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Infinite Regress and the Cosmological Argument

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By Xeon32
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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 the present a n infinite time would have had to elapse. For a finite time would h ave elapsed only if the causal series had a beginning at a particular
1 See, for example, Paul Edwards, "The Cosmological Argument", in The Cosmological

Arguments, ed. D. R. Burrill, Anchor Books, i967, pp. Ioi-I23.

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