Cosmological argument

Aquinas’ assumptions

1) The universe exists

2) There must be a reason why

• Claim 2 is disputed by Russell who argues it is just a brute fact

DOESNT assume universe must have had beginning - it could be infinite and still have a primary cause of essential causal chains

Aquinas’ First Way

• Everything that is in motion, or changing, has to be put into motion (or changed) by something else

• Motion is reduction of something from potentiality to actuality, can only be performed by something already in actuality

• E.g. Actually hot (fire) makes potentially hot wood to be actually hot

• Something cannot be potential and actual in same respect, it cannot be self-actualising

• Chain of movers cannot go on into infinity - there would be no first mover and therefore no other mover

• Like how staff moves only because it is in contact with hand (God is sustaining cause so therefore must exist)

• So it is necessary to arrive at a first mover which is unmoved, fully actual - this is God

Aquinas’ Second Way

1) We observe efficient causation (Aristotle’s efficient cause)

2) Nothing can cause itself (it would be prior to itself, impossible)

3) To take away cause is to take away effect - taking away a first cause would take away intermediate cause and therefore ultimate effect

(First cause —> immediate cause —> ultimate effect)

4) There must be first cause, otherwise P1 would fail

5) So cannot be infinite regress of causes

6) First cause must itself be uncaused - God

Sustaining causation

“First” = primary, not temporally first.

Essential causal chain

• All other motion and causation depend on its continued sustaining causal activity

• Things we observe are “secondary” causes (accidental causal chain) - they do not have power to generate causation themselves - they inherit power from other secondary causes… eventually from primary cause

• Hand holding stick touching stone - hand doesn’t move first, but it is “first” cause which the others are dependent on in the series.

Aquinas’ Third Way

P1) We observe that there are contingent things (depend on external factors for their existence, possible for them not to exist)

Depend on something having brought them into existence in the first place, and something continuing to keep them in existence

2) If it is possible for something not to exist, there is some time in which it does not exist

C1) If everything were contingent, then at one time nothing existed

P3) If nothing once existed, nothing could begin to exist, so nothing would exist now

C2) So there must be something not contingent - “having of itself its own necessity”

• This is God

Hume’s criticism of Aquinas, constant conjunction

• Causation is merely constant conjunction

• Instead of saying x causes y, we can say “whenever x,y”

• Simply referring to cause and effect overly simplifies the concept - it is far more complex, when does cause become effect?

• So occurrence of x and y together can merely be described as statistical correlation

Summary: Hume rejects the existence of a causal principle as it is simply invented by humans to explain the link between two simultaneous events. It is not true by necessity.

Russell - Fallacy of compostion

• What goes for the parts does not always go for the whole

• Parts of universe have cause, mover, contingent status

• Doesn’t mean whole universe has an explanation

• It is assumption that universe has a cause, instead of just everything in it

• MAKES COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT INDUCTIVE

Countered by Coplestone:

• Argues cosmological arguments don’t claim whole has a cause because parts do

• OBSERVED things require an explanation - series of contingent things (what non-believers claim) requires an explanation

• (Series must either be necessary or require external explanation)

• Chain of contingent objects cannot be NECESSARY

• So even an infinite series requires and external explanation

EVAL: Coplestone fails

• Series is not “thing” requiring own explanation

• Whole is just sum of the parts, it is not a concrete thing over and above its parts

• Series is not a concrete thing like its parts

Hume’s criticism of inconsistency

• If universe requires cause, why doesn’t God also require a cause - inconsistent

William Temple on infinite regress

• Whilst it is impossible to imagine infinite regress, it is not impossible to conceive of it the same way it is impossible to conceive of a square circle

• Infinite regress not logically contradictory - just beyond our understanding

• Not necessarily wrong

Kalam cosmological argument

P1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause

P2) Universe began to exist

(Cites impossibility of infinite regress of temporal phenomena because if there were infinite prior moments before present, present would never be reached

C1) Therefore universe has a cause

Leibniz and Principle of sufficient reason

“No fact could ever be true… unless there was a sufficient reason why it was thus and not otherwise”

• Against idea of brute facts - irrational not to look for explanation of things

• Whether we can find it or not, there is always a sufficient explanation

SUFFICIENT REASON = complete/ultimate explanation

PROXIMATE REASON = incomplete reason - immediate cause

P1) Any contingent fact about the world must have an explanation (PSR)

2) There are contingent things

P3) Contingent things must be explained by something which is not contingent

C2) There is a Necessary being, this is God

• We don’t need God because of temporal, primary causation etc, it is because no other explanation of universe is sufficient

• Nothing in universe provides sufficient reason to account for its existence - it is all contingent

Leibniz Geometry book analogy

• Infinite series of geometry books

• Each copy based on previous book

• Nothing within series can provide sufficient reason for series itself

• So explanation must come from outside

HUME support of LEIBNIZ

• There must be foundational reason for holding beliefs, reasons cannot regress ad infinitum - renders belief baseless

Mackie’s criticism of Leibniz - Necessary being

• We can conceive of anything not existing

• Ability to conceive of something = possibility

• It is possible that a necessary being does not exist

• So we have sufficient reason to argue that contingent beings don’t have to be explained by necessary ones

Mackie’s criticism of Leibniz - principle of sufficient reason

• Not a self evident or necessary principle - not analytic nor synthetic

• Just because we desire explanation doesn’t mean there is

• Facts can be explained by one or more contingent causes

Russell criticism of sufficient reason

• It is impossible to reach sufficient reason for universe

• It is beyond human experience

• MUST terminate in a brute fact to provide any foundation for beliefs