The Cosmological Argument

Living in an Aquinas Wonderland.

What were Aristotle’s Ideas about Potentiality, Actuality and a Prime Mover?

• Potentiality is what something can become

  • Fire can potentially become hot

• Actuality is when something has become what it can be

  • Wood actually becomes hot because of fire

• The Prime Mover is the being that actualises motion without being moved itself

  • Fire actualises the woods potential to become hot.

In which book did Aquinas set out his 5 ways?

Summa Theologicae

What is Aquinas’ Way 1 (The Argument from Change)?

1. Things in this world are in motion - this is confirmed by our senses

2. We can agree that everything that is in motion is moved by something else

3. A thing can only change in a certain way if it has the potentiality to change, and these changes are not random and are directed to a certain goal

   1. i.e. Water can become hot, but not, say, musical.

4. To move something, that mover must be in actuality, not potentiality

   1. Fire is hot in actuality, and can therefore move wood to be hot from potentiality to actuality. But, the fire could not do so if it was only hot in potentiality.

5. An object cannot be at the same time in actuality and potentiality towards the same thing

   1. An object cannot be hot in actuality, hot in potentiality and cold in potentiality.

6. Therefore, it is impossible that something could move itself

7. Everything that is in motion must therefore have already been moved by something else

8. Therefore, if everything we see is in motion, its motion has been cause by something else and so on

9. There cannot be an infinite chain of movers, otherwise there would be no movers in the first place

10. There must be a first mover which is moved by nothing else

11. This being must be Necessary

12. This prime, unmoved mover is what we call God,

What must be remembered about Aquinas’ ways?

They do not necessarily argue for the specific existence of the Christian God - they merely argue for the existence of a God, which is the highest being.

What is Aquinas’ Second Way (Argument from Causation)?

1. Everything that exists has a cause

2. Nothing can cause itself, as then it would have to have existed before its cause - impossible

3. it is not possible to proceed from infinity in causes

   1. The first causes the middle, which causes the last

   2. If we remove a cause the effect is removed

   3. If there is no first cause, then there is no middle or last

   4. If we go to infinity in causes then there is no first cause so no middle or last

4. Therefore there must be a first causer that causes everything else

What is Aquinas’ Third Way (Argument from Contingency)?

1. There are some things in the Universe that can both exist and not exist

2. It is impossible for all things to be like this because anything that is capable of not existing at some point does not exist

3. If all things possibly do not exist, there was a time where nothing existed in the Universe

4. If this were true, there would be nothing in existence now, because anything that foes not exist cannot be brought into existence by something that does not exist

5. As things do exist now, then clearly this must not be true

6. Therefore, as all things are contingent, there must have been something necessary to bring these things into existence

7. Everything that is necessary either has the cause of necessity within itself, or is given its necessity by something else

8. It is impossible for us to proceed from infinity in necessary causes

9. Therefore there must be something that is necessary in itself, and this thing we call God.

What is Hume’s criticism of Linear Causation?

He questions the idea that every event has a cause. He believed that we always make an assumption that causes work because thats the way our mind works. However, there may be no proof of the the cause, such as the ‘Clapham omnibus’ - what stops the bus - the driver, the passenger, the brakes, etc.?

How might someone respond to the critique of Linear Causation?

Whilst its true that causation is not straightforward, the cosmological argument does not rely on linear causation. it focuses more broadly on contingent existence leading to the need for a necessary cause.

Elizabeth Anscombe says that we can safely assume that “Existence has a cause” - In other wards “We don’t know what pulled the rabbit out of the hat, but we know that something did.”

What is Hume’s criticism with the Fallacy of Composition?

Hume questions whether it is right to move from things in the world having causes to the entire world having causes.

As Bertrand Russell says - “Just because you have a mother, does not mean the entire human race has a mother”

How might someone respond to the Fallacy of Composition criticism?

The Cosmological argument is not necessarily guilty of this criticism - It doesn’t claim that the whole world has a cause because parts of it do - it argues for the existence of a first cause that explains the existence of contingent things

What is Hume’s criticism of Contradiction?

Aquinas seems to argue that all things that are in motion have a prior cause, but then contradicts this when claiming that God has unique status?

How would one respond to the Criticism of Contradiction?

God is a ‘metaphysical necessity’. For Aquinas and Coplestone, God as a necessary being is the only sufficient reason for the universe, as without Him there would be only ever contingent beings.

What is the Plurality of Causes criticism and why is it irrelevant?

Hume suggests that perhaps there is a cause of the world, but how can we be sure that it is only one cause? There could be a multitude of causes, or an imperfect one.

This is irrelevant as the question of monotheism and polytheism is a separate theological debate and therefore has no standing

How does J.L. Mackie reject Infinite Regress?

Aquinas rejects infinite regress but on what Basis?

J.L. Mackie provides the analogy of the train, where a train has infinite carriages - it still needs an engine to push the train along.

What did Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz say about the cosmological argument?

“Why is there something, rather than nothing?”

What is the Principle of Sufficient Reason?

“Everything that exists must have a reason why it is so and not otherwise”

Why does the Principle of Sufficient reason support a necessary being?

“There must be a necessary substance, which carries the reason for its existence within itself?”

From which of Leibniz’s works does this idea come from?

Monadology

What is Leibniz’s Argument from Contingency?

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence either in the necessity of its nature or in an external cause

2. The universe Exists

3. The Universe is contingent

4. Therefore, to create the universe ultimately, the creator must be necessary

5. Necessary beings are only abstract beings, or God

6. Abstract objects cannot interact with other things, so the Creator must be God.