cosmological argument

• 1. whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. the universe began to exist
  3. therefore, the universe has a cause
• what are the strengths of the cosmological argument?

  • logical argument
  • cause of the universe- cannot share the properties as the universe.
• what are the weaknesses

  • too broad
  • god needs a cause?
  • human experience can't be used to prove something beyond human experience.
  • all cause suggestions are a speculation.
• what are the 5 arguments for Thomas Aquinas?

  design, motion, morality, causation and contingency.
• what is Aquinas motion argument?

  whatever is in motion must have been moved by something else. Must have been caused to move by something unmoved.
• what is infinite regress?


  going backwards. The unmoved mover began the movement in everything without being moved itself.
• what is syllogistic logic?

  steps to a conclusion
• what is the contingency argument.

  everything is contingent so there must be a necessary being who is God.
• Aquinas identified that things come into existence and later cease to exist

  Therefore, there was a time when nothing existed.

  Therefore, the cause of the universe is something external to it and must have already existed.

  There must have been a necessary being to bring everything into existence- this necessary being was God and if he didnt exist, then nothing could have existed.
• what did david hume argue?


  Everything has a cause but the universe does not have to have one.
• david hume-


  fallacy= logical mistake
• principle of sufficient reason- Leibniz


  for every event, fact or phenomenon, there is a sufficient reason why it is the way it is rather than being otherwise or not existing at all.
• 1. nothing occurs/ exists without a sufficient explanation
  2. events and reasons don't just happen; there is always a cause or reason behind them
• what is Ockham's razor


  the simplest explanation within the fewest assumptions is often the best or most likely explanation for a phenomenon or problem.
• JL Mackie-


  universe is beyond our knowledge. Cant apply our experiences on the universe.
• Thomas Aquinas: 'The first and most manifest way is the argument from motion...Therefore, it is necessary to arrive of a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.'
• William Lane Craig: 'Whatever begins to exist has a cause: the universe began to exist therefore, the universe has a cause.'
• David Hume: 'But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without a Cause: I only maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood of that Proposition proceeded neither from Intuition nor Demonstration; but from another Source.'
• Bertrand Russell: 'The universe is just there, and that's all. There's no need for explanations: it's one of the brute facts of the world.'
• Al-Ghazall: 'Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning: now the world is a being which begins: therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning.'
• Immanuel Kant: 'We can never, with the resources of the cosmological argument done, establish the existence of an absolutely necessary being.'
• J.L. Mackie: 'The argument that everything must have a cause is based on induction from our experience within the universe and cannot legitimately be applied to the universe as a whole.'
• Leibniz: 'Nothing happens without a reason or cause either in the material or spiritual world... Suppose there is no reason for the existence of the universe; that means the universe is something accidental.'
• A.J. Ayer: 'The proposition that the universe has a cause is not analytic: it is synthetic and an expression of the principle of sufficient reason which is itself not analytic but metaphysical and controversial.'
• Leibniz: 'The sufficient reason is found in a substance which... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself.'