philosophy cosmological arguments

Inductive reasoning

Specific premis to broad conclusion. Uses a posteriori to draw a conclusion and is a generalisation. Totally possibility of being false.

Deductive reasoning

Takes broad premise and draws a specific conclusion, which must be true if the premise is true. Based upon a priori.

A posteriori

Evidence based on knowledge, observation and experience

A priori

Knowledge gained through reason alone (logic)

Cosmological arguments

Universe required an explanation and cosmological arguments argue god is the best explanation

Aquinas’ first way

Everything is in a notion of movement and change in the universe, both living and inanimate ( like seasons changing or furniture wearing down). Everything has the potential to change but stays the same unless a force acts against it, there must’ve been a chain where a first mover who wasn’t moved began the chain of motion in the universe. ‘unmoved mover’ (god)

Aquinas’ second way

Everything we see was brought about by a cause which made it happen. tracing back the chain of cause and effect infinitely will lead to a point where nothing caused the universe ( which isn’t true as it exists) meaning infinite regress can’t exist and something must’ve caused the universe, but wasn’t brought about by cause itself. ‘uncaused causer’ (god)

Aquinas’ third way

Contingent beings cease and start to exist by the surroundings, because of this there was a point nothing existed which could’ve brought about a contingent being. Means something which isn’t contingent must’ve existed to bring contingent beings to life, but lives out of its own necessity not dependent on anything else. A ‘ necessary being’ (god)

Kalam cosmological argument (William Craig)

Infinity can’t exist as that means everything would’ve just popped into existence which is absurd, meaning the universe was created within bounds of time by something timeless, which leads to the fact a personal being must’ve chose to create it and not just a force ( astrophysics) as atoms didn’t exist at one point. Leading to god

Problem of induction (Hume)

You can’t always assume what had happened will happen again

The assumption of cause and effect (Hume)

Just because we see something follows another thing, doesn’t mean that thing came from the other thing. Cause and effect is an assumption and tells us what happened, not why.

Fallacy of composition (Hume)

Just because a rule applies to a part of the system doesn’t mean it applied to the whole systems “every country had a capital city, therefore the world had a capital city.”

Big bang vs cosmological arguments

1) proved kalam wrong as non- personal being created universe

2) proved Aquinas wrong as it shows the universe didn’t need a creator as a chemical reaction out everything into place.