The Cosmological Argument

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I am currently working my way through the book A Natural History of Natural Theology: The Cognitive Science of Theology and Philosophy of Religion.

There is already a thread here dedicated to the book, but I decided to separate the thesis of the book from the actual natural theological arguments themselves. The evidence that the premises upon which these natural theological arguments rest are natural and intuitive are the subject of that thread.

In this thread I’d like to explore how the cosmological argument for the existence of God is presented in the book and provide a place where these cosmological arguments can be examined and criticized.

: Chapter 5
: The Cosmological Argument and Intuitions about Causality and Agency

The cosmological argument infers the existence of God from the existence of the universe. It has been developed in various traditions of natural theology (e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism). Early examples include the Kalam (Islamic theological) cosmological argument, formulated by among others Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and al-Ghazali, the second and third of Thomas Aquinas’s five ways, Duns Scotus’s argument from contingency, and cosmological arguments based on the principle of sufficient reason by Gottfried Leibniz and Samuel Clarke.

Cosmological arguments can be usefully categorized in three classes. The first, exemplified by Thomas Aquinas’s second and third way relies on the observation that causes stand in relation to their effects as chains; as an infinite regress of causes is deemed impossible, this leads to the inference of an uncaused cause, that is, something that has itself as a sufficient cause. Aquinas’s second way is the argument from first cause: as things cannot cause themselves, and as an infinite regress of causes is impossible, there must be a first cause that is itself uncaused. His third way observes that all natural things are contingent; in other words, they may as well not have existed. If everything were contingent, then even now nothing would exist, since things that do not exist only come into existence through things that already exist. Therefore, there must be something that exists of necessity, that is, it is impossible for this being not to exist. The second class, the Leibnizian cosmological argument, says that the totality of the world is a contingent being that requires a sufficient explanation for its existence. The third class, exemplified by the Kalam cosmological argument, contends that all objects that have a temporal beginning must have a cause. Since the universe has a temporal beginning, it must have a transcendant cause. We will focus on this category.

1. I question whether the cosmological argument infers the existence of God. Modern arguments for the existence of God may be inferential but the classical argument was offered as a demonstration.

2. I would suggest that the claim that in Aquinas causes stand in relation to their effects as chains is a later interpretation influenced by Hume.

3. I question their understanding of and presentation of Aquinas’s second way.

4. I question their understanding of and presentation of Aquinas’s third way.

5. How does the argument of Leibniz differ from the arguments of is predecessors and what was the origin of the principle of sufficient reason.

6. Why focus on the one version of the cosmological argument that depends on a temporal beginning of the universe?

If you’re a shark, at this point there is plenty of blood in the water!

Afiak, none of this has anything to do with the fine tuning argument. But don’t let that stop you.

Discuss.

116 thoughts on “The Cosmological Argument”

  1. keiths: If you can’t defend the arguments, then just say so instead of pretending that the criticism is invalid.

    It might rise to the level of criticism if it had a basis in fact. There just is no ‘hidden assumption that nothing but God could fulfill the role of “first cause” or “necessary being”.’

  2. Any theists out there who can do what Mung cannot?

    Here are the questions he’s avoiding:

    The Second and Third Ways can’t prove God’s existence unless you show that only God can be the first cause or the necessary being.

    You presented them as arguments for God’s existence. How do you know that the first cause is God? How do you know that the necessary being is God?

    If you can’t defend the arguments, then just say so instead of pretending that the criticism is invalid.

  3. Quoting Feser (glances around for any sign of hotshoe_):

    4. “No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc.” is not a serious objection to the argument.

    People who make this claim – like, again, Dawkins in The God Delusion – show thereby that they haven’t actually read the writers they are criticizing. They are typically relying on what other uninformed people have said about the argument, or at most relying on excerpts ripped from context and stuck into some anthology (as Aquinas’s Five Ways so often are). Aquinas in fact devotes hundreds of pages across various works to showing that a First Cause of things would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and so on and so forth. Other Scholastic writers and modern writers like Leibniz and Samuel Clarke also devote detailed argumentation to establishing that the First Cause would have to have the various divine attributes.

    Of course, an atheist might try to rebut these various arguments. But to pretend that they don’t exist – that is to say, to pretend, as so many do, that defenders of the cosmological argument typically make an undefended leap from “There is a First Cause” to “There is a cause of the world that is all-powerful, all-knowing, etc.” – is, once again, simply to show that one doesn’t know what one is talking about.

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html

    Looking at you, keiths.

  4. I addressed that already, Mung:

    Vincent,

    I followed your first Feser link, but none of his numbered points apply to my criticisms of the Second Way.

    The one that comes closest is this:

    4. “No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc.” is not a serious objection to the argument.

    Feser writes:

    Aquinas in fact devotes hundreds of pages across various works to showing that a First Cause of things would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and so on and so forth. Other Scholastic writers and modern writers like Leibniz and Samuel Clarke also devote detailed argumentation to establishing that the First Cause would have to have the various divine attributes.

    That’s all fine, but it isn’t part of the Second Way as stated by Aquinas. All Aquinas says is this:

    Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

    Aquinas claims that the Five Ways are proofs:

    I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways.

    As I remarked earlier:

    The hidden assumption is that nothing but God could fulfill the role of “first cause” or “necessary being”. What justifies that assumption, Mung?

    The question applies to you as well, Vincent.

  5. It’s a shame that Vincent isn’t here. I’m pretty sure that he, unlike Mung, would actually address my question.

  6. keiths, your question has been addressed repeatedly. The assumption you insist must exist is not present. You’re just being philosophically lazy.

    “These five are not the proofs themselves but ways, i.e., indications or summaries of proofs. The proofs themselves are elsewhere worked out in much greater detail; e.g., in the Summa contra Gentiles the first way takes thirty-one paragraphs (Bk. I, chap. 13); here, it takes only one.”

    – Peter Kreeft. A Shorter Summa. p. 55.

    Each proof ends with a sentence like “And this is what everyone calls God” – an observation made about linguistic usage which answers Pascal’s complaint that “the God of the philosophers is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” by saying in effect that the God proved here by philosophy, though “thinner” than the God revealed in the Bible, is “thick” enough to refute an atheist. There are simply no other candidates for the position of First Cause, Unmoved Mover, Perfect Being, Cosmic Designer, etc. (p. 56)

    Certainly not your ceiling fan, keiths.

  7. And therefore in order to demonstrate that God exists it is not enough to show that there is in reality (in rerum natura) some being which is necessary and from itself, unless it is also proven that that [being] is unique and such that it is the source of all being, from whom all things, which participate that being in any way, depend and receive it. But when this has been demonstrated it is sufficiently shown that God exists. For the rest of his attributes which have a necessary connection with a being of this kind have to be demonstrated afterwards.

    Francisco Suarez S.J. The Metaphysical Demonstration of he Existence of God

    Ceiling fans need not apply.

    The Scholastics were not a bunch of dummies. They understood what was needed to argue for the existence of God and for the attributes of God.

  8. Mung, quoting Kreeft:

    There are simply no other candidates for the position of First Cause, Unmoved Mover, Perfect Being, Cosmic Designer, etc. (p. 56)

    Can you present an argument to that effect, or at least crib Kreeft’s? Why must the first cause be God? Why must the necessary being be God? The Second and Third Ways don’t work as arguments for God’s existence unless you can answer those questions.

  9. A definition of ‘God’ might be helpful to clarify the discussion.

    fG

  10. faded_Glory,

    A definition of ‘God’ might be helpful to clarify the discussion.

    And preferably a stable one that isn’t deflated for the purpose of ‘proving’ God’s existence, then reinflated dramatically after the ‘proof’ is accomplished.

  11. keiths:
    faded_Glory,

    And preferably a stable one that isn’t deflated for the purpose of ‘proving’ God’s existence, then reinflated dramatically after the ‘proof’ is accomplished.

    I like that.

  12. keiths, Does everything have to be taught to you? Can’t you do some disciplined research (with the emphasis on “disciplined”) on your own?

  13. Interestingly enough, Peter Kreeft classifies all of the five ways as cosmological arguments.

    These five ways are really essentially one way: the “cosmological argument” or argument from the cosmos.

    – A Shorter Summa. p. 55

  14. The logical structure of all five proofs is the same:

    1. There are really three premises:

    a. an implicit logical principle: the tautology that either there is a First Cause or there is not. (The proofs prove there is a First Cause by showing that the alternative entails a contradiction; this presupposes the Law of Excluded Middle: that there an be no middle alternative between two mutually contradictory propositions; thus, to disprove one is to prove the other.)

    b. an explicit empirical datum (motion, causality, etc.)

    c. a metaphysical principle, which is neither tautological, like (a), nor empirical, like (b), but known by metaphysical insight or understanding: e.g., “If there is no First Cause, there can be no second causes”, or “nothing can cause itself to be”.

    – Peter Kreeft. A Shorter Summa. p. 55.

    No hint of any hidden assumption that nothing but God could fulfill the role of “first cause” or “necessary being”.

  15. 2. There are two possible hypotheses to explain the empirical data:

    a. that there is a God (First Mover, Uncaused Cause, etc.)

    b. that there is no God.

    St. Thomas shows in each of the five “ways” that the metaphysical principle (1c) coupled with the empirical data (1b) makes 2b impossible. Thus only 2a is left, if we admit 1a to begin with.

    – Peter Kreeft. A Shorter Summa. p. 55.

    Still no hint of any hidden assumption that nothing but God could fulfill the role of “first cause” or “necessary being”.

  16. 3. However, two “weakening” qualifications must be added:

    a. Each proof individually, and all five together, prove only a thin slice of God, a few attributes of God. More attributes are deduced later in the Summa, and much that is known by Revelation is not provable by reason at all (e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Redemption).

    b. Each proof ends with a sentence like “And this is what everyone calls God” – an observation made about linguistic usage which answers Pascal’s complaint that “the God of the philosophers is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” by saying in effect that the God proved here by philosophy, though “thinner” than the God revealed in the Bible, is “thick” enough to refute an atheist. There are simply no other candidates for the position of First Cause, Unmoved Mover, Perfect Being, Cosmic Designer, etc. (p. 56)

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