The Cosmological Argument

• Thomas Aquinas


  • Medieval
  • wrote Summa Theologica
  • Became a dominican monk
  • Greatest theologian in catholic tradition
• Aquinas' 3rd Way


  • a posteriori
  • Inductive
  • 5 points, 3 conclusions
• Point 1

  Everything can exist or not exist, everything in the natural world is contingent
• Point 2


  If everything is contingent, then there was a time where nothing existed
• Point 3

  • If there was once nothing, then nothing could have come from nothing
  • "Out of nothing nothing can come"
  • Conclusion: something must exist necessarily
• Point 4


  Everything is caused or uncaused (contingent/ necessary)
• Point 5


  There's only one necessary being as it does not make sense for there to an infinite series of necessary beings.
• Conclusion 1

  Something must exist necessarily, otherwise nothing would exist
• Conclusion 2

  Therefore, there must be some uncaused being which exists of its own necessity
• Conclusion 3


  By this uncaused being, we understand God
• Bertrand Russel


  • expert in the philosophy of language
  • strong conviction that religion was harmful and superstitious
  • dismissed Aquinas "it is declared in his catholic faith"
• 1st criticism

  Russel claims Way 3 commits the fallacy of composition
• Fallacy of composition

  The fallacy inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of the part of the whole
• 1st criticism of the cosmological argument


  • Russel argues Way 3 commits the fallacy of composition
  • hydrogen is not wet, neither is oxygen therefore water should not be wet

  "Every man who exists has a mother ...therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother- that's a different logical sphere"
• 2nd criticism

  • Hume and Russel reject the claim that any being can be necessary
  • Hume doesn't like the idea that logic can be used to explain God's existence
• Metaphysical necessity


  A form of necessity or essence of things, cannot be proved
• Occam's Razor

  when there are several hypotheses, choose the one that makes the fewest assumptions
• 4th criticism

  • Russel suggests the universe exists as a brute fact
  • Science disagrees: there are no brute facts, if things in the universe aren't brute facts, why should the universe be one?
• How does science support the cosmological argument?

  The existence of quarks can't be proven, scientists have faith they exist.
• The value of Aquinas's argument for religious faith

  • Universe owes its existence to a necessary being
  • alternate explanations are no more or less probable
  • Aquinas's argument uses difficult language but the concept is easy
• Observation

  Universe is in constant motion with changes
• Causes

  All events seem to have causes
• Contingent

  Everything is reliant on something else
• Kant


  Believes the ontological argument fails, and therefore the cosmological argument does as well.
• Barth

  God can only be revealed through jesus christ, as revealed in scripture