Arguments relating to the existence of
God
The cosmological argument: causal and contingency
arguments, including those formulated by:
Aquinas’ Five Ways -first three (motion, causation,
contingency)
Descartes – trademark argument /cosmological
conclusion
Kalam argument - time
Issues raised by Hume and Russell
Cosmological arguments
• A posteriori – based on causation or
contingency
• Inductive
• (Kalam is deductive based on a posteriori
evidence.)
Plato and Aristotle
Plato (the Laws) – souls are primary movers a
Whatever causes the universe to move must be a
soul
Aristotle (Metaphysics) – must be an unmoved
mover
‘The series must start with something, since
nothing can come from nothing.’
Proves this by reductio ad absurdum
Aristotle
1) The chain of movers and moved has no beginning,
there is no ultimate mover
2) In which case nothing is causing the first things to
move
3) But nothing caused the chain there would be no chain
at all.
4) However, there clearly is a chain of movers and
moved as the universe does exists so there must be
an Unmoved Mover.
For Aristotle the unmoved mover and the universe are
eternal.
Kalam
Islamic philosopher – Al-Ghazali
Kalam= speech (similar to scholasticism)
William Lane Craig – interprets Kalam
Syllogism (deductive)
1) All men are mortal
2) Socrates is a man
3) Therefore Socrates is mortal
Kalam: WLC
• Based on TIME
1) Everything with a beginning must have a cause.
2) The universe has a beginning.
3) Therefore the universe must have a cause.
4) The cause of the universe must be a personal
cause, as scientific explanation cannot provide
causal account. This personal cause is God.
Kalam WLC
• Disagreed with Aristotle that the universe was
infinite (as this matched with monotheistic faiths)
Paradox of the Jupiter and Saturn orbiting the
sun.
• Criticism – with Set Theory – ‘real’ infinity is now
no longer thought of as a self-contradictory idea.
• Counter – redshift, background radiation point to
a Big Bang and a ‘beginning’ to the universe.
Other criticisms of Kalam
• Does everything that has a beginning have a
cause?
• Why doesn’t the first cause (God) have a
cause?
• Does not prove the God of Christianity.
Strengths of Kalam
• a posteriori and inductive: it is based on
ideas we can observe and verify – objects
have causes, the universe began.
• Most scientists would agree that the
universe had a beginning (Big Bang).
• It is natural to ask why the universe began,
and science has not yet answered this.
• Copleston – if all things have a cause,
surely it makes sense for the universe to
have a cause.
Weaknesses of Kalam
• Immanuel Kant – causality may be something
imposed on experiences by the mind; it is not
truly real. So, it can only apply to things we
experience, which does not include the
creation of the universe.
• All the argument proves is a cause. It fails to
prove the existence of God in traditional
terms: loving, powerful, etc.
• Russell: The universe is just here and that is
all; we don’t need to ask why. It is “a brute
fact”.
• A 13th century theologian from Italy.
• Aquinas looks back to Aristotle.
• Summa Theologica
Aquinas
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First Way – the argument from motion
Second way – the argument from causation
Third way – the argument from contingency
Fourth way –moral argument
Fifth – teleological argument
The first way - motion
Taken directly from Aristotle:
1. All moving things have a source of
motion.
2. There must have been some original
source of motion, unmoved by anything
else.
3. This we call God, the ‘unmoved mover’.
The first way - motion
1) There are some things in motion or a state of
change, for example wood burning in a fire.
2) Nothing can move or change itself – in Plato’s
terms everything is a secondary mover.
3) Imagine everything was a secondary mover –
then there would be an infinite regress of movers.
4) Reductio ad absurdum - If 3 were true then there
would be no prime mover and hence no
subsequent movers, but this is false.
5) Conclusion – There must be an unmoved mover
prime mover (the source of motion/change)
whom we call God.
The second way - causality
1. Everything which exists must have a
cause of its existence.
2. There cannot be an infinite chain of
causes stretching back into the past.
3. There must have been some first cause
uncaused by anything else.
4. This we call God, the ‘uncaused cause’.
The second way - causality
1) There is an order of efficient causes (every event
has a cause)
2) Nothing can be the cause of itself.
3) Imagine this order of causes goes back to
infinitely – then there would be no first cause.
4) Reduction ad absurdum – If point 3 were true
then there would be no subsequent causes, but
this is false.
5) Conclusion – There must be a First Cause (the
source of all causes) and this we call God.
Criticism 1
• God as the (temporal) First Cause
• This is not the God of Abraham but of a
deist.
• Response…
• God as the (sustaining) First Cause.
Criticism 2
• Contradiction – Aquinas says everything must have
cause but then concludes saying that God caused itself.
Response:
There must be one exception, this is more likely than
infinite regression.
Response:
Why make God the exception? Surely we can just say the
universe is the exception?
Criticism 3
• Aquinas confuses a finite chain of causes
with an infinite chain of causes. (hooks)
• Response:
• Infinite regression fallacy is used
philosophically as criticism - we cannot
have it both ways.
The third way - contingency
1. Everything which exists is dependent on
something else for its existence and
might at some stage not exist (it is
contingent).
2. At one stage, everything did not exist.
3. There must be some thing dependent on
nothing else for its existence, the source
of all contingent things.
4. This we call God, who must exist.
Criticisms of Aquinas
• His statement that all things have a cause
of their existence or motion seems to be
contradicted by the claim that God is
uncaused. Why make an exception?
• The argument may prove that the universe
has a cause, but not that this is God. It
certainly doesn’t prove God’s attributes!
• Hume – there is no absurdity in suggesting
that some events do not have a cause.
Rene Descartes - trademark
Dualism
Mind – body distinction
Fifth Meditation – Ontological
argument
Third Meditation – Trademark
argument and Cosmological argument
The trademark argument
• A priori argument (God as an idea and the concept of cause and effect)
• I have an idea of God
• A perfect being
• My idea of a perfect being must have been caused by something.
• (God must have planted the idea in Descartes’ mind – or imprinted it like a
trademark)
Developments
• This develops into the cosmological argument
and focuses on the questions:
What caused me to exist?
What causes him to continue to exist?
Developments
• So Descartes is now looking for the
explanations that underpin two of the facts
that he has established:
• 1) The fact that he has in his mind the idea of
a perfect being (God)
• 2) The fact that he has a continuous existence
as a conscious being.
…..He considers two possibilities…
1st consideration: I cause my own
existence
• If I cause my own existence, I would give
myself all perfections (omnipotence,
omniscience, etc.).
• I do not have all perfections.
• Therefore, I am not the cause of my existence.
2nd consideration: I have always existed
as a conscious being
• A lifespan is composed of independent parts,
such that my existing at one time does not entail
or cause my existing later.
• Therefore, some cause is needed to keep me in
existence. My existence is not uncaused.
• I do not have the power to cause my continued
existence through time (I am not aware of this
power so I don’t have it)
• Therefore, I depend on something else to exist.
Descartes’ conclusion
• Are our parents the cause of us?
• To some extent…..
• But do they sustain us as conscious beings?
Or do they actually have the power to make
me a conscious being?
Criticisms of Descartes
• Modern physics allows effects without causes
• Is cause and effects really true? It is just my
perception.
• Infinite regression
• Circular argument?
Hume criticism 1
‘If the material world rests upon a similar ideal
world, this ideal would rest upon some other;
and so on, without end. It were better, therefore,
never to look beyond the present material
world.’
We can either stop our search for
explanation with the universe: either
accept it has no explanation, or find
an explanation for the universe that
lies within the universe.
Hume criticism 2
‘Why may not the material universe be the
necessarily existent Being, according to this
pretended explication of necessity?’
Cosmological arguments reject infinite regression
and give the elevated status to God – uncaused,
unmoved, necessary.
Why can’t we give the same elevated status to the
Universe – it is just there.
Hume criticism 3
“The words ‘necessary existence’ have no
meaning, or, which is the same thing, none that
is consistent.”
If something is defined as necessary then we
can’t possibly think of it not existing. However,
we can think of God not existing.
Hume criticism 4
‘In a word then, every effect is a distinct event from
its cause.’
Cosmological arguments suggest that every event
has a cause.
Hume believed we have never actually experienced
causation– it is something our minds impose upon
our perception as a result of past experience.
Elizabeth Anscombe – this is a skeptical world view,
it may have a different cause than we think but still
a cause.
Hume criticism 5
‘But the Whole you say, wants a cause.’ – fallacy
of composition
Just because the events have ion common the
property of ‘being caused’ doesn’t mean they all
have a collected property of ‘being caused’
(Aquinas’ first cause then fails)
Coppleston and Russell debate
• See sheet
• Photocopy the purple book
• Example questions