The Cosmological Argument
Today’s lesson will be successful if:
You have revised the ideas surrounding
the cosmological argument and the
arguments from Hume, Russell and Kant
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument from Motion
Argument from Causation
Kant’s Criticism
David Hume’s
Criticisms
1-4
Hume’s Criticisms 6/7
Argument from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russell’s
Criticism
Copleston’s
response
Hume’s Criticism
5
Problems with Hume’s Criticisms
Start by creating a mindmap on A3 papero
Thomism – the life work of
The Cosmological Argument
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Aquinas
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detail here
Is the argument apriori or aposteriori?
Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)
– Philosophy can help us come to a better understanding of
Theology – the study of God.
– Questioned: is it obvious that there is a God? No, as such
a concept is beyond all direct human experience.
– Questioned: can it be made obvious? Yes – through
evidence of creation.
– Aquinas therefore devised his ‘Five Ways,’ five a posteriori
proofs for the existence of God based on our empirical
experience of the universe. The Cosmological argument is
based on the first three of Aquinas’ Five Ways
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
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Argument from Motion
• Everything in the world is moving or changing
• Nothing can move or change by itself
• There cannot be an infinite regress of things changing
other things
• Therefore there must be a Prime Mover (or changer)
• This is called God
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Add some detail…..Thomism – the life work of
Argument from Causation
•
•
•
•
Everything in the world has a cause
Nothing is the cause of itself
There cannot be an infinite regress of causes
Therefore there has to be a first cause to start
the chain of causes
• This first cause we call God
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Argument
from
Contingency
Add some detail…..Thomism – the life work of
Argument from Contingency
• Everything in the world is contingent (can either exist
or not exist)
• If things can not exist, there must have been a time
when they did not exist
• If everything in the world can not exist, there must
have been a time when nothing existed
• Things exist now so there must be something on
which we all depend which brought us into existence
• This necessary being we call God
Necessary & Contingent
• Subtly different from his other arguments. The contingent
existence of the world rely on the existence of a necessary
being.
• Remember the Ontological Argument? De dicto means ‘of
words’ – so this ‘necessity’ is a necessity based on how words
are used. E.g. ‘Spinsters are female’ is necessarily true because
of the way the word spinster is used. It is the logical necessity
found a priori.
• De re means ‘of things’ – so this ‘necessity’ is a necessity based
on the nature of a thing – God is held to be de re necessary
because God’s nature is to exist, God cannot not exist. The
suggestion by Aquinas is that the nature of contingent things is
such that they require a necessary being to explain their
existence – notice that this is argument a posteriori as it is
Necessary & Contingent
• De re means ‘of things’ – so this ‘necessity’ is a necessity based
on the nature of a thing – God is held to be de re necessary
because God’s nature is to exist, God cannot not exist.
• Aquinas suggests that the nature of contingent things means
that they require a necessary being to explain their existence –
notice that this is argument a posteriori as it is dependent on
experience of contingent things BEFORE coming to the
conclusion that God is necessary in nature (this is the essence of
Copleston’s argument). This type of necessity is referred to as a
factual necessity.
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Add some detail…..Thomism – the life work of
Copleston’s Argument – Radio Debate 1947
1. There are things in this world that are contingent –
they might not have existed e.g. we would not exist
without our parents
2. All things in the world are like this – everything
depends on something else for it’s existence
3. Therefore there must be a cause of everything in the
universe that exists outside of it
4. This cause must be a necessary being – one which
contains the reason for it’s existence inside itself
5. This necessary being is God
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russell’s
Criticism
Add some detail…..Thomism – the life work of
Russell’s Criticisms
• Russell refused to accept that a necessary being cannot not
exist. Regress of causal events cannot have caused the
universe. “what I am saying is that the concept of cause is
not applicable to the total” Just because each human has a
mother does not mean the entire human race has a
mother.
• He reduced the universe to a mere, brute fact, of which it’s
existence does not demand an explanation. “I should say
that the universe is just there, and that’s all.”
• Russell saw the argument for a cause of the universe as
having little meaning or significance.
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
rgument
m Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russell’s
Criticism
Compleston’s
response
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Copleston came back to say….
• Copleston’s response to Russell’s refusal to accept the
importance of the issue was to claim:
• “If one refused to sit at the chess board and make a
move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated.”
Who won the debate?
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Kant’s Criticism
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russ
Criti
Compleston’s
response
Kant’s Criticism
• IMMANUEL KANT Immanuel Kant, in ‘Critique of Pure
Reason,’ opposed the theory that a chain of causeeffect events can be set in motion from outside the
realm of the physical universe. The cause-effect
relationship is observed within the confines of the
spatio-temporal world, and therefore any cause must
be in the world too.
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Kant’s Criticism
David
Hume’s
Criticisms
1-4
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russ
Criti
Compleston’s
response
Hume’s Criticism’s – Number 1 Fallacy of
Composition
• Just because one ‘effect’ in a chain has a ‘cause’ it does
not follow that a whole series of cause and effect has a
single cause. This is sometimes referred to as the
fallacy of composition.
• It is one thing to say that every human being has a
mother, but that one cannot move from this to say
that there is a mother for the whole human race.
(Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)
• Or Just because it is logically necessary for a husband
to have a wife, it does not mean that every man must
be married.
•
Hume’s Criticism’s – Number 1 Fallacy of
Composition
• Just because one ‘effect’ in a chain has a ‘cause’ it does
not follow that a whole series of cause and effect has a
single cause. This is sometimes referred to as the
fallacy of composition.
• It is one thing to say that every human being has a
mother, but that one cannot move from this to say
that there is a mother for the whole human race.
(Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)
• Or Just because it is logically necessary for a husband
to have a wife, it does not mean that every man must
be married.
•
Hume’s Criticism 2– Why can’t the universe be
eternal?
• Can’t there be an infinite chain of cause and effect?
• He suggests that it is entirely possible for us to think of
something beginning to exist without any cause.
“The true state of the question is, whether every object,
which begins to exist, must owe its existence to a cause: and
this I assert neither to be intuitively nor demonstratively
certain…”
Hume’s Criticism 3 – The universe (if it has a
cause) must have a finite cause
• Like causes resemble like effects. The most that can be said
from seeing a finite universe is that it must have had a finite
cause.
• Hume asks why we should believe that this should be an infinite
God who caused finite things.
Hume’s Criticism 4 – You don’t need to be God the
greatest possible being to create the Universe.
• Hume challenges notion that no cause can produce or give
rise to perfections or excellences that it does not itself possess
by stating “any thing may produce any thing”
•
• “Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition; all these may
arise from one another, or from any other object we can
imagine.” (A Treatise of Human Nature)
• This idea challenges the notion of the movement of potentiality
to actuality found in Aquinas’ first way. Aquinas suggests that
only something in a state of actuality can ‘move’ something
from its potentiality.
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Kant’s Criticism
David
Hume’s
Criticisms
1-4
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Compleston’s
response
Hume’s
Criticism 5
Russ
Critic
Hume’s Criticism 5 – there is no being whose non
existence implies contradiction
• By this he means the term ‘necessary being’ does not make
sense a posteriori. The words 'necessary being' have no
consistent meaning. Any being claimed to exist may or may
not exist. Hume stated this by saying that ‘All existential
propositions are synthetic’.
• “…there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a
matter of fact, or to prove it by arguments a priori. Nothing is
demonstrable, unless the contrary is a contradiction. Nothing,
that is directly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever
we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent.
There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a
contradiction.
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument
from Motion
Argument
from
Causation
Kant’s Criticism
David
Hume’s
Criticisms
1-4
Hume’s
Criticisms
6/7
Argument
from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Compleston’s
response
Hume’s
Criticism 5
Russ
Critic
Hume’s Criticism 6 – The Universe is a Brute Fact
• It is a mistake to conceive of the cosmological question of the
universe’s origin in terms of cause and effect because this
takes us beyond the scope of human ideas and understanding.
• For human beings, therefore, given our epistemological limits,
the existence of this world must be treated as a basic brute
fact that is incapable (for us) of further explanation.
Hume’s Criticism 7 – cause and effect re-examined
• There is no evidence of the link between cause and effect.
Causation is simply perceived and so is only a psychological
link which humans make.
• Just because we see one billiard ball move when another one
hits it, it does not mean that the first billiard ball caused the
movement of the second.
• This is a form of extreme scepticism highlighting the limitations
of our human experience. Philosophically, cause and effect
cannot be demonstrated. Any claim we make about cause and
effect can only ever be an invention of our minds. This
challenge would mean that Aquinas’ arguments from cause and
effect are severely threatened as they fail to get off the ground
because we cannot know for certain that causation is a reality.
Hume’s Criticism 7 – cause and effect re-examined
• We have no good reason to expect the sun to rise in the
morning. Just because it always has, doesn’t mean it always
will!
The Cosmological Argument
Aquinas
Argument from Motion
Argument from Causation
Kant’s Criticism
David Hume’s
Criticisms
1-4
Hume’s Criticisms 6/7
Argument from
Contingency
Copleston’s
Argument
Russell’s
Criticism
Copleston’s
response
Hume’s Criticism
5
Problems with Hume’s Criticisms