs a cause.

• Quantum mechanics supports Hume’s critique by showing causation may not apply in all cases

• We have no basis on which to think that the conditions within the universe are like the conditions under which the universe came into existence

Hume criticism against neccessary being

• Mackie supports this, arguing that instead of God, a permanent stock of matter could be the necessary being, whose essence didn't involve existence from anything else.

• A ‘necessary being’ is actually a meaningless concept. 

• A necessary being is one which must exist. 

• In that case, we shouldn’t even be able to imagine it not existing. 

• brute fact universe exists no reason

• whatever we can imagine existing, we can imagine not existing’. Hume claims we can imagine God not existing – so it must therefore be possible for God to not exist, and this means it cannot be the case that God must exist. 

infinite regress issue

• All cosmological arguments rely on the premise that an infinite regress is impossible. 

• This is because if the universe has always existed (in some form) then God’s existence cannot be argued for as the required explanation of the creation of the universe, since then it would not have been created – it would have just always existed.

• Perhaps the universe has just always been here, in which case God didn’t cause it.

• Hume argues that an infinite regress is possible. For something to be impossible, it has to be self-contradictory.

• Maybe the universe has been expanding and then crunching forever.

• So, the cosmological argument rests on an assumption.

evalulation

• W. L. Craig defended the cosmological argument from this criticism, using ‘Hilbert’s Hotel

• Craigs point about this – is that surely such a Hotel could never actually exist in reality. It’s absurd to think that infinities could actually exist

• Infinities cannot be possible in reality

further evaluation

• Aquinas has a better argument than Craig.

• If there were an infinite regress, there would be an infinite amount of time before the present moment.

• In that case, to get to the present moment, an infinite amount of time would have had to have passed.

• So, there cannot be an infinite amount of time before the present moment, and so an infinite regress is not possible.

Russell's Critique of Aquinas necessary being

• Russell argued that only analytic statements (true by definition) are necessarily true.

• Since "God exists" is not analytic and requires evidence, it is a synthetic (contingent) statement.

• Therefore, calling God a necessary being is meaningless.

• Russell also questioned why the universe couldn't just exist without explanation, or why infinite causation couldn't be possible.

• He challenged the idea that God can be self-explanatory if the universe itself isn't.

In essence, Russell rejected the need for a necessary being and the idea that God’s existence is logically necessary.

Alternative Explanations for the Universe's Origin

• The Big Bang Theory

• The Steady State Theory- Energy cannot be created, it is simply redistributed- Undermines the cosmological argument by suggesting God isn't needed for the universe's beginning.

Leibniz's Argument from Sufficient Reason

• principle of suffiecient reason

• no infiinite regress

• everything has a reason why it exists- a necessary truth only a necessary being can explain

• from nothing nothing comes

• Leibniz suggests that the spectacular nature of the effect (the universe) implies an even more amazing cause. He does not directly argue for God but implies that God might be a more sufficient reason than the Big Bang