The Cosmological argument

Aquinas:

Five ways:

1. Motion:Everything is in motion. Things with potentiality must be actualized by something already in a state of actuality (cannot be both actual and potential- nothing can move itself). The causes of motion cannot go back to infinity, without a FIRST MOVER that is itself unmoved there would be no subsequent movers. Reductio ad absurdum: there are subsequent movers so there must be a source of all change, a prime mover which has no cause and initiated the universe. Note: assumes infinite regression is impossible

2. Cause: everything that occurs has an efficient cause and that cause has a cause. Nothing can cause itself because a cause always exists before its effects. This cannot infinitely regress as if there was no first cause there would be no subsequent causes. Reductio ad absurdum: there must be as we have effects. Therefore there must exist a first cause that is itself uncaused--> GOD. There must be a necessary being. Cosmological, contingent beings come in and out of existence. There must have been a time when nothing existed. Things exist, so the cause must be external to it and has always existed.

3. Matter: (contingency/necessity) Everything is contingent (relies upon something else for its existence) There must have been a time when nothing existed . Reductio ad absurdum: things exist in the universe, so the cause must be external to it and it always existed. This necessary being created and sustains contingent beings.

Copleston:

Some things don't have in themselves the reason or cause for their existence (not self-caused). Everything within the world relies on things beyond themselves for reason/cause of their existence. The universe's explanation, therefore, must be external to it. The cause of the universe must be a self causing, self explanatory, necessarily existent being---> GOD

Russell’s counter arguments

Rejected idea of dependency/contingency for everything. Everything within the universe doesn't have to have a cause and the universe is entirely without reason.Even though people have a mother, it doesn't mean the human race/ the universe has a mother. The universe is "brute fact" it does not need an explanation (Does your "god" have to have an explanation?)

Hume’s criticisms:

♥Fallacy of composition: You cannot deduce that the universe has a cause just because we can identify the cause of contingent things within. Is it necessary for the whole universe to have a cause just because everything within it could be explained by reference to a preceding cause?

♥Some things may be uncaused or not caused by God.

♥We cannot prove that anything is necessary.

♥Even if the universe did have a cause, there is no solid proof to assume it's the christian God (could have been a committee of divine beings).

♥Illogical jump from causes of everything in universe to the universe itself having a cause.

♥Cause and effect could be no more than a statistical correlation. Experience of cause and effect may be a result of our own ignorance.Cause and effect may be something our minds pose upon perception of the world as a result of past experience.

Strengths

♥Simple and easily comprehensible

♥Liebniz: the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Everything has a reason for its existence. There must be an ultimate reason to account for the existence of the universe itself. This cannot come from within the world. For a sufficient reason for the worlds existence, there must be a being that can create existence ---> GOD

♥It is perfectly logical to assert that objects do not bring themselves into existence and must, therefore, have causes

♥Anscombe: Existence must have a cause without believing/knowing. Just because we are limited by empirical knowledge, it doesn't necessarily follow that we should accept that this is the end of reality of creation. God's creation may be beyond our knowledge.

Criticisms (inc.Russell, Hume):

♥Pi is infinite; why can't the universe be?

♥Big Bang: Random particles caused universe not God. (However BB could be deliberate action of God)

♥If God doesn't have a cause, why does the universe need one?

♥Notion of causation is scientifically problematic. The moment when cause is succeeded by the effect- immediately before, the cause isn't yet the effect, yet, immediately after, the effect is no longer the cause. What, then, happens at the precise moment when the cause isn't yet the effect and the effect isn't no longer a cause?

♥Steady state theory- energy cannot be created, it is just redistributed which causes the beginning of the universe, not God, but redistribution of energy.

♥Dawkins- if God can be necessary, why can't the universe?