Cosmological argumengs

• Aquinas 5 ways; argument from motion 

  • Some things in the world are in motion and cant move themselves 
  • Must have been put in motion by something else 
  • Of this chain is infinite there is no first mover 
  • But without a first mover nothing would be in motion 
  • Things are in motion so there must be a first mover, god 
• Descartes cosmological argument 

  • I cant be the cause of my own existence because I would have given myself all perfections 
  • I depend on something else to exist 
  • I am a thinking thing and have the idea of god 
  • Whatever caused me o exist must be the same 
  • Whatever caused me to exist must either be the cause of its own existence or cause by something else 
  • There cannot be an infinite chain of causes, so something must have caused its own existence, god 
• Leibniz sufficient reason 

  • sufficient reason – every truth has an explanation of why that's the case 
  • Truths of reasoning – necessary or analytic truths 
  • Truths of fact – contingent or synthetic truths 
  • We don't need further explanations for sufficient reasons for truths of reasoning 
  • But we can always provide more detail with contingent truths, when proving sufficient reason for truths of facts 
  • For example, tree comes from seed, but who planted seed and why, this can go back and back 
  • We need a necessary substance, god 
• Prob; is a first cause necessary 

  • Most cosmological arguments say there cat be an infinite chain of causes 
  • But there may just be an infinite chain of causes 
• Prob: Humes objections to causation  

  ·      An assumption of Cosmological arguments is that everything has a cause  

  ·      Humes fork: relations of ideas - Everything has a cause’ is not a relation of ideas because we can conceive of something without a cause, matters of fact -  ‘Everything has a cause’ cannot be known as a matter of fact either as we never actually experience causation 

  ·      we only ever experience the continued existence of the universe and never what came before 
• IS THE FIRST CAUSE GOD? 

  Aquinas’ first and second ways and the Kalam argument only show that there is a first cause. But they don’t show that this first cause is God.