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St Thomas Aquinas Three Ways

Aquinas's rejection of infinite regression

Challenges to the Cosmological Argument

Aquinas rejects that cause and effect or motion and change can go back to infinity because without a first mover there would be no movement in the first place. The first mover/ cause has to be a being that does not need a cause itself.

St Thomas Aquinas

Potentiality & Actuality

Mackie challenged Liebniz- principle of sufficient reason, he said 'How do we know everything much have a sufficient reason? How can there be a necessary being which contains its own sufficient reason?'

William of Ockham- Causes can be originating rather than conserving (mother & child) The experience of cause and effect may just be a result of out current ignorance

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle- universe could have been a spontaneous event

Open Universe- Idea that the universe emerged spontaneously, just as atomic particles can appear in a vacuum. Modern quantum theory rejects 'nothing can come from nothing'

Kant examined the argument of the existence of a supreme being as a first cause of the universe.

Kant argued that the idea of every event having a cause, a first cause only applied to the world of sense experience. It cannot apply to something we have no experienced Kant did not accept any justification for the concluion that God caused the universe to begin. Kant would not accept it as a valued to extend the knowledge we do pressed to questions that are beyond our experience. God would be a being outside space and time as we understand it.

The First Way- The First Mover

1. Nothing can move itself

2. If every object in motion had a mover then the first object in motion needed a mover

3. Movement cannot go on for infinity

4. This first mover is the unmoved mover, called God

The Second Way- The Uncaused Cause

1. There exists things that are caused (created) by other things

2. Nothing can be the cause of itself (nothing can create itself)

3. There cannot be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist

4. Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called God

The Third Way- Contingent and Necessary Objects

1. Contingent beings are caused

2. Not every being can be contingent

3. There must exist a being which is neccessary to cause contingent beings

4. This necessary being is God

Potentiality is the inherit capability for a thing to change or move. E.g. The acorn has the potentiality to become a tree.

Actuality is the reality at that moment, A new state is brought about in the thing. E.g. The acorn has become the mature tree.

Aquinas though that God could be found in two ways: revelation where God reveals himself to us and reason where we use our brains and logic to work him out and anyone can do it and in special ways like dreams, prayers being answered and near death experiences.

Aquinas did not accept that the statement 'God exists' is self evident. He states that it is a proposition that needs to be demonstrated.

Aquinas developed 'Five Ways' to prove the existence of God and he based his arguments on what could be observed. His observations included that in the universe even inanimate objects move and change.

Argued that the mistake humans make is to allow imagination connect between cause and effect.

Argued that Aquinas made an error when he observed cause and effect around him and the existence of the universe. Hume said to join those two events together when they are in fact two separate events

He argued 'How can anything that exists from eternity have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time and in the beginning of existence'

Even if the universe did begin Hume said it does not mean that anything caused it to come into existence

Hume argued that we do not have a direct experience of the creation of the universe so we cannot speak so meaningful about the creation of the universe.

Lastly he did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to prove the cause of the universe or even if the universe was caused.

the need for an external source

Those who do not agree or believe in God will be less likely to believe that God created the universe

Davies argued that the cosmological argument cannot stand alone as a proof for God's existence. It would have to be supported by other evidence like the design argument.

Scientific Theories

Bertrand Russell

Rejected the idea of contingency and that there was a necessary being, God. God as a necessary being would have to be in a special category of his own.

Just because humans have mothers it does not mean the universe has to have a mother

The universe does not have to have had a beginning, it could have always been there, it may just a brute fact

"I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all'

For a change from potentiality to actuality to come about an external influence is needed. This external influence needs to have achieved actuality. A thing cannot initiate itself (create one self) because this would need to be a potentiality and an actuality which is a contradiction.

Some philosophers argue that even if there was a first cause universe, there is no proof it is God of classical theism, the first cause can be anything. Hume said that it could be a material.

The universe may have had a beginning but there is no reason that the beginning was caused by God

The Hired Cab-

If everything needs a cause, what caused God?

Aristotle and Prime Mover

Steady State Theory

Until recently scientists accepted that energy cannot be created or destroyed

Therefore it was thought that the universe will always weigh the same, the energy is simply redistributed

The universe should therefore look the same from any point in time, it is a steady state

The universe has always existed

Changes in the universe are just reorganization of energy

Early 20th century theory

Contraditions to temporal arguments but not with non temporal arguments like Leibniz. Bertrand Russell's are similar

Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang theory is a challenge to the cosmological a argument only if it is accepted as a rival theory to the argument. If the Big Bang is said to be a spontaneous event without reason or cause then Aquinas's assumption that God is the mover and cause of the universe is undermined.

If it is accepted that there must be a reason why the Big Bang happened and that once the universe began to evolve there could have been something or someone that sustained the universe ensuring it developed and continued, the Big Bang theory can give support to the belief in God of classical theism

Aristotle believed that all movement depends on there being a mover

This type of movement wasn't just transporting to another destination it includes change such a growth.

Aristotle argues that behind every movement there must be a chaing of events that brought about that movement and there was a common source so in other words someone or something was responsible for the beginning of everything.

Aristotle argues that there must have been an 'unmoved mover' who is the ultimate cause of the universe because if there was no ultimate cause to being the chain of causes and effects then there would be no chain at all, nothing would have came into existence, Aristotle called this unmoved mover the Prime Mover.

What is the Cosmological Argument?

How successful the Cosmological Argument is

Aristotle and the Prime Mover continued

The cosmological argument seeks to prove the existence of God based on the beginning of the universe

The argument focuses on the causes that lead to the existence of things. The argument can answer questions like

How did the universe begin?

Why was the universe created?

Who created the universe?

  • As an a posteriori argument it is based on experience and this is a strength because everyone has experience of cause and effect and they are able to understand the belief in the universe having a first cause for themselves.
  • The Big Bang theory has provided scientific support for the argument as it demonstrates that the universe has a beginning and therefore the universe is not infinite.
  • Scientists who accept the Big Bang theory cannot explain what caused the Big Bang, so it may have been God.
  • As we are able to measure time, this will suggest a beginning to the universe. If we were in an infinite universe we would not be able to measure time.
  • People can see that the universe exists themselves and this is further support for the argument that things that exist are caused to exist and that cause is God.
  • Richard Swinburne suggests that is it the simplest explanation of why there is something rather than nothing.
  • The argument satisfies the need to fina a cause of the universe and the origins of everything within our universe.

The prime mover causes the movement of other things; not as an efficient cause but as a final cause.

Aristotle believes the Prime Mover is God.

Aristotle argues that:

God did not create the universe

God did not sustain the universe

God did not act in the universe

God has no interest in the universe

Aristotle considered that God being supremely perfect would have no interest in the universe. Instead God thinks about and contemplates his own nature and since God is supremely perfect this would make God supremely happy.

Aristotle went onto say that the universe is in space and time but God is outside of it and God is spaceless, timeless and radically different from anything else in the universe.

Richard Swinburne's Inductive version

Different versions of the Cosmological Argument

Conclusion on the Cosmological

Argument

If God exists it is highly probable that he invented the universe- What else would he do?

If is easier to conceive of an infinite and uncaused God than an infinite and uncaused universe

This is an inductive argument- Makes Gods existence probable

The classical cosmological argument

Temporal Arguments

The universe must have a beginning therefore needs a first cause and this argument is associated with time.

Aquinas- Belief God is Prime Mover/ God is the first cause and necessary being

The Kalam Argument- Kalam is an Arabic term which means to 'argue or discuss'. Muslim Scholars developed it as a way of demonstrating God's existence. It is the argument that everything had has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning therefore had a cause. Nothing can cause itself so the cause has to be distinct from the effect. Therefore the universe has to be cuased by a 'non physical entity' and that is God.

Non Temporal Arguments

The universe may always have existed but still needs an explanation for it. Leibniz- 'The Principle of Sufficient Reason' He believed that even if the universe did not have a definite beginning there had to be a reason behind it. This is known as the principle of sufficient reason. He agrees with Aquinas that everything must have a reason. Also however Science shows that there is an 'intricate interrelation of events behind things happening. To say the universe has no cause is to reject this principle.

This view is purely subject which is one criticism of Swinburne

Some philosophers argue that even if there was a first cause of the universe, there is no proof that it is the God of classical theism

one of the major objections to the argument is the suggestion that infinity is impossible and that the universe had a beginning. They argued that it did have a beginning but said God is infinite which is contradictory

Supports for the argument point out that God is unique and that the laws of nature do not apply to God.

Davies made the point that the Cosmological Argument isn't enough evidence of God's existence but it could be more convincing along with other ideas like the design argument

Lastly it is all a matter of faith, it may be that the argument supports what the individual already believes and will not convert a non believer into accepting God's existence

The cosmological argument is also known as the 'First Cause' argument

It comes to the conclusion that God exists from an a posteriori premise

It is based on this argument because of what can be seen in the world and the universe.

The starting point of the argument is observation of out world

The observations show things that move and change

Things are caused to happen as the result of how actions affect them

From observations we can see that things come into existence and then cease to exist

However we do not live in an empty universe as there is always something existing in our world, there isn't just nothing

The cosmological argument seeks to prove that the universe and everything that is within the universe has a cause, the cause is God.

Philosophy of Religion

The Cosmological Argument

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