also known as aquinas' cosmological argument, the third way and the inductive argument from contingency and necessity
the cosmological argument is an a posteriori, inductive attempt to prove god's existence
aquinas based his arguments on two assumptions:
the universe exists
there must be a reason why
russell and dawkins! just is
all things we see in the universe are contingent
the fact that everything in the universe depends on something else for its existence means that the universe as a whole depends on something else for its existence.
everything in the universe is contingent
there was a point where each thing that exists did notexist, therefore there was a point where nothingcontingentexisted
nothing comes from nothing
something must exist necessarily - god
"Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence – which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something" Aquinas
This being derives its necessity from itself, it does not depend on anything else and is responsible for all things. This is the concept that people refer to as God.
hume - fallacy of composition
from an effect, we cannot infer a cause
we cannot infer that something is true for the whole from the fact it is true from a part
illustrated by russell - Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn’t a mother
Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn’t a mother
matter
matter may be necessary within itself - it has to exist and cannot pass out of existence and therefore the universe itself may be necessary
necessary being has no meaning
necessary cannot be applied to things, only statements in logic where B necessarily follows from A
necessary is only appropriate for statements of definition
responding to the fallacy of composition
reichenbach - it is not fallacious to argue from the claim that 'the wall is built of bricks' to the conclusion that 'the wall is brick'. the whole has the same quality as the parts
status as a proof
inductive - probability not proof
overwhelming probability, hughes argued that we have no direct observational evidence of quarks existence but their indirect evidence is so overwhelming they could be a proof
hughes “The chain of explanations will be complete and satisfying only if in the end one reaches something which has not ‘just happened’, simply come into existence; in short, the chain will end when it reaches something which cannot not exist, that is to say, exists necessarily. In short, the explanation will stop when one gets to a Necessary Being."
value for religious faith
shows faith as reasonable
easy to understand and see
natural theology and revelation - understood and have value for everyone
h h price
infinite regress - In the Cosmological Argument, this is an indefinite sequence of causes or beings which does not have a first member of the series.