ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: The Cosmological Argument

Question 1

What are the characteristics of the cosmological argument?

Answer 1

A posteriori
Synthetic
Inductive

Question 2

Who did Aquinas develop the argument from?

Answer 2

Aristotle’s ideas on the 4 actualised causes of existence (material, formal, final and efficient)
Through this Aristotle argues that behind the series of cause and effect in the world there must be an unmoved mover (efficient cause) who catalysed it

Question 3

What are Aristotle’s 2 states of being?

Answer 3

Potentiality and actuality

God is pure actuality because he is perfect

Question 4

Who is Aquinas?

Answer 4

Italian theologian and philosopher

Question 5

Aristotle

Answer 5

Greek philosopher and scientist

Question 6

Where is Aristotle’s prime mover?

Answer 6

Outside of space and time

Question 7

Who is the prime mover in Aristotle?

Answer 7

That which creates movement as a final purpose by attraction

Question 8

Who is the prime mover in aquinas?

Answer 8

The divine initiator of all change and motion

Question 9

Who gave the name CA?

Answer 9

Kant to distinguish CA from OA

Question 10

Where does Aquinas give his 5 ways for the existence of god (way 1,2, 3 make up the CA)?

Answer 10

Summa theologica

He claimed we can only get to god from evidence we find in the world

Question 11

Aquinas quote from ‘summa theologica’ (way 1)

Answer 11

It is necessary to arrive at a first mover moved by no other

Question 12

What is way 1 (prime mover)?

Answer 12

All that moves is moved by something else
Can’t have infinite regress as there’d be no reason for movement to get started at all
Must be an unmoved mover- producing movement in all but not being moved itself. People understand this to be god

Question 13

What is Aquinas’ example for way 1?

Answer 13

Wood is potentially hot
For a piece of wood to become hot it has to be changed by fire
What is potentially x is not actually x
The actually x can only be produced by something that is actually x
What is moved must be moved by another
We must arrive at a first mover

Question 14

Aquinas quote from Summa theologica (way 2)

Answer 14

It is necessary to admit a first efficient cause

Question 15

What is way 2 (first cause)?

Answer 15

Everything has a cause
You can’t have an infinite series of causes
So there must be an uncaused cause, causing everything else but not being caused itself
This uncaused causer is what people understand to be god

Question 16

Aquinas quote from summa theologica (way 3)

Answer 16

That which does not exist begins to exist only through something already existing

Question 17

What does contingent mean?

Answer 17

We perish

We don’t exist necessarily

Question 18

What is way 3 (necessity and contingency)?

Answer 18

Aquinas described everything with a property as a being
All beings are created and perish (are contingent)
If all beings are contingent there must have been a time when nothing existed
If nothing existed then nothing would exist now
It’s false to say nothing exists now
Must therefore be a necessary being who brought things into existence

Question 19

Positive value of CA for religious faith

Answer 19

Reasonable argument as the idea is accessible for all

Supported by the DA

Question 20

Negative value of CA for religious faith

Answer 20

Barth disagrees with trying to prove god through reason

Stephen Evans suggests the argument is limited because it doesn’t prove the god of classical theism

Question 21

Who is Bertrand Russell?

Answer 21

Agnostic philosopher who criticised Aquinas’ CA in a 1948 BBC radio debate against a Jesuit priest (Copleston)

Question 22

Russell quote

Answer 22

The human race hasn’t a mother

Question 23

What did Copleston argue in the debate?

Answer 23

The chain of contingent beings must stop somewhere with a necessary being

Question 24

What is a fallacy of composition?

Answer 24

Fallacy (failure in reasoning) of inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true for part of the whole

Question 25

How does Russell criticise way 2?

Answer 25

Calls it a fallacy of composition
No reason why Aquinas couldn’t have argued instead that every event in the universe has a cause/is contingent and that the universe is uncaused/necessary rather than that it too has a cause/is contingent

Question 26

According to the Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, does way 3 commit the fallacy of composition?

Answer 26

The wall is built from bricks so the wall is brick
The universe is built from contingent things so the universe is contingent- the universe is no more/less than the sum total of its parts
A necessary being beyond the universe is a good explanation for the existence of a contingent universe

Question 27

Who is David Hume?

Answer 27

Scottish philosopher and empiricist

Question 28

What is Occam’s razor?

Answer 28

If there are competing hypotheses choose the one that makes the fewest assumptions

Question 29

What does Hume suggest as a weakness of the CA?

Answer 29

The universe itself might be a necessarily existent being
Fits with Occam’s razor as it’s simpler to suggest matter rather than matter and mind
If something has to be necessary why can’t it be matter which makes up the universe instead of an unobservable god?

Question 30

What would Aquinas’ response to Humes suggestion about necessary matter be?

Answer 30

Aquinas has no problem with the idea that matter might exist necessarily (once created by God it is everlasting)
For Aquinas matter would be a caused necessary being and so would still need god as an uncaused necessary being to cause its existence

Question 31

Hume quote

Answer 31

Why not the material universe be the necessarily existent being?

Question 32

Mackie quote

Answer 32

You wouldn’t expect a train with a number of carriages to move without an engine

Question 33

What is a brute fact?

Answer 33

A fact that has no explanation

Question 34

What does Russell suggest is the simplest explanation of why the universe exists?

Answer 34

There is no explanation
Exists as an unexplainable brute fact
But Science works on the assumption that there are no brute facts
If things in the universe aren’t brute fact why should the universe as a whole be brute fact?

Question 35

What does Russell suggest about the necessary being?

Answer 35

God would have to be in a special category of his own; where would this category come from? A ‘necessary being’ has no meaning
Any being that exists can also not exist (not a contradiction to say god does not exist). When Aquinas way 3 requires a necessary god, this is false logic

Question 36

How does Copleston respond to Russell’s idea on the necessary being?

Answer 36

You understand the meaning of necessary being because you’re talking about it

Question 37

What does Hume suggest about synthetic statements?

Answer 37

When Aquinas talks about god as a necessary being he’s saying god is logically necessary
For Hume all statements about existence are synthetic (tested by sense experience). This means they can’t be logically true/analytic
The mind knows that objects don’t have to remain in existence so the words ‘necessary being’ have no meaning

Question 38

What would Aquinas respond to Humes idea about the necessary being?

Answer 38

Aquinas’ idea of God is that of one who is a metaphysical necessity; just part of the way things are such as ‘water is H2O’

Question 39

Counter argument for infinite regress and Occam’s razor?

Answer 39

If there was an infinite regress of contingent beings we still wouldn’t know why there’s something rather than nothing
The application of Occam’s razor supports the existence of a single being

Question 40

What’s the principle of sufficient reason?

Answer 40

Everything must have a reason or a cause
Leibniz used the principle to ask why is there a universe and why is it the way it is?
He concluded God just exist as a necessary being