1.4.3

The Cosmological Argument

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The Cosmological Argument

The cosmological argument usually refers to the presence of the cosmos as evidence for God instead of the nature of the cosmos (design arguments). It simply asks: why is there something instead of nothing?

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Three of Aquinas' five ways

  • The classic formulations of the cosmological argument can be found in the first three of Aquinas’ five ways. But these have their roots in Aristotelian philosophy.
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Aquinas’ first way

  • All things are potentially moving (ie. they can change into something else)
    • An acorn can change into an oak.
  • To move from one state to another, all things require something actual to move them from their state of potentiality.
    • A stick is potentially on fire and only becomes actually on fire when an actual flame is applied to it.
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Aquinas’ first way

  • Things cannot move themselves from a state of potential to actual. This means everything requires something else to move it. But you must have a first mover that is not moved itself to cause the movement of other things. If you did not, there would be no explanation for the movement of the things which are currently in motion because you cannot keep going back forever in the chain of movement.
  • The first mover that imparts motion onto other things without being moved itself is called God.
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Aquinas' second way

  • All things are caused by other things.
  • Nothing can be the cause of itself.
  • You cannot keep going back in the series of causes forever, or you would have no things now – if there was no initial cause, there could not be other causes.
  • There must be a first cause, itself uncaused, which began the causes.
  • This is what people call God.
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Aquinas' third way

  • All things can possibly not exist (all things are contingent).
  • If time is infinite, there must have been a point when there was nothing.
  • If there was nothing once, there would be nothing now.
  • There must be something that is necessary (impossible not to exist).
  • Everything that is necessary is either caused by another necessary thing or not.
  • You cannot have an infinite series of such causes.
  • There must be an uncaused necessary being.
  • This is what people call God.
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Criticisms of Aquinas' three ways

  • Hume – we have no experience of universes being made, so we cannot claim to know what caused this one.
  • It may be that an infinite regress is possible. This relates to the oscillating universe hypothesis - our universe alternates between the Big Bang and the Big Crunch, ours can be the first of many possible universes).
  • It may be that the universe itself is necessary.
  • Why assume that the necessary thing is a being, or even a being called God?

Jump to other topics

1Philosophy of Religion

1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato

1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle

1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body

1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation

1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason

1.6Religious Experience

1.7The Problem of Evil

1.8The Nature & Attributes of God

1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic

1.10Religious Language: 20th Century Perspective

2Religion & Ethics

3Developments in Christian Thought

3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings

3.2Death & the Afterlife

3.3Knowledge of God's Existence

3.4The Person of Jesus Christ

3.5Christian Moral Principles

3.6Christian Moral Action

3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology

3.8Development - Pluralism & Society

3.9Gender & Society

3.10Gender & Theology

3.11Challenges

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