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.
No wonder you can’t tell me what “bodyplan” ID claims must be designed, Jesus can do anything he wants…..
“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.”
The distinction between “inference” and “demonstration” is very recent. In old times they had some clue about the distinction of evidential (empirical) points and logical points. The distinction of empiricism and rationalism is one thing that hasn’t changed from antiquity to today.
“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.”
The causal chain as a line is a later interpretation. Prior to modernity, causality and also time was conceived as a circular loop.
“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.”
Not sure about Leibniz, but the gist of the principle of sufficient reason is simple: You either have an explanation or you don’t know what you are talking about. Opposed to this principle are those who believe that the ultimate explanation is that there’s no explanation.
“6. Why focus on the one version of the cosmological argument that depends on a temporal beginning of the universe?”
Kalam’s value is in that it explicates two dimensions of causality – temporal and transcendental. If a thing began, there was something else that started it. The result is a causal chain that needs another causal dimension to explain why the chain is operative.
Erik, the principle of sufficient reason isn’t about whether people “know what they’re talking about” (or how we might be able to determine that).
FWIW, I’d think that somebody with a significant interest in scholastic philosophy would understand the difference between ratio essendi/ and ratio cognoscendi.
It’s about that we can know everything because everything has a reason. There are many formulations of the principle, and many interpretations thereof, just like there are many formulations of the so-called Occam’s razor, another important scholastic principle.
That’s right, but in terms of the difference that makes a difference between Hume and Aquinas on causation, I’d shift the emphasis slightly — not so much about linearity vs. circularity, but rather terms of the basic relata that constitute the ontological ground of causal relations.
For Aquinas (following Aristotle) it is substances (if you prefer, things) that have causal powers, and they relate to one another in virtue of the causal powers they have, which in turn is explained in terms of the kind of thing that a thing is. (It’s easy to mock this view — just think of “dormative virtues” in Moliere — but the view is making a nice come back in cutting-edge philosophy of science.)
By contrast, Hume’s version of empiricism commits him to a theory of experience in which we have no experience of powers of any kind. (Here be builds on Locke and Berkeley; we can ignore the details.) What we end up, in Hume, is an account in which the basic constituents are not substances but events. It’s then due entirely to regularities of event-sequences that our minds are naturally disposed to distinguish earlier events as “causes” from subsequent events as “effects”.
That said, it’s certainly true that understanding Aquinas requires understand a pre-modern and roughly Aristotelian account of causation.
I think it would better put as an ontological constraint: for any state of affairs, there exists some other state of affairs which explains why the first one obtains. It’s about how reality is, which is why it also about how our knowledge must be.
Here’s one way of seeing the PSR in action:
Imagine, then, the totality of all contingent states of affairs. What explains that?
Firstly, the totality of all contingent states of affairs cannot be explained by one more contingent state of affairs, since adding one more contingent state of affairs to the totality goes into the totality and can’t be used to explain it.
Secondly, the totality of all contingent states of affairs must have some explanation, otherwise the PSR would be violated and all of reality would be, ultimately, absurd.
Finally, the only way to avoid absurdity and preserve the PSR is if the only fact that can explain the totality of contingent facts is a necessary fact, or the existence of a necessary being. Hence there must be at least one necessary being.
I’m not sure what you mean by “know” there, but you’re right that no one can know the cause or explanation for the existence of something unless that thing has a cause or explanation.
I don’t understand why this argument gets classified as a cosmological argument. The universe isn’t even mentioned and it doesn’t rely on whether or not the universe had a beginning.
Basically the same objection.
It seems to me that Aquinas’ argument is not so much an argument for the existence of God as an argument for the legitimacy of the question – and for using the word “God” as the label for the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” – but not the answer itself.
The rest of his argument is about what we can know the answer isn’t.
Which is the attractive thing about Aquinas I think. Certainly wards off dogmatic claims about what God IS.
Yes, it’s interesting how Aquinas does that. His actually conclusion does not consist of “Therefore, God exists.” This is something the “new atheists” seem to be incapable of getting straight.
Mung,
Plenty of people do use the cosmological argument to conclude that God exists. Atheists, both new and old, naturally criticize this use of the argument.
I must be an old atheist then.
oh, wait…
You are new atheist every morning. 🙂
If I were Aquinas, I’d have dumped several of the “Ways.” E.g., Two seems to me considerably more compelling than two (in spite of it being defective) because of its simplicity. It relies on common sense notions of causes, intermediaries, absences, etc. Three, OTOH, resting, as it does on all those modal premises–some of which are far from obvious, will only be believed by people sharing an awful lot of metaphysical assumptions.
I suppose he felt that the more of these things he came up with, the more people he might convince. But IMHO, one knock-down, killer argument would have been best. (Maybe that was the Anselm approach?) You throw 50 proofs at a wall, and even if one of them seems like it might sort of be sticking, you start to wonder, if he really had a good one, what the point of the other 49 was
Can you point me to an atheist, new or old, who presents more than a caricature of Aquinas’s second or third way argument in their criticism? Doesn’t even have to be an atheist, really. Anyone you agree with.
Mung,
If you hypothetically trace every causal chain backwards (under the assumption that every event has an efficient cause), you eventually get to the origin of the cosmos — assuming it has one.
Working my right now through The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism
And next up:
Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics
Mung,
Atheists tend to care about the cosmological and other arguments only to the extent that people (try to) use them to support the existence of God.
If you want to present any arguments for the existence of God, feel free. I’m sure people here will offer their opinions.
Hi keiths,
So in order to conclude that the argument in question is a cosmological argument one would have to believe that Aquinas has in mind a series ordered per accidens.
It is precisely these sorts of relevant details that are absent from the arguments of the “new atheists.” It’s as if these important distinctions don’t even exist.
Can a case be made that Aquinas has in mind a series of efficient causes ordered per accidens?
p.s. Not every event. Every effect.
See here and here
See also:
Aquinas’s Way to God
The trouble with these arguments for God, is that they don’t tell us anything about the God that they imply.
Aquinas made a virtue out of this, but it isn’t really a virtue except that a tabula rasa is a nice thing to have.
But let’s say they hold water; let’s say, yes, it looks as though something created the world; something preexisted existence and brought existence into existence. And let me, so as not to offend people. call that mystery non-thing X.
What do we know now that we didn’t know before? It doesn’t tell us that X is good, or bad, or cares about us at all, or is intelligent, or created existence on a bored Thursday afternoon. It’s just an unknown. It’s a fancy way of saying “pass” to the question.
Aquinas rules out certain attributes. I’d say that it rules out intelligence and purpose, and the reason I now call myself an atheist isn’t because I don’t think there’s a mystery at the heart of existence, but because I don’t think the answer to that mystery is an intelligent or intentional agent. And the reason I don’t think that is because I think the best explanation for intelligence and intention is biology, and you can’t have biology pre-existing existence.
It’s also the reason I don’t think we go on living after we are dead.
That doesn’t actually mean I’m an a-theist by all referents for the signifier “God”. There are other things that merit the label “God”, and some have used that label for them. God is love, some people say. I’m fine with that. God is what is good. I’m fine with that too. God is holy wisdom. No problem.
But a benign purposeful intelligent agent pre-existing existence? I think it’s a koan, at best, and at worst, probably an artefact of our inability to frame an answerable question.
Any thoughts on what is “new” or “contempory” about the metaphysics in these books and whether and how that affects the 5 ways, which are presumably based on “old” versions of Aristotelian metaphysics.
The way I understand the situation, accepting these 5 ways arguments at least partly requires accepting the Aristotelian metaphysics of (eg) causation. But I believe philosophers rejected that metaphysics after the middle ages, at least in part because the ideas were inconsistent with the success of a science and the philosophers saw science as using a different metaphysics for causation.
So does the “new” version preserve the success of science while still supplying the metaphysics to support the 5 ways?
I don’t have a ton of books on scholasticism, so I don’t know if I’ll find anything: I’ll look. I suspect your remark is unfair, though. In addition to histories of the philosophy of the period and books on the individual philosophers, there are also journals devoted to the philosophy of that period. I doubt there are many caricatures around, except in pop books, blogs, books ostensibly on science rather than philosophy, and places like this.
What I’m saying is that Aquinas, Scotus, Anselm, et al. are regarded highly enough to be taught in contemporary history of philosophy classes. Like, e.g., Bentham and Hegel, they’ve stood the test of time. It’s true that they aren’t put up there with, I don’t know, Kant or Descartes in the pantheon, but they’ve done alright for themselves and are, IMHO, treated with considerable respect. When I taught philosophy of religion, I spent a lot of time on them, and I don’t think I was unusual in that.
Should have read “…Two seems to me considerably more compelling than three…”
Sorry about that
The historical dialectic is more complicated than that, actually. It is true that Bacon and Galileo saw themselves as rejecting certain aspects of Aristotelianism. In time, their criticisms gave way to new conception of nature as homogenous, mathematically describable, and governed by exceptionless laws. The problem, it turns out, is that this conception of nature doesn’t actually work all that well. It has implications for what science should do that, it turns out, are very different from what successful science actually does.
If we start off with the question, “what does successful science actually do?” and then ask, “what must reality be like in order for there be successful science?”, then, so the argument goes, we need to take seriously the idea that there are real causal powers, and that successful science involves manipulating those powers in order to disentangle them from each other and reveal their underlying natures.
I do recommend Groff’s Ontology Revisited: Metaphysics in Social and Political Philosophy. She argues that a tacit commitment to Humean ontology — one in which everything bottoms out in regularities of events — cannot support the kinds of claims we make, and need to make, in political and social theory. She’s very good at seeing the same underlying ontology in Kant, and I found her criticisms of the Frankfurt School quite enlightening. (Briefly, she faults them for being too Kantian and insufficiently Aristotelian. That could be right!)
One thing I had in mind was Aristotle’s four causes versus just efficient causation. I know some his other categories of causation are being revived, teleological being the one we’ve discussed here, but are the details of that revival depicting causation as Aristotle did? And if not, how does that affect inferences in the 5 ways?
I agree that the special sciences need some notion of cause beyond regularity. I think the situation is more controversial for physics: does it need causation at all? And even if all of physics uses a concept of cause, I think there are controversies about whether it is the same as that used in the special sciences, let alone what Aristotle assumed and what is used in the 5 ways arguments.
(I have not read Kutach’s linked book, only a summary of the ideas in a primer on causation he wrote).
As promised, I made a search around my house. With respect to what I found, not only will I now concede that those who find Aquinas relatively uncongenial didn’t spend much time carefully setting forth his arguments, but will note that in that portion of a John Passmore discussion on American scholarship 1930-1960 devoted to medieval philosophy, he says much the same thing. I.e., only modern schoolman during that period devoted much trouble to careful exegeses of Aquinas.
I guess it’s to be expected that those who are sympathetic to somebody will spend the most time on them, but it’s also true that when X finds Y seriously threatening his/her worldview X may want to spend a lot of time carefully setting forth Y’s views. Maybe there hasn’t been as much as that worry around as I thought with respect to Aquinas.
Anyhow, based on what I’ve got in my house, you may well be right.
I’m only up to Ch. 3 of the first book so don’t have much to offer in answer to your questions. Ellis seems to be restricting his essentialism to only what he calls fixed natural kinds and finds these only in chemistry and physics. There’s another item I’m hoping to get to:
Philosophy of Chemistry: Between the Manifest and the Scientific Image
No particular discussion of causation yet, but there must be an impact on views of causation if things really do have natures and capacities and inherent powers. He refers to the current view as passivism.
I do not think he’s trying to revive natural theological arguments.
One of these days I may start a thread on causation. It’s another interesting topic.
Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy
Lizzie,
Yes, and what they imply needn’t be a God at all.
All of the theological work is being done by the final sentence of each argument:
And:
The final leap is obviously fallacious in both cases, implying arguments that look like this:
1a. There must be a first cause.
1b. People think of God as a first cause.
1c. Therefore, God exists.
And:
2a. There must be a necessary being.
2b. People think of God as a necessary being.
2c. Therefore, God exists.
The hidden assumption is that nothing but God could fulfill the role of “first cause” or “necessary being”. What justifies that assumption, Mung?
Well let’s see. One of the arguments leads to the existence of an imperishable being that is such underivatively or in it’s own right. Sounds like God to me.
keiths, are those the best you can do? You’re actually making my point you know.
Apparently you have to keep reading.
The argument that there must exist a necessary being is itself perfectly valid; Aquinas is quite right as far as that goes. But there is no reason to think that the necessary being must be God, nor does Aquinas himself seem to think so.
His arguments seem to yield the much weaker conclusion that one is rationally entitled to believe that the necessary being is God. If so, then he is right about that, too: one is rationally entitled to believe that the necessary being is God. But one is also entitled to believe that the necessary being is not God.
“…the word ‘God’ refers to the type of life enjoyed by the Maker of the World.” (p. 117)
“…for Aquinas ‘God’ is not a proper name but a general term…” (p. 118)
And of course, Aquinas does goes on to argue that there can be only one ‘God.’
I’m not sure that it’s even coherent to say that one is also entitled to believe that the necessary being is not God.
Why not? We have at this point no reasons for believing that the necessary being has the properties of the God of classical theism. In fact, the argument as outlined so far doesn’t give us any grounds for choosing between the multiverse, Spinozistic pantheism, or classical theism. Nor does it come anywhere close to affirming the Abrahamic conception of the divine, as distinct from the Hindu or Aboriginal conception. For all we can tell so far, the necessary being is the Dream-time.
keiths:
Mung:
You’ve fallen right into the fallacy I just described. How do you know that God is the only possible “imperishable being that is such underivatively or in its own right”?
Let’s hear your (or Feser’s, or whoever’s) counterargument.
Because that is what the term “God” means in it’s most generic sense.
To argue on the other hand that Yahweh is the only possible “imperishable being that is such underivatively or in its own right” is another matter entirely.
peace
I didn’t argue that God is the only such being possible. So no, I didn’t fall right into the fallacy you just described.
And what you’ve written doesn’t require a counter-argument. All I have to do is point out that the Five Ways get you only so far in Aquinas’s argument.
And unless I missed something, “and there is only one such being” is absent from any of the Five Ways. Which is why I ignored your caricature.
If this universe is part of the multiverse then I think that is ruled out. But yes, if you take the Third Way in isolation it only gets you to what it gets you to, and you are free to disagree with Aquinas that “This all men speak of as God.” You can call it “Dream-time” if you like.
It’s still a being that has no possibility of going out of existence.
I’m referring to his argument taken as a whole, of which the Five Ways are but a part. The Five Ways do not get you to the Abrahamic God of classical theism. They are not five separate and distinct arguments for the existence of the Christian God. That would be to misunderstand their nature.
Mung:
How soon you forget. From yesterday:
keiths:
Mung:
You offered them as arguments for the existence of God. Do you concede their failure, or can you defend them?
I have this vague sense that Leibniz might have an argument somewhere about “no more than one.” Certainly Spinoza does, but he gives an ontological argument, not a cosmological argument. (Leibniz, too, favored a version of the ontological argument, however.)
BTW, if any of these arguments were any good, I’d do what Russell and Moore did when they first thought the ontological argument was sound: I’d jump up and down. Who the hell cares whether it’s the same guy with the starring role in the Bible! A God, whether personal or not, whether bearded or not, whether interested in me or not, would be a very big deal!
But alas, the arguments are no good.
walto,
Even if such an argument were successful, he’d still need to get from “no more than one” to “the one is God”.
ETA: I know he tried, and that the process led him to his “best of all possible worlds” idea, lampooned by Voltaire.
Maybe it [ontological argument] has something to do with being a rationalist philosopher.
Defend them from what? Silly misrepresentations?
Can you point me to a single “new atheist” author who deals seriously with either of those arguments?
Mung,
What misrepresentations?
You offered them as arguments for the existence of God. I pointed out the fallacious leap they make from “first cause” to “God” and from “necessary being” to “God”. Can you defend them, or not?
For example, you wrote:
What’s incoherent about it?
keiths:
1b. People think of God as a first cause.
1c. Therefore, God exists.
Neither of those are to found in Aquinas’s argument
2b. People think of God as a necessary being.
2c. Therefore, God exists.
Neither of those are to found in Aquinas’s argument
That’s what misrepresentation.
So again, what’s to defend? You haven’t actually attacked his arguments.
Come on, Mung. It’s right there at the end of each argument:
And:
And you presented them as arguments for the existence of God. Do you still think that they succeed, or not?
By the way, it’s okay to be NewMung and say “I can’t defend them right now, but let me do some reading before I concede that they’re invalid.”
Well, all the three biggies (Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz) bought one.
The ontological arguments (except for maybe Spinoza’s) make that easier since they’re all about perfections, “highest” properties, etc.
As earlier discussed, validity is easy; it’s soundness that’s tough.
walto,
Yes, and perhaps we’ll discuss those next.
You’d think so, but those two arguments fall short of even the low bar of validity because of the missing premises.