Notes on the Cosmological Argument

8/2/2019 Notes on the Cosmological Argument

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/notes-on-the-cosmological-argument 1/10

Notes on the Cosmological Argument

This note covers Aquinas’ first three ways, criticisms of the

‘proof’, the Copleston / Russell debate and the Kalam /

Leibniz argument

Aquinas

The First Way – From Motion – The unmoved moverIt is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.

Now whatever is moved is moved by another…It is therefore impossible that in the

same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved….If

that by which it is moved be itself moved, then this must also be moved by

another…But this cannot go on to infinity because then there would be no first

mover, and, subsequently, no other move.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this

everyone understands to be God.

The Second Way – From Cause – The uncaused causer

The Second Way is from the nature of efficient cause. In the world of sensible

things we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither

is it indeed possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for

so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.

Therefore it is necessary to admit to a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives

the name of God.

The Third Way – From Necessity and Contingency

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity…We find in nature things that

are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to be

corrupted, and consequently, it is possible for them to be and not to be. Therefore

if everything can not be, then at one time there was nothing in existence and it

would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist and thus even now

nothing would be in existence, which is absurd.

Below are the first three of Thomas Aquinas’ (1225-1274) ‘Five Ways’ to prove the existence of God.Aquinas was one of the finest philosophers andtheologians in history and there is much which we



Conclusion: Therefore we cannot but admit the existence of some being having of

itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in

others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

Explanation: We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies,

act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in thesame way, so as to obtain the best result. Trees, dogs, mountains etc. all work

towards an end. Trees give out oxygen and grow, dogs seek out and eat food and

breed, mountains are complex eco-systems. All the things on earth work together

and separately for their own benefit and for the benefit of the planet as a whole,

and follow fixed natural (scientific) laws. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but

designedly, do they achieve their end. Everything achieves its end. Dogs get food,

trees grow etc. the laws of science work in such a way that everything functions

properly, and this can’t be down to chance, but instead has to have been designed.

Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed

by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its

mark by the archer. If you don’t have intelligence (i.e. you’re a dog, a tree or a

mountain) you can’t deliberately choose to reach your end, it takes someone with

intelligence to direct it towards its end. Another way of putting this would be to say

that natural laws (scientific laws) govern the world and lead to all things reaching

their ends, and natural laws couldn’t randomly lead to all things achieving their

end.

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to

their end; and this being we call God. Therefore there must be an intelligent being

who directs the laws of science to allow things to reach their end.

Criticisms of the cosmological argument

Two criticisms from Hume (in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion):

1. The nature of causation (A criticism of ways 1 & 2)

Every event that takes place logically must have a cause – right? Wrong

argues Hume. We humans are constantly looking for causes to explain why

things happen, but we can never be certain that one thing caused another,

all we can be certain of is that one thing happened after another. Take asuperstition like fearing walking under a ladder because it will bring bad luck.

If the superstitious person walks under a ladder and then has bad luck she

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08673a.htm


http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05543b.htm




http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05543b.htm






assumes that the bad luck was caused by walking under the ladder. If we’re

not superstitious we will think this claim is obviously false, but all causation is

like this. Every time X happens (you eating beans), Y happens afterwards

(you curl out a fart), so we assume X (beans) caused Y (fart). But we don’t

know X caused Y we just know that every time we’ve seen X we’ve seen Y

afterwards. This does not rule out the possibility that we could in the futuresee X happen, but Y not happen. Hume’s criticism is that stating everything

has a cause is an assumption, not a fact, and one that cannot be logically

justified.

2. The parts and the whole (A possible criticism of ways 1-3)

Your mum. My mum. We’ve all got mums, even if your mum is fat she bleeds

gravy, so does the human race have a mother? No, as Bertrand Russell

points out (without any of the mum cussing), the human race is another kindof thing. Hume’s second criticism is that just because everything in the

universe needs a cause it doesn’t mean that the universe itself needs a

cause.

A criticism from Kant (in Critique of Pure Reason):

Causes are sensible human things. Kant’s criticisms are related and perhaps

it’s misleading to put them separately. In Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that

we can’t understand the world outside of our experience of it. Another way to put

this would be to say we can’t understand what things ‘really are’. We only have our

human understanding of the world. As humans we experience the world in a

particular way through our thoughts and senses we can’t get beyond our human

senses to understand the world in any other way. As humans we experience cause

and effect as part of our understanding of the world. This does not mean that

everything has to experience cause and effect or that everything is caused, just

that we can’t conceive of any other way of things occurring. God is beyond us and

we cannot legitimately say that God must be caused because that claim goes

further than we can know.

The God of the cosmological argument cannot be demonstrated. Kant

argues that you cannot use empirical evidence to reach a non-empirical conclusion.

We observe (empirically) that there is cause and effect at work on our human level

of experience, but how can that lead to a conclusion that there exists a necessary

being beyond space and time? Kant doesn’t think that the conclusion (for any

argument for the existence of God) can be demonstrated by the evidence.

A criticism from J.L. Mackie (in The Miracle of Theism) on necessary matter:

Mackie rejects Aquinas’s argument for a necessary being because he doesn’t see



why the argument has to show that it’s a being that exists necessarily. Mackie

makes the point that we could equally easily say that there is some necessary stuff

in the universe that has to exist. This is, says Mackie, no more or less logical than

suggesting the cosmological argument shows a necessary being has to exist.

The Russell vs Copleston debate

The Copleston Russell debate took place in 1948 on BBC Radio. It can be split into

five distinct sections. The nature of the argument is discourse and so both parties

should be explained in each area. We begin with Copleston's main argument from

contingency.

Copleston's argument is based on Aquinas' third way from possibility and necessity

and Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason. He asks us to view the world as objects

which do not contain within themselves the answer for their own existence. He

uses the example of depending on his own parents and now food and air etc. He

states the universe is the real or imagined totality or aggregate of individual

objects, none of which are capable of explaining themselves. The world isn't

distinct from its objects any more than the human race is distinct from its

members. Since no object contains the reason for its own existence there must be

an external reason beyond the universe and this reason must be an existent being.

This being is either the answer for its own existence or it is not. But the chain of dependency cannot go on ad infinitum or else this would be absurd as we would

have no explanation for the universe at all. So in order to explain existence we

must come to a being whose existence is contained within it which is to say a being

which cannot not exist. This is the essence of Copleston's argument from

contingency.

Russell raises a number of issues with this. The argument continues down a

discussion of the term necessity and the difference between a priori and aposteriori. Russell suggests that the term ‘necessary being' has no meaning

outside analytic propositions. In fact he argues that analytic propositions are

somewhat logically late in the build up of propositions. He states that he could only

accept the term ‘necessary being' if it could be demonstrated that this being was

one whose existence it would be self-contradictory to deny. Russell believes that

the term ‘necessary' cannot be applied to things a posteriori as well as the term

‘contingent'. Copleston states that Russell is being over dogmatic on his insistence

of adhering to what he terms ‘modern logic' (Western analytic philosophy). He

suggests that once you know that a contingent being exists it follows of necessity

that there is a necessary being. Russell insists that he isn't being dogmatic, just

that certain things are meaningless outside of a priori analytic discussions, stating



that this is essentially an ontological argument. Copleston asks whether the

question "Does the cause of the world exist?" have any meaning, to which Russell

replies, if you state that "God exists" this can never be analytic as the term can

only have meaning a priori.

The conversation shifts to the principle of sufficient reason. Copleston suggeststhat if anyone saw God, he would see that God must exist. God's essence and

existence must be identical or we would need sufficient reason beyond God.

However he states that this would only be known a posteriori and not a priori.

Russell questions whether Copleston has explained the principle of sufficient

reason, asking whether lighting a match by striking it against a box is a sufficient

reason. Copleston suggests that it is only a partial explanation and a sufficient

reason must be a total explanation to which nothing further can be added. Russell

claims that he is looking for something he cannot get and shouldn't expect to get.Copleston argues that to look and find nothing is one thing, but to say you

shouldn't look is dogmatic. Russell insists that these ideas are effectively beyond

our epistemological limits.

The debate continues into the meaning of the term ‘universe' and the fallacy of

composition. Russell believes the term ‘universe' has no meaning. Copleston wants

to know if he thinks the universe is unintelligible, he suggests that the universe is

without explanation while Copleston states the universe is intrinsically unintelligible

without God. After all an infinite number of chocolates are still not a sheep.

Contingent objects cannot explain themselves without a necessary being.

Copleston questions whether the world is gratuitous as Sartre suggests, to which

Russell replies that "the universe is just there and that's all" indicating his belief

that the universe is a brute fact. Copleston states that you cannot rule out the

legitimacy of the questions of where the universe came from, to which Russell

gives the fallacy of composition: just because every man has a mother it doesn't

follow that the whole human race has a mother as that's a different logical sphere.

Copleston disagrees as he states that this may be the case if looking for

phenomenal cause but he is looking for a transcendent one.

Finally the two move onto quantum physics and a discussion of whether things

need to have a cause at all. Copleston suggests that scientists pre-suppose a cause

as do metaphysicians. Russell states that it doesn't mean there are causes

everywhere, using the example of a man looking for gold. He suggests ultimately

that looking for an explanation for the world is a mistake. Copleston argues that

scientists assume the universe is not discontinuous but ordered and intelligible.

However Russell states that they don't assume that they will always find a cause,

just that it may be likely. Copleston says that they don't hope for more than

http://void%280%29/

http://void%280%29/

http://void%280%29/

http://void%280%29/



probability but assume that the question of explanation has meaning. He asks

whether it is an illegitimate question to ask the cause of the world and Russell

states that this is his position. The discussion then moves on to a debate on

religious experience as they agree to disagree.

The Kalam Causal Argument

An inductive argument. Is originally an Arabic philosophical argument. Kalamrefers to Arabic philosophy and theology. In modern terms, could cite WilliamCraig as an exponent of it.

1. All that begins to exist has a cause for its existence.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore the beginning of the universe had a (personal) cause.

Thus…

4. God is the cause as there has to be something external to the universe tocause it.

The argument is remarkably straightforward in terms of its formulation. But theassumptions in premises 1 and 2 are, in fact, rather complicated. The debateconcerning the Kalam argument centres on whether or not all things that exist do

indeed have to have a cause; and on whether or not the universe did begin toexist.

Why must the universe have a beginning?

Actual infinites cannot exist in the real world

• A beginningless, temporal series of events is an actual infinite.

• To say the universe had no beginning is to say there is an actual infinitenumber of past events in the history of the universe. This cannot be thecase.

• To prove this Craig uses the example of a library with an infinite number of red books; and another with an infinite number of red books and an infinitenumber of black books. The 2nd library surely has twice as many books in it,but it can’t have. Also, if each book has an infinite number of pages, to readone would be the same as reading EVERY book. This can’t work in thereal world.

The impossibility of traversing an actual infinite This works even if we do accept that actual infinites are possible in the real world.

•

The actual infinite must occur all at once because you can’t traverse(cross) an actual infinite by successive addition.

• A temporal series of past events is formed by successive addition.

• Therefore, it cannot be actually infinite.



• If it isn’t infinite, it must therefore be finite. By finite, we mean thatit must have had a first term, i.e. a beginning.

There are two explanations for the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite:

Explanation 1:

• Cause and effect applies in the contingent world. For an event to occur, itmust have a cause.

• The past is a long chain of causes and effects.

• There must have been a first cause in order that the first effect could havecome about. “A causal sequence leading up to an event must have a firstmember and a determinate number of members in the sequence, since theentire sequence is already actual.” An infinite succession of past eventswouldn’t let this happen.

Explanation 2:

• It’s impossible to count to infinity. A series formed by successive addition isa potential infinite. But at any given moment it is always finite.

• The past must have been finite, because the present moment is the mostrecent member of a series of past events formed by successive addition, andone cannot reach infinity one at a time.

Leibniz Sufficient Reason Argument

This argument claims that all things must have a sufficient reason for theirexistence. This amounts to a total causal and epistemological explanation.

• The total explanation must have an end point. The explanatory chain canNEVER end in a contingent being because one can always ask ‘why?’ of acontingent being.

• As the links in the chain are contingent and not capable of being their ownsufficient reason, they could at any time have failed to exist.

•

That they did not, and that they exist at all is evidence for the existence of something which is both the sufficient reason of itself and also the thing onwhich all other contingent things are dependent – a necessary beingmaintaining a contingent cosmos.

• The necessary being is not generated. It cannot be, because then it wouldbe contingent. It is necessary in that it ‘cannot not exist’. It underpins andsustains the contingent reality – our world.

• The Sufficient reason is God.

Criticisms of the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Quantifier Shift Fallacy



This is a type of philosophical error in and of itself. It is an unjustifiedassumption that a characteristic held by the members of a groupautomatically pertains to the group as a whole. The group may also have thatcharacteristic, but it is wrong to just assume that it does.

It also assumes that a number of items necessarily equals a group, which is not thecase.

• Bertrand Russell says that it is like saying that because every man has amother, there is therefore a mother of all men. This is plainlyridiculous, but it uses the same reasoning as Kalam does: things in theuniverse have a cause for their existence, therefore so must the universe.

• Hume argues that if we have the explanation of the cause of each of 20particles of matter, it would be inappropriate then to ask what causeof group is, because that is given by the explanation of the cause of

the individual particles. Just because there is a cause for each individualparticle, there is not necessarily a cause for the group. The mistake is callingit a group, because there is no coherent group.

So to say that the universe is caused because things in it are caused is to fall victimof the QSF. So the assumption that the universe has a cause is undermined. Thereis no justification for making the claim that the cause of the universe is God inKalam. Therefore the argument is fundamentally flawed.

The challenge of Quantum Physics:

• The claim that something can spring from nothing is actually intelligible. Itseems that recent developments in Quantum physics suggest that electronscan pass out of existence at one point, and come back in at another.

• So far, we can’t trace their intermediate existence or what causes them tocome into existence at a given point. Something appears to come fromnothing.

• Craig’s response is that the vacuum is a place of minimal energy, soelectrons do not appear from nothing but rather are the result of vacuum

fluctuations.

• It’s hard to know what to make of this theory. Essentially, we need to waitfor developments in our scientific knowledge before we can determine howstrong this claim is.

The Big Bang – something from nothing?

• The conclusion may be false, as the conservation of energy law doesn’taccount for the Big Bang. So at one stage in the history of the universe, its

energy increased from zero. This explosion released energy from which allmatter emerged. So out of nothing, everything came.



• Again, we have to wait for developments in astrophysics to find out if argument is correct or not. But it’s useful as an illustration of how a simpleargument is in fact very, very complex.

What if the Universe is Oscillating?

•

The Kalam depends on the Big Bang being true. If is the oscillatinguniverse is true, then never was a beginning to universe. The Kalamargument would then fail.

• Determining whether the oscillating universe model or the infinitelyexpanding universe model is correct depends upon calculations of the totalamount of matter in the universe. Some argue that the density of matter isnow insufficient to halt the expansion of the universe; it has passed itsgravitational threshold and will continue to expand forever. But others claimthat there is a great quantity of currently undetected dark matter in theuniverse, which means that we have not so far passed the critical threshold

beyond which the contraction of the universe would be impossible.

• Clearly, this argument also depends on further developments in astrophysics.

While there is no conclusive evidence either way, it might well be said that aconsiderable amount of doubt surrounds the Kalam argument, and as such it mightbe best to try to find an argument that does not rely on these dubious elements forits success.

Modern versions of the CA do not fall foul of these criticisms, as they are not

based on arguments from temporal regression, but on a need for anexplanation/dependence – the idea that there must be something upon which acontingent universe is dependent upon for its existence. (Use as link in an essayfrom Kalam to modern arguments).

Criticisms of The Sufficient Reason Argument

Infinite Regression/Brute Fact:

1. The assumption that the universe is ultimately explicable is just that, an

assumption without rational justification. It may be that the universe hasno explanation and is a brute, unintelligible fact.

2. To claim that all that exists must have some total causal and epistemologicalexplanation is unjustified. It is unreasonable and question begging tosay that the universe can’t be self-explanatory and then to say thatG can be. Why can’t the universe be the non-dependent thing? If we applyOccam’s Razor to it then it seems that this would be the most viable option.So the principle upon which the argument is based is philosophicallyunsound.

3. Furthermore, even if it is explicable, it could be that each thing is explicableon the basis of every other thing – an infinite regression of explanations. Sois ultimately inconclusive.



4. Hans Reichenbach has demonstrated the logical possibility of infiniteregression within the field of math. So to dismiss it out of hand is invalidwhen it comes to the explainable chain. You can have an infiniteregression of conceptual matters.

The question is whether it is reasonable to claim that infinite regression isFACTUAL. It is wrong to claim that if something is logically possible, then it isfactually possible. So we need a specific factual example of infiniteregression. It seems that ENERGY might be this factual example. Itpresumably has an infinitely regressive history, and its transmogrificationfrom one form to another is a causal chain. So science, on the basis of empiricism, suggests we can have factual infinite regression. (Notethat it does not prove that we can have. Once again we need to awaitfurther developments in scientific knowledge).

The Absurdity of the idea of Necessary Existence:

• JJC Smart says that the CA rests on a “thorough absurdity”. Necessaryexistence is incoherent.

• If there is a “fundamental epistemological chasm” between necessityand reality, then you can’t have necessary existence. It’s logicallyincoherent, like having a round square.

• Contingency and necessity are mutually exclusive. You can’t have anecessary contingent. It is philosophical nonsense.

• Necessity applies only to abstract concepts. CA claims at least onenecessary being. It claims that things are explicable only by virtue of anecessary being. Its logical structure leads it to conclude with the fact of anecessary being. A being is not an abstract concept. It is a syntheticconcept, not an analytic one. Synthetic concepts are incompatible withnecessity.

• Smart argues that the entire argument is fundamentally flawed because itrests on a ‘thorough absurdity’. The CA mixes the mutually exclusivefields of contingency and necessity. It attempts to make a contingent

being necessary, and as such it must be said to fail utterly.

Documents

Notes on the Cosmological Argument