Goldstein's Cosmological Argument

This assignment will discuss the shared idea of existence and causation within Goldstein’s argument and Aquinas’ argument, as well as the vague idea of God that both philosophers conclude exists. Both philosophers argue that something cannot be the cause of itself and that there must be cause of the universe or a “first cause”. This is a virtue of the general cosmological argument and establishes . Aquinas (Oppy & Scott 2010, p.83) proposes that a self-caused cause is impossible since an event cannot precede itself. This assumes that time is linear. If time is actually circular, one could argue that an event can precede itself (and follow itself). The possibility that time is circular has minimal evidence and it may suggest the premise itself

84). Thus if something being unable to cause itself means there is a first cause, which must necessarily be God that causes the universe. Goldstein’s argument instead argues that since the universe cannot cause itself (Premise 4), something outside universe must have caused the universe to exist. Goldstein’s framework is far weaker, particularly after her 4th premise, as it falls into a range of fallacies and presumptions. Indeed Goldstein’s framing reads as a simplification of the cosmological argument designed to be easier to criticised. The 6th premise states that "God is the only thing outside the universe". She explicitly makes reference to the existence of God, to make the argument that god caused the universe, and thus God exists. This does not even ask the question that most agnostic/atheist philosophers do, what causes God? If God is an uncaused cause, why can the universe not be an uncaused circumstance? Both arguments would be stronger if the first premise was instead everything that begins to exist has a cause (p. 91). This would partially address concern that the argument actually challenges the uncaused existence of