The Cosmological Argument

1. The Cosmological Argument

2. Versions of the Cosmological Argument

3. St. Thomas Aquinas • In this book Summa Theologica., Aquinas puts forward five ways to the existence of God. The first three of his ways make up the popular version of the Cosmological Argument. Aquinas believed that “proofs” for the existence of God are needed because the existence of God is not self-evident – it is not obvious that God exists and it is quite easy to think of the world existing without God. “He was confident of the power of the human reason to attain knowledge of God’s existence.”

4. p2 The First Way – Motion/Change • Everything that moves is moved by something else; • That mover must also be moved by something else; • But you cannot have an infinite chain of movers, or there would be no reason for movement to get started at all; • Therefore, there must be an unmoved mover, producing movement in everything, without itself being moved; • This unmoved mover is what people understand to be God. Actual Change Potential Wood is potentially hot. Fire makes the potentially hot wood actually hot. Fire is actually hot

5. p3 The SecondWay – Causation • Everything has a cause; • Every cause has its own cause; • You can not have an infinite number of causes; • Therefore there must be an uncaused cause, which causes everything to happen without itself being caused by anything else; • Such an uncaused cause is what people understand by “God.” First efficient cause Intermediate cause Ultimate cause

6. p4 The ThirdWay – Being/Existence Contingent Existence A thing which has contingent existence may or may not exist and will eventually cease to exist. Necessary Existence A thing which has necessary existence has to exist and did never not exist. • Ordinary things start to exist and later stop existing (they are finite or contingent) • Therefore at some time none of them was in existence; • But something only comes into existence by being caused by something else that already exists; • Therefore there must be a being whose existence is necessary and therefore not limited by time. This being is what people understand by God.

7. Frederick Copleston The Argument from contingency Copleston states that the existence of contingent things can only be explained if we accept that there is a being with necessary existence who started off the chain of all other existent things. There must, Copleston argues, be a sufficient explanation for the existence of all contingent things and this must be God, who contains within himself the reason for his existence. “...in order to explain existence, we must come to a being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence, that is to say, that which cannot not exist.”

8. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz “If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.” Leibniz believed that the existence of the universe requires a sufficient reason.

9. The Kalam Argument • Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence; • The universe began to exist; • Therefore the universe must have a cause. Rejection of Infinite Regression: • An actual infinite number can not exist; • Therefore, the series of causes for the world being as it is now cannot be an infinite temporal (worldly) sequence; • So, the sequences of causes in the world can not be infinite; • Therefore, the world began to exist at some point in the past. • There was a time in the past when one of two states was possible – that there should be, or should not be, a universe.

10. The role of God in the Cosmological Argument

11. God as Temporal First Cause God is connected to the world as the first mover, first cause, and the One with necessary existence who begins the lives of all those whose existence is contingent. God as Sustainer The God of Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument is one who is linked to a world which is ontologically dependent on Him. If God, as the necessary being, stops His creative action, then the world will no longer exist. As God begins the chain of motion and the chain of cause and effect, God can also stop them by withdrawing from the world. The explanation for why there is something rather than nothing Bede Rundle states that the question ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ is “Philosophy’s central and most perplexing problem.” “Nothing can come of nothing.”

12. Criticisms of the Cosmological Argument

13. The Possibility of infinite regress and the universe as a brute fact The Fallacy of Composition The identity of the necessary being as God Drawing a conclusion which goes beyond the evidence

14. Does the argument make it reasonable to believe in God? (strengths and weaknesses)

15. Dawkins vsPolkinghorne The physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne argues that religion is needed to answer the questions of why the scientific laws of the universe are so perfect as to allow intelligent life to form. In his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, Dawkins argues that scientific advances in ideas about the universe mean that we no longer require God as an explanation. Dawkins goes on to say that if God really did set the world in motion, then there would be lots of evidence for God in the world. Polkinhorne argues, “We are not now looking to the physical world for hints of God’s existence but to God’s existence as an aid for understanding why things have developed in the physical world in the manner that they have.”

16. The nature of this proof As this argument is a posteriori, it is based on human experience. The argument asks us to use our experience of everything which moves being moved by another, everything which is caused being caused by another and also of contingent existence – the fact that all living things die. This is a strength of the argument. However, both Hume and Kant argue that the conclusions of the argument step out of the realm of our experiences to a first mover, first cause and being with necessary existence which we have no experience of at all. In particular, the conclusion of God, some would argue, is a leap of faith totally removed from the evidence. As this argument is inductive, we can accept the premises (that everything that moves is moved by another etc) without accepting the conclusion (God). Although Swinburne argues that God is the simplest and therefore most likely explanation, we can reject this conclusion.

17. Russell vsCopleston Copleston states that the existence of contingent things can only be explained if we accept that there is a being with necessary existence who started off the chain of all other existent things. I could only admit a necessary being if there were a being whose existence it is self-contradictory to deny. Copleston’s rejection of infinite regress “What we call the world is intrinsically unintelligent apart from the existence of God. … If you add up chocolates to infinity … you get an infinite amount of chocolates, if you add up contingent being to infinity, you still get contingent being, not a necessary being.” (Copleston) The whole concept of cause is one that we derive from our observation of particular things. I see no reason to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever. (Russell)

18. Can the argument lead us to faith? Perhaps all of Aquinas’ ways, plus other versions of the cosmological argument, provide cumulative weight and lead people to belief in God. Aquinas also accepted that the God suggested in the Cosmological Argument is difficult to understand as the God of classical theism. He used methods like analogy to suggest the qualities of the necessary being, but accepted that, as all theists believe, one can never arrive at a total understanding of God. “As an argument for a first cause of all existing things, the cosmological argument seems a reasonable one. But it does not itself establish the existence of God with all the properties ascribed to Him.” (Davies: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion) • Some philosophers argue that the different ‘proofs’ for the existence of God can not have cumulative weight as several bad arguments together do not make a sound argument, just as several leaky buckets can not hold water. Perhaps this argument cannot lead to faith in God, but maybe it doesn’t try to do this; “I am not seeking to understand in order to believe, but believe in order that I may understand.” (Anselm)

19. What is the value of the argument to religious faith?

20. Aquinas intended the argument to point people towards a belief in God and to suggest that there is evidence for religious faith. It is possible that the Cosmological Argument could bring someone to belief in God or strengthen a religious person’s faith. • However, Aquinas himself referred to his ideas of ‘ways’ not ‘proofs’ and so it seems unlikely that an atheist would begin to have religious faith after reading about the Cosmological Argument. As the argument is inductive, the conclusions are not conclusive. Swinburne asserted that the argument makes it very likely that God does exist, but it is doubtful that anyone except a religious believer would be convinced by the argument.There are many flaws in the argument, which have been pointed out in this booklet that could be used by a disbeliever to discredit the argument and maintain their atheistic standpoint.

21. Anselm stated that the argument for God existence are there to enable believers to understand more about their existing faith, rather than bringing atheists to belief in God.

22. We have also seen that the argument points to a necessary being and first mover / cause rather than the God of classical theism. Perhaps thinkers who support the argument can, at best, expect agnostics to lean towards the idea that there might be a ‘sufficient reason’ for the existence of the universe. • They can not expect them to be led to the all-powerful, all-loving God of Christianity, as the sufficient reason could be an evil God, or many gods. • Therefore, this argument might serve to strengthen existing religious faith and might give believers an argument to justify their belief in God. However, it is unlikely that a person who is not a believer will be drawn to faith in the Christian God by the Cosmological Argument.