The Cosmological Argument Revision

1. Aquinas’ observation of the cosmos 2. Hume’s criticisms

1. Fallacy of composition
Cause and effect 2. God’s existence can’t be logically
Contingency
necessary because all statements
Necessary existence
Nothing can come from nothing about existence are synthetic/based
An infinite series of caused necessary beings?? on sense experience.
An uncaused necessary being 3. Occam’s Razor’

3. Russell’s criticism
4. A brute fact

4. The status of the cosmological argument

5. The value of the cosmological argument

The Cosmological Argument Revision

1. Aquinas’ observation of the cosmos 2. Hume’s criticisms

1. Fallacy of composition
Cause and effect
2. God’s existence can’t be logically necessary because all
Contingency statements about existence are synthetic/based on sense
Experience.
Necessary existence
3. Occam’s Razor’
Nothing can come from nothing

An infinite series of caused necessary beings??

An uncaused necessary being

3. Russell’s criticism
4. A brute fact

4. The status of the cosmological argument

5. The value of the cosmological argument

The Cosmological Argument Revision
1. Aquinas’ observation of the cosmos
-Galaxies, stars, planets, moons all things in the
universe move and are changed and those
changes are the result of cause and effect.
-All things that we see in the universe are
contingent: they are moved, changed and
caused. Aquinas concluded that something
must exist necessarily. We can deduce that
the external reason must itself be necessary.
-P3 If there was once nothing, then nothing
could have come from nothing is important -
That is obviously false, because vast numbers
of contingent beings / things now exist.
-Aquinas deals with the possibility that there
might be an infinite series of caused necessary
beings. That would be absurd, because then
there would be no ultimate cause of the
series, and so no series at all. So there must be
an ‘uncaused’ necessary being who brings into
existence all caused necessary beings all
contingent beings. He does accept that the
universe itself is a ‘caused’ necessary being -
that is, at its most basic level matter may exist
necessarily.
2. Criticisms
Criticism 1: A fallacy of composition
A fallacy is a failure in reasoning which makes an argument invalid. The ‘fallacy of
composition’ is the fallacy of inferring that something is true of the whole from the
fact that it is true of part of the whole or of every part of the whole
Criticism 2. Hume and Russell assumed that Aquinas was arguing that God’s
existence is ‘logically’ necessary. Hume insists that all statements about existence
are ‘synthetic’ - based on sense experience, so they cannot be ‘analytic’ - logically
true/true by definition but actually Aquinas really argued that God existence is
metaphysically necessary so Hume’s objection fails.
Criticism 3: Hume suggests that the universe itself may be a necessarily-existent
being This would be an adequate explanation without having to bring God into it. It
conforms to the principle of Occam’s Razor, that it is simpler to ‘make do’ with one
entity (matter) rather than two (mind and matter). but for Aquinas - matter would
be a caused necessary being (P4) and would still need God as an uncaused
necessary being to cause its existence (C2)
Criticism 4 : Russell suggests the universe exists as a ‘brute fact’
The simplest explanation of why the universe exists or what caused it is that
there is no explanation: the universe exists as an unexplainable brute fact.
Against this, science does not work in this way, there are no brute facts.

4. The status of the cosmological argument

1. It is an inductive argument for the existence of God, and so it deals in probabilities rather than proofs.
2. Some argue we should accept a different idea of proof, one based on overwhelming probability

5. The value of the cosmological argument

It shows faith to be reasonable; that there is an uncaused necessary being who created the universe.
‘The cosmological argument is a strong argument for the
existence of God.’ Assess this view. [15 marks]

Intro: Define, clash, conclusion

P1 Aquinas’ observation of the cosmos

P2 Criticisms and status

Conclusion