The Cosmological Argument

The Cosmological Argument

1. Aquinas's argument - using the existence of the universe to prove God's existence

   • Aquinas puts forward 5 arguments for God in his book Summa Theologica of which three are Cosmological
     • The First Way - The unmoved mover
       • We observe that things move from potentiality to actuality (see Aristole mindmap)
         • Aristotle's philosophy
         • Nothing can be both potentiality something and actuality it at the same time (eg a seed cannot be a tree at the same time)
           • So anything in a state of actuality must have been moved into it by something else
             • There cannot be an infinite regress of movers or there would be no reason for movement to begin
               • So there must be a first mover - God
     • The Second Way - the uncaused causer
       • Nothing can be its own efficient cause
         • Each cause causes another, but there cannot be infinite regress
           • So there must be a first cause - God
     • The Third Way - Contingency
       • Things in nature are contingent - they need not exist
         • Given infinite time, at some point nothing would exist
           • But then nothing would have brought anything else into existence
             • So there must be a necessary being. A necessary being can cause another, but there must have been a first necessary being - God - to avoid infinite regress

2. Ciriticms of the Cosmological Argument

   • Infinite regress is possible in reality with numbers - you can keep on adding one forever
   • Why doesn't God need a cause?
   • Couldn't the universe have caused itself? (Ockham's razor/simplest theory idea)
   • Hume - our ideas about cause and effect may be mistaken; we ca'nt assume all effects have causes
   • Bertrand Russell: Every human has a mother, but the human race doesn't. Why should the universe have one sole cause?
   • Counter-arguments
     • Ascombe: A rabbit in a hat - it's more reasonable to believe the rabbit was always in the hat than that it appeared (so it makes more sense to not believe the universe caused itself)
     • Ockham's razor - it's more reasonable to believe that cause and effect works
   • Why should there be only one God?
   • Why should this God be a loving God? Alll this argument proves at most is that he is a creator, but that doesn't make him the Christian God

3. The Russell - Copleston debate

   • Copleston: mentions Leibniz's 'sufficient reason' idea - explanation of how a thing came to exist, and says God is his own sufficient reason
     • Russell: There is no such thing as an explanation to whuch nothing more can be added.
       • Copleston responded that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to look for one
         • Russel argued that the universe is 'just there, and that's all.'
           • Copleston counrtered that 'if you refuse to move a chesspiece, you can never be checkmated.' - ie Russell is being narrow-minded
             • They eventually agreed that they would never be able to resolve the issue since what had meaning to Copleston meant nothing to Russell