The cosmological argument for
the existence of God
St Thomas Aquinas
The First way: The argument from motion
Premise 1:Everything is in motion
Aquinas argued that using our senses we can tell that
everything is in motion (undergoing change).
Premise 2: Everything in motion must
be put in motion by something else
Premise 3: There cannot be an infinite regress
of movers going into the past
Thus we can conclude that there was an original, unmoved mover.
God
Using our sense we can also tell that
everything in motion was put in motion by
something else (a rolling stone is pushed).
The Third way: The argument from contingency
Premise 1: Contingent beings exist
Premise 2: Contingent beings have a cause
Premise 3: The cause of a contingent beings
existence must be something other than itself
Premise 4: Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate
causal account of the existence of a contingent being
This is due to the fact that there cannot be an infinite regress
of causes going back into the past. There cannot be an infinite
number of contingent beings going back into the past.
Conclusion: A Necessary being must exist
God
We can't really give birth to ourselves. That would be weird.
All life is caused by something else,
for example their parents
All life on Earth as we know it can
conceived to not exist thus is contingent
The Second way: The argument from causation
Premise 1: Everything has a cause
Our senses can teach us that everything
around us is caused by something and does
not simply pop into existence
Premise 2: Nothing can cause itself
Common sense and
observation can tell us this
Premise 3: There cannot be an
infinite regress of causers
Conclusion: There must be an uncaused first cause
God
The Russell v Copleston radio debate
Copleston's argument is based on Aquinas' third way and Leibniz's principle of sufficient
reason. He asks us to view the world as objects which do not contain within themselves the
answer for their own existence. He uses the example of depending on his own parents and
now food and air etc. He states the universe is the aggregate of individual objects, none of
which are capable of explaining themselves. The world isn't distinct from its objects any
more than the human race is distinct from its members. Since no object contains the reason
for its own existence there must be an external reason beyond the universe and this reason
must be an existent being. This being is either the answer for its own existence or it is not.
But the chain of dependency cannot go on ad infinitum or else this would be absurd as we
would have no explanation for the universe at all.
So in order to explain existence we must come to a being whose
existence is contained within it which is to say a being which cannot not
exist. This is the essence of Copleston's argument from contingency.
Russell suggests that the term ‘necessary being' has no meaning outside analytic propositions. He
states that he could only accept the term ‘necessary being' if it could be demonstrated that this
being was one whose existence it would be self-contradictory to deny. Russell believes that the
term ‘necessary' cannot be applied to things a posteriori as well as the term ‘contingent'. Russell
also said that to ask why the Universe exists is pointless as we can never know the answer
The Principle of Sufficient Reason states that, in the case of any positive
truth, there is some reason for it, i.e. there is some sort of explanation,
known or unknown, for everything. The world does not seem to contain
within itself the reason for its own existence. Therefore God exists.
Criticisms
If everything has a cause, like Aquinas
says, then what caused the first cause
David Hume
The fallacy of composition: Just because we know about causes
of the individual parts of the Universe, does not mean we can
move onto the cause of the Universe as a whole.
Leibniz would challenge Hume’s logic through his principle of sufficient
reason. Partial explanations of something are only ever going to be partial:
explaining the lighting of a match by striking it against a box in only a partial
explanation not a full one. Leibniz and Copleston would argue that it is valid to
look for full explanations for every event be it a single one or a series.
Why can't the Universe be eternal?
If God's non-existence is impossible because of some
“unknown inconceivable qualities”, why should we assume
that these qualities do not belong to matter? This means that
matter could be eternal and so needs no further explanation.
Modern physics believes that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. The
dominant belief in the scientific community is that the universe has a
definite beginning. It is difficult to believe that the universe is eternal as it
appears counterintuitive of our experience in the universe
Like causes have like effects
Hume asks why one should not postulate male and female gods
who are born and die, as the closer the analogy between causes in
the world and causes of the world as a whole the closer should be
the resemblance between us as people who cause things and God.
The creation of the universe is a one off event and so need not be similar to our own experience.
Aquinas suggests that God is a special case. The laws of the spacio-temporal universe would not
apply to God. Also, the suggestion that male and female gods may have created universe would beg
the question what made these gods. Leibniz principle of sufficient reason would appear too strong to
accept this partial explanation.
We cant use our A Posteriori knowledge of cause and
effect on our world to the whole Universe as we have
no knowledge of the a cause of the Universe
For example, just because we know a house was built by an architect doesn't mean the same
thing has to apply to the Universe, it doesnt need to have an architect
Copleston, Descartes, Anselm, Vardy and Malcolm would all argue that Hume misunderstands the
essential nature of God. The essence of God is that God cannot not exist. Even if we accept that we
cannot define God into existence (de dicto – as in the ontological argument) the third way argument
(as with Copleston’s) does not seem to suggest that God is ‘necessary’ a priori but a posteriori. It is
the fact that contingent objects are incapable of providing the answer to their own existence that
God is necessary as an eternal being that cannot not exist.
Immanuel Kant rejected the argument outright not only because he maintained that the idea of a
‘Necessary Being’ was incoherent but also because our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal
world of space and time and it is not possible to speculate about what may or may not exist
independently of space and time.
Why can there not be an Infinite regress?
If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a
railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's
motion is explained proximately by the motion of the
car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar
pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it,
etc. But there is no engine to pull the first car and
the whole train. That would be impossible, of course.
But that is what the universe is like if there is no first
cause: impossible.
The Kalam Argument
Premise 1: Everything that begins to
exist has a cause of its existence
Premise 2: The Universe has a beginning
Conclusion: The Universe has a cause of its existence
Premise 3: If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Conclusion: God exists
Advocates of the kalam cosmological
argument claim that it is impossible that the
universe has an infinite past. In support of
this claim, modern advocates of the
argument often appeal to modern science,
specifically to the Big Bang theory. Modern
science, they say, has established that the
universe began with the Big Bang.
William Laie Craig
According to Michael Martin (philosopher), Craig's
revised argument is "among the most sophisticated and
well argued in contemporary theological philosophy",
Craig argues that since the universe began to exist, the efficient
cause of the universe's existence must have been God. His modern
version of the kalam cosmological argument rests on empirical
arguments that an actual infinite is impossible. Since an actual
infinite is impossible, Craig argues, the universe must therefore be
finite in time. In other words, the universe must have begun to exist.