...The cosmological argument The word “cosmos” means universe. The cosmological argument argues the existence of a first cause, God, from a posteriori and priori premise. It argues that the universe is contingent and therefore requires a cause, as nothing is the cause of itself. This is known as redicto- ad- absurdum. The argument is backed up by the five ways put forward by the 12th century theologian and philosopher, St Thomas Aquinas. In the 12th century, St Thomas Aquinas put forward 5 ways to prove the existence of God in his book “Summa Theologica”. Aquinas’s five ways to prove the existence of God are based on the work of Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, whose work was later translated in Arabic, by Muslim philosophers Al- Kindi and Al- Ghazali, and then translated into Latin. I will be examining three of Aquinas’ ways, uncaused cause, unmoved mover and necessary being. As well as examining these three ways to prove the existence of God, I will be looking at their supporters and critics. Aquinas’ 1st way to prove the existence of God was the uncaused cause also known as the first cause. Aquinas considers the world in terms of “cause and effect” which means that without a cause there is no effect. Everything in the universe has a cause. Human beings have a cause (their parents) too. Aquinas argued that we could follow the chain of “cause and effect” all the way back, but there cannot be an infinite chain. There must be an uncaused cause, which causes everything...
Words: 1140 - Pages: 5
...Examine the cosmological argument for the existence of God. The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused. Many philosophers have explored the cosmological argument, including Aquinas, in much depth, through his Five Ways in the Summa Theologica. Thomas Aquinas rejected the ontological argument of Anselm, saying that had it been convincing, the existence of God would be self-evident to everyone. He argued that the fact people deny God’s existence is proof enough that it is not in fact self evident. Aquinas believed from faith that God existed and he believed that the real world contained enough evidence for this; Aquinas wrote the Five Ways in order to prove his beliefs. Each ‘way’ of the Five Ways is an exercise of reason, not of faith; they are the classical exposition of natural theology. The first three of the five ways are based on the cosmological argument. The first way that Aquinas proposed to support the cosmological argument regarded the ‘unmoved mover’; he stated that...
Words: 1393 - Pages: 6
...A) Outline the cosmological argument for the existence of God “ A may be explained by B, and B by C, but in the end there will be some one object on whom all other objects depend” Richard Swinburne. The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which therefore basis it’s conclusions on observations and experience; this is difficult to challenge. Over many years, different scholars have added their opinions to Aristotle and Plato’s contributions, making that argument stronger. The most famous version of the cosmological is associated with the Christian apologist Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa theological he sets out to demonstrate that the universe requires an explanation and this explanation demands a necessary and non-contingent being, God. This ides is key at the heart of all cosmological arguments. “The series must start with something, since nothing can come from nothing” Metaphysics. Plato and Aristotle postulated the need for a craftsman for their arguments with the fact of motion, which, they argued, needs a prior agency to motivate it. This mover would, itself, have no further mover, because it would be a primes mover, which is a self-actualising, necessary being. Neither Aristotle nor Plato understood how the universe could exist without such a mover. Aquinas further developed this idea in his first and second way. Aquinas’ first way states that all things are in motion (a state of change: for Aquinas, “motion is the reduction of something from...
Words: 341 - Pages: 2
...Explain how the existence of God may be proved by Cosmological arguments (30) There are many arguments that can be displayed to provide evidence for the existence of God. The cosmological argument, also known as the first cause argument, is a posteriori argument. This means that the evidence used to prove the argument can be observed by anyone, which makes the argument more accessible and user friendly. The argument is also an inductive argument, which means that it can have many possible conclusions; not necessarily God. This argument is a strong argument, which tries to deduce the existence of God through cause and effect. It’s based upon the principle that everything must have been caused by something in order to exist. The cosmological argument has long history, going back to the philosophers of Plato, Aristotle and Leibniz. All of these philosophers may have had different ideas about God, although they all agreed that the universe is not self-explanatory and must have had a sole cause in order for it to come into existence. Plato was an Ancient Greek Philosopher who was considered as the father of modern philosophy. In fact, one of the earliest forms of a cosmological argument was found in Plato’s writings: Timaeus and The Laws. In The Laws, we see the argument for the existence of God being proposed as the very fact that the universe exists and it also goes on to discuss the principles of change and motion. Plato is proposing the necessity of a ‘self moved’ mover, implying...
Words: 1328 - Pages: 6
...The Cosmological Argument An important argument to try and prove the existence of God is the Cosmological Argument brought on by observations of the physical universe, made by Saint Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth century Christian philosopher. The cosmological argument is a result from the study of the cosmos; Aquinas borrows ideas from Aristotle to make this systematically organized argument. Aquinas’ first point begins with the observation that everything is moving. Aquinas’ says that everything that moves must be moved by another moving thing, which has to be moved by another moving thing and so on. This cannot be infinite though, because consequently the motion of the series would have no origin, and the origin of this series cannot be moving because then there would have to be something moving it. Therefore, God, being a perfect, unmoved, uncaused being, would have to be the unmoving origin, “The First Mover”, of the series of moving things. The second point made by Aquinas’ is that everything is caused and what is caused to exist has to be caused by another thing because nothing can cause its own self to exist. This chain of caused things caused by another thing cannot be endless because that would mean there would be no beginning to cause the existence therefore, the existence of the origin of this chain of caused things would have to be uncaused. So God would have to be the first uncaused, non dependent origin of all the other existing caused things. Regarding Aquinas’...
Words: 654 - Pages: 3
...What is the "Cosmological Argument" for God's existence? Be sure to make the premises and conclusion clear. Discuss what you take to be the strongest objection to this argument, and explain why you think it succeeds or fails. The cosmological argument for God’s existence differs from both the scriptural and ontological arguments in the way in which humans created it. Rather than looking at logical arguments or religious texts, the cosmological argument was derived because of humanity’s ability to project their need for cause onto the world. The cosmological argument is centered on the way in which we, humans in general, perceive there to be a need for a God due to the existence of the world around us. The cosmological argument goes back to ancient times when philosophers such as Aristotle wrote about it in several of his books. Aristotle and others argued that everything has a cause and every action has a reason behind it. This cause and action design sets up the principal aspect of the cosmological argument. If everything has a cause then we could trace back every action to the cause forming a chain of effects. And logically if we follow this chain of events back farther and farther we can determine that an infinite amount of steps backward would be impossible. And if this is the case then a single cause must be at the very start of the chain. This has been referred to as the first cause or the prime mover, or in other words a proof of an existence of God. To provide a...
Words: 563 - Pages: 3
...Ben Kemp 5/1/14 There have been many arguments formed by philosophers over the most basic question every human holds: is there a God? Cosmological arguments are arguably the most common in attempting to prove the existence of God. One of the most famous is the sufficent cause argument made famous by Saint Bonaventure. It simply states that nothing in the world is without cause. The belief being that God was the ultimate first cause of the universe, it didnt just come to be out of nothing. Bonaventure reasoned that their cannot be an infinite amount of causes streching back forever, therefore the first cause is God. Another cosmological argument was presented by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, the sufficent reason argument. Simply put, everything must have a reason for exsistence. For example, I was born because my parents concieved me and my mother gave birth to me. I need food, water and oxygen to continue exsisting. I do not hold in myself the reason for my own exsistence. Therefore there cannot be an infinite number of explanations for exsistence, if this were true Leibniz argued, there would be no reason for anything to exsist. Therefore something must exsist that holds its own reason for exsistence within itself, as well as the reason for everything elses exsistence. This thing is God. The philosopher Thomas Nagel held objections to all of the cosmological arguments. His objection had two parts; first is simply that if everything requires a cause God also requires...
Words: 282 - Pages: 2
...The Kalam Cosmological Argument The temporal, kalam cosmological argument, dates back to medieval Muslim philosophers such as al-Kindi and al-Ghazali. It has recently been restored to popularity by William Lane Craig. Like all cosmological arguments, the kalam cosmological argument is an argument from the existence of the world or universe to the existence of God. The existence of the universe, such arguments claim, stands in need of explanation. The only adequate explanation, the arguments suggest, is that it was created by God. What distinguishes the kalam cosmological argument from other forms of cosmological argument is that it rests on the idea that the universe has a beginning in time. Modal forms of the cosmological argument are consistent with the universe having an infinite past. According to the kalam cosmological argument, however, it is precisely because the universe is thought to have a beginning in time that its existence is thought to stand in need of explanation. This argument has the following logical structure: The Kalam Cosmological Argument (1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence. (2) The universe has a beginning of its existence. Therefore: (3) The universe has a cause of its existence. (4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God. Therefore: (5) God exists. The first premise of the argument is the claim that everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. In order...
Words: 451 - Pages: 2
...Regarding the Cosmological Argument The goal of the cosmological argument is to support the claim that God exists as the first cause of the universe. According to Nagel, the argument runs as following: (P1) Every event must have a cause. (P2) If every event must have a cause, event A must have a cause B, which in turn must have a cause C, and so on. (P3) There is no end to this backward progression of causes. (C1) This backward progression of causes will be an infinite series of event. (P4) An infinite series of events is unintelligible and absurd. (P5) The existence of the universe does not result from an unintelligible and absurd process. (P6) The existence of the universe does not result from an infinite series of events. (C2) The existence of the universe must have a first cause. (P7) This first cause is God. (C3) God is the initiator of all change in the universe. Now I will introduce Nagel’s objection to the cosmological argument. For the sake of argument, Nagel presupposes the cosmological argument’s premise P1 “every event must have a cause” as true. With that in mind, Nagel presents his objection, which I have paraphrased in two parts. Nagel argues in the first part of his objection that if every event must have a cause, God should also need one for his existence, since there must be something that initially caused God to exist. However, this would again begin the infinite backward progression of causes, since the existence of that which caused God’s existence...
Words: 1564 - Pages: 7
...The Cosmological Argument The cosmological argument is reasonable proof for the existence of God, with involving components of reasons including the fact that whatever begins to exist has a cause, no thing has placed itself in motion, and that everything that exists is either contingent or necessary. The Cosmological Argument involves many sub-arguments that help validate it and prove that it is correct. One of these arguments is entitled the ‘Kalam Cosmological Argument’. This argument is used to prove that there was a beginning in time, by saying that an infinite number of days has no end, but today is the current end in history right now. If there were an infinite number of days, it would be impossible for today to have occurred. This involves the...
Words: 1120 - Pages: 5
...Explain Aquinas’ Cosmological argument. Aquinas Cosmological argument is an attempted proof of the existence of God working from the undeniable fact that the universe exists. He formulated his argument in three ways. His first formulation of the Cosmological argument was the argument from motion. He argued that everything in the universe is in a state of constant motion and change. He saw change as the motion of an object turning from a state of potentiality into a state of actuality and thought that something must cause the object to change between these states. He goes on to say there must have once been something that performed the function of an unmoved mover; for were this not the case there could be nothing to set all other objects in the universe into their courses of motion and change. Therefore Aquinas concludes that this unmoved mover is what everyone else refers to as God. Aquinas second formulation uses the argument from cause. He argued that everything in the universe has an efficient cause, nothing is its own cause. Therefore everything is caused by something else. However there cannot be an infinite regression of causes because if there were no First Cause which was a sufficient cause of itself in itself then there could have been no following causes, and nothing would exist today. Because the universe does exist we must therefore accept the existence of an uncaused cause and this cause is God. Aquinas third formulation uses the argument from contingency. He...
Words: 568 - Pages: 3
...Cosmological Argument: The First Mover I think that the argument contains a major fallacy. Although I agree by the argument’s conclusion that there is a timeless, eternal, God, I would not use it to argue and prove God’s existence because it contains a non sequitur fallacy. I think premise 2 as presented in Aquinas’ second way (Miller and Jensen 224) contradicts the conclusion. All this boils down to really is the claim that the argument is making that: Everything that exists has a cause (first way – something can’t come from nothing). The universe exists. Therefore, there must be a cause for its existence (second way – could not be the cause of itself). Thus, if the universe has a cause for its existence, then that cause must be caused by...
Words: 348 - Pages: 2
...The Kalam Cosmological Argument: (KCA) Of the things debated in society, perhaps nothing is more hotly contested than the existence of a God. Over the course of time there have been many arguments made from many different angles. For example, an argument in favor of existence is the teleological argument also known as “fine tuning,” or the “argument from design” argues that the universe is so organized as to suggest the necessity of a designer. (1) Likewise there are many arguments against the existence of a God; perhaps the most well know is the “problem of evil” which argues if there is an omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being, he (or she) would know where evil is, have the power to destroy it, and being morally perfect would...
Words: 929 - Pages: 4
...INFINITE REGRESS AND THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT I n recent years, there has been a revival of interest in that version o f the Cosmological Proof for God's existence which argues for the n ecessity of an uncaused or first cause. The argument can be p resented as follows: I ) We know that at least some things are caused to come i nto being 2) Either whatever causes something to come into being has i tself been caused to come into being or there is somet hing that causes something to come into being which has n ot itself been caused to come into being 3) But if whatever causes something to come into being has i tself been caused to come into being, there is an infinite series of causes stretching back in time 4) But there cannot be such a series 5) Hence there is something that causes something to come i nto being which has not itself been caused to come into b eing. T h a t is, there is an uncaused cause, and this is G od. N ow the major source of disagreement between the defenders and o pponents of this argument is over whether premise (4) is true, i.e. w hether an infinite series of causes stretching back in time is possible. A n umber of fallacious objections to the possibility of an infinite series have been exposed, 1 but there remains one objection that h as not, and in the opinion of several supporters of the argument, c annot be answered. This is essentially that if there were an infinite series of causes stretching back in time, in order to reach...
Words: 333 - Pages: 2
...Based on professor Glynn’s lectures the arguments for the existence of God includes the cosmological, Design, and Ignorance and the argument against the existence of God includes the Empirical, Rational, etc. The Cosmological argument shows that you got to keep going backk.It is constantly looking for a source/explaination for everything. Scientist have came to the conclusion of the Big Bang Theory, but where/ who created the Big band? where did th invisible force come from? Is it from the all powerful but invinsible God? Or did it just come out of thin air? This then carries into the next argument where people may just call it pure ignorance. That is when people try to explain an already difficult concept with a more abstract concept with...
Words: 277 - Pages: 2
