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Cosmological Argument Analysis

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Over the years many philosophers have questioned the existence of the universe. These questions have lead to individual interpretations and theories as to how, who or what created the universe in which we live in today. Many philosophers use the cosmological argument to account for the existence of the universe. Cosmological arguments are a posteriori arguments, meaning that it is based on the experience of the world around us. Two of the best known cosmological arguments came from Thomas Aquinas and Gottfried Leibniz. They both drew on the ancient Greeks as inspiration for their explanations of how the existence of the universe provides evidence for the existence of God. Aquinas, in his book ‘Summa Theologica’, first established the argument …show more content…

In this argument, Aquinas stated that the world consists of contingent beings, which are beings that begin, and end, and which are highly dependent on something else for their existence. Everything in the physical world is contingent, depending on external factors for its existence. Things are contingent in two ways: they depend on something having brought them into existence in the first place and they also depend on outside factors for the continuation of their existence. Aquinas then goes on to argue that if we all agree that everything in the universe is contingent, then we see that nothing would be here at all. Contingent things need something else to bring them into existence. This means that there must have been a time when nothing existed, and, since something can’t come from nothing there must be something external which created the something out of the nothingness. This external being who is external to existence must have caused us, and we call such a being God. Another key version of the Cosmological Argument is Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason. This principle, which is not universally accepted, states that everything which exists must have a reason or a cause for its existence. According to the Principle of Sufficient …show more content…

Hume aims to challenge the structure of the cosmological argument and questions the validity of the assumption that things that exist need causes or reasons for their existence. Hume says that just because each of the elements of the ‘chain’ has a cause, it doesn’t follow that the chain itself needs an initial cause. Furthermore, Hume suggested that we have no experience of universes being made and it is simply not possible to argue from causes within the universe to causes of the universe as a whole. There is a logical jump which the argument fails to recognise. It is one thing to talk about causes that operate within the system of the universe, but it is an entirely different matter to theorise about whether the universe as a whole is caused. Hume argued that it was illegitimate to move from saying that every event in the universe has a cause to the claim that the universe has a cause. Hume gives the example of a collection of twenty particles – if an explanation is found for each particle individually he suggests it would be wrong to then seek an explanation for the whole collection, because you have already explained it by explaining each

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Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence 2. The universe began to exist 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of existence His defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument revolves mostly around the second premise. This is mostly due to him finding the first premise as intuitively obvious, where he claims that “no one, seriously denies it”. From experience, we find that physical objects do not come into existence without causes.

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I think William Lane Craig made a strong argument when it came to a cosmological argument. He does have a point that there is an explanation of how the world came to be but there is more to it, such as dates and things like that. He says that the ultimate question in philosophy would be “why does anything exists”? He brings up that atheist think that the universe is eternal but he says there is reasons why the universe began. He says its obscured to think that its number of past events is infinite, which he says leads to self-contradictions.

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Again premise three says ‘Generally, when effects resemble each other, their causes do as well’. In Hume’s objection it says if two things are exactly alike, then they are general caused by things that are exactly alike. The world is not exactly like a machine though, some parts may be comparable but there are immense differences. One example from class was a crater created by a bomb and a crater created by a meteorite. Another example is a forest fire; it could be created by a lighting strike or by human fault.

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Hume argues amongst other things that sensation is our understanding because we can perceive our sensation therefore we cannot understand causation because we cannot perceive through our sensations. All objects of human inquiry are divided into two categories, relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas are every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. Matters of fact, we should be vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. We learn though the nature of evidence which assures in real existence and it is record of our

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is responsible for the effect, there is no proof that the cause is responsible for the effect’s occurrence, it could be purely coincidental. It could be imagined that the sun would go out before it rose the next day or that the sun would turn green the next day are all as justifiable as thinking the sun will rise tomorrow from the evidence from it doing so in the past. So it is because this claim is not contradictory and it can be conceived to be false, its not enough to just understand what it means to know it to be true. It takes going out and experiencing the world, to make these observations for ones self to see that the world is one way rather than another way. Therefore, according to Hume knowledge of matters of fact is impossible, he does acknowledged however that that people had to think in terms of cause and

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Moreover, he argues against the cosmological existence of God is by equating causation to the ‘habit of mind’, or past experiences. He uses the example of a billiard ball hitting another ball. We know, from past experience, that the original ball’s motion will transfer into the ball that it hits, although, according to Hume, we have no actual evidence that the first ball causes the second ball to move; for all we know, this could be just a trick of the mind. It is only our past experience that tells us anything about this ‘cause-and-effect’ relationship. Further,

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The cosmological argument looks to the world to prove God’s existence rather than pure definitions. The proponent of the cosmological argument was St. Thomas Aquinas, a theologian in the eleventh century CE (Solomon). He proposed that everything that exists must have a cause, and that the cause was God (Aquinas). Aquinas’ first point was based off of motion, that nothing can be both the mover and moved. An item sitting in place has the potential to be moving, but cannot move unless something that is already moving imparts motion to it

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Saint Thomas Aquinas’ following cosmological argument states the notion that there is a divine being that is the uncaused first cause. Cosmological arguments follow the belief that a divine being that acts independently of all rules therefore is the exception to all rules and is responsible for the creation of the time. The following argument has to have both true premises and a true conclusion to be considered sound and the first step to figure that out is to write a

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The discrepancies within the arguments, with the fallacy of composition, the deviation of Aquinas’ god from the Judeo-Christian-Muslim god, and the contradictions between the Kalām and Causation arguments find that the cosmological arguments have unreliable premises and unsound conclusions. Fundamentally, through the use of just the cosmological arguments, the establishment of a god of tradition cannot be effectively established. Works Cited “Arguments for the Existence of God: The Cosmological Argument.” 2016. Hodder Education.

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I will not go into specific details on this section because Aquinas basically just says that if there is a ruler of the universe, there is eternal law. Because Aquinas was a Catholic, clearly his answer would be that God is the ruler of the universe and therefore He creates eternal law. But to an atheist or anyone of the sorts, this would not be the case on account of their disbelief in a higher

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Thomas Aquinas is the second critique of Anselm’s position. Take note that Aquinas assumed that the existence of God is obvious. He supported cosmological argument to prove that God exists. The cosmological argument uses the physical things that exist in the universe to demonstrate God’s existence. In his criticism of Anselm’s argument, Aquinas disagrees with the use of the word “God” and argues only some who hear the word “God” understands what it means (Himma, 4).

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In other words, Anselm stipulates that God must exist since we can’t think of something greater than God but Descartes says the main reason why God exists is because he is a perfect being. St. Anselm and Descartes arguments are without doubt the most important arguments to the existence of God. They formed the basis for further discussion both by those that agree to these schools of thought as well as those that saw the arguments as weak and decided to show why. Both philosophers agreed that the comprehension of the concept of God was sufficient for anyone to believe in the existence of God even though Anselm argument was skewed towards our inability to conceive a more powerful being while Descartes mainly concentrates on the perfect nature in

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The traditional claim of all Cosmological Arguments is defined as “something outside the universe is responsible to explain the existence of the universe” (PowerPoint 380). In the “causal argument,” or the First Cause Argument on the cosmological argument, “something” outside of the universe that is supposed to inform us about the existence of the universe is argued to be explained as God. As the first cause argument goes into depth and with the help of Thomas Aquinas, it is easy to see how God is responsible for explaining the existence of the universe around us. Within the first cause argument on the cosmological argument the following premises and conclusions are discussed: Premise 1: There exists things that are caused. Meaning that

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Hume on the other hand can only confirm what has already happened, being that is the most truthful and logical

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In his first-cause argument, he states that everything we are able to observe has a cause and that nothing can cause itself. In order for something to cause itself, it would have to exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Nor can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes. (Vaughn, Lewis. Pg.

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