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announcements

announcements. Dr. Tim McGrew Historicity of the Gospels Nov 11 th Leadership Positions Available MSC Tabling Positions Available. Connect with Us. Visit U s O nline. ~facebook.com/ RatioChristiTAMU ~http://RC.tamu.edu ~@RC_TAMU. cosmological arguments. Ratio Christi Texas A&M.

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announcements

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  1. announcements • Dr. Tim McGrew Historicity of the Gospels Nov 11th • Leadership Positions Available • MSC Tabling Positions Available

  2. Connect with Us Visit Us Online ~facebook.com/RatioChristiTAMU ~http://RC.tamu.edu ~@RC_TAMU

  3. cosmological arguments Ratio Christi Texas A&M

  4. backgrounD:Cosmological Arguments • Show that the universe needs a cause or explanation for its existence • 2 Types: • Kalam • Began in 2nd and 3rd century, further developed by medieval Islamic thinkers • Leibnitz • Also called the Horizontal cosmological argument

  5. Goal • What are we trying to show? • There is a powerful, transcendent, and personal First Cause. • We eliminate religions dependent on an eternal universe as well as atheism.

  6. The Argument • Everything that begins to exist, has a cause. • The universebegan to exist. • Therefore, the universe has a cause.

  7. Causation? • Being begets being, and does not come from non being • Things do not pop in to being uncausedout of nothing • If something can come in to being uncaused out of nothing,why doesn’t everything do so?

  8. Did the Universe have a Beginning • The impossibility of actual infinities existing. • The impossibility of forming an actual infiniteby successive addition. • versus • is an actual infinite • is a potential infinite • Hilbert’s Hotel • Infinity Library

  9. scientific confirmation • Standard Big Bang Model • General relativity predicted expanding universe. • Red Shift provides empirical evidence of expansion + single point origin. • Alternative models have failed leaving the Standard Big Bang model. • BVG Theorem • Any universe which has been, on average, expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past. • This holds for multiverse scenarios as well. • (holds for non-quantum theories)

  10. conclusion • Therefore, the universe has a transcendent cause. • Properties of such a cause • Spaceless • Timeless • Immaterial • Uncaused • Powerful • These properties coincide strongly with traditional theism.

  11. Leibnizian Cosmological Argument Ratio Christi Texas A&M

  12. Formulations • Why do contingent things exist? • Why does the physical universe exist? • Why is there something rather than nothing* *beware of Platonists

  13. Stated • Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence, either in the necessity of its own being or in its contingency on an external entity. • If the universe has an explanation for its existence, that explanation is what we call God (a necessarily existing, personal being) • The universe is an existing thing. • From 1 and 3 it follows: The universe has an explanation of its existence • From 2 and 4 it follows: The explanation for the existence of the universe is God

  14. Premise I • ‘The Principle of Sufficient Reason’ • Undergirds all philosophical and scientific inquiry • Denial would be immensely anti-intellectual • Contingent • A thing is contingent if it could exist and it could have failed to exist. • A thing’s existence is contingent if there is some possible world where it exists and some possible world where it doesn’t exist. • Similarly, a contingent truth is something that is true in some possible world and false in some possible world. • Necessary • A being’s existence is metaphysically necessary if it cannot fail to exist; the being exists in all possible worlds. • A truth is metaphysically necessary if its truth can’t be and couldn’t have been otherwise; it is true in all possible worlds.

  15. Premise I Objections usually fall into one of two categories God is exempt from PSR (inconsistent) Universe is exempt from PSR (God of the Gaps)

  16. Premise II • Implicit affirmation • If atheism is true, the universe has no explanation; it simply exists as a brute fact. • Toned down • God = ‘transcendent personal cause’ • Conclusion is at least a bizarre form of atheism

  17. Premise II • The logical possibility of alternative composition is evidence against the universe’s necessity • The finite past is evidence for the universe’s contingency

  18. Premise III • That the universe exists is rather self-evident, making this the most difficult premise to deny. • One could say tongue in cheek that if the universe doesn’t exist then neither does the person raising this objection…

  19. Alternative Formulation • There are contingent constituents to the universe • Given the contingent constituents of the universe, the existence of the universe is highly unlikely under the hypothesis that these constituents are themselves uncaused or self-caused. • Given the contingent constituents of the universe, the existence of the universe is not unlikely under the hypothesis of a first uncaused cause • Therefore, the existence of the universe strongly supports the existence of a first, uncaused cause over the existence of a non uncaused cause. (Max Andrews, sententias.org)

  20. questions?

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