cosmological argument. Flashcards
Argument one – motion
- All moving things must have a starting point the original point of movement.
- There must be unmoved by anything else.
- God would be the unmoved mover and is not touched by anything else and is the original source of movement for
- cant have potenticallity and actuality at the same time.
-cant be infinite regression.
-there has to be an external force that acts upon to cause movement.
cant be infinite regression as that would mean that there was no prime mover.
Argument 2- causation
- Everything that exists must have a cause and it cannot be infinite regression. We depend on that for the starting point.
- At one point nothing would have existed.meaning that nothing would exist today as cant make nothing from nothing.
- This is dependent on nothing else, but we are all dependant on it for the existence that we have.
Leibnitz and sufficient reason
- There is nothing in the world to say why it existed.
- We have not been able to find a reason for the existence of the universe In the universe itself.
- There must be a cause that is outside of the universe that is the reason that all contingent beings have their existence.
that was of a beings personal choice.
we hae to be have a total explanation adn that cant lie on something that is contingent there needs to be a non-contingent being that Is responsible for the creation of the world.
that is god.
kalam argument.
- This means that there cannot be infinite regression in the universe if we were in a library and we were to take out books that had a blue spine would we know if there were any less books because we cannot find the starting point and count.
’’ (everything)the universe began to exist whatever begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist that means that it has a cause and that cause is god’’.
if everything began to exist that means that god is his own creator.
something cant begin to exist by itself
Critiquing the argument.
critique of causation and the fallacy of composition.
- The critique of causation this says that it is wrong to make a connection between cause and effect the mind makes connections that are not there.
- We assume things have a reason. we look for a whole.
- Fallacy of composition just because we can explain the links of a chain, we do not need to be able to explain the need of a whole chain. Hume says that the people say that there needs to be a whole.
- The rejection of the beginning of the universe. Why could there not be an infinite regression.
This is self defeting does not prove the existance of the Christian god and there could be more god not the scentient god.
who was aquinas ?
came up with the cosmological argument. and the five ways but the first three are the most important.
who was aquinas influenced by?
was influenced by arosiitle a greek philosopher.
what type of argument is it?
inductive- this means that the premise makes sense but it does not entail the conclusion. for example would be a bird had wings a plane had wings and this means the the bird is a plane or the plane is a bird. tries to lead us to a conclusion that is reasonable.
aposteri- this is the idea that the argument is influence by what we witness and the observations that we make from the world around us. eg the beauty of the world.observations that we make from the world.
what’s aquinas first argument.
motion-
- this is the idea that all things is the world have to have an original point of movement.
- there had to be something in the world that does not have starting point and it has just always been and it is the unmoved mover. we are contingent beings and this thing is not and we are dependant on it.
- things can not have potentiality and actuality at the same time.
what is the second argument?
causation
- this is the idea that everything in the world has a cause.
- there is something in the world has to be dependant on nothing else for its existence
–nothing in the world can be the cause of itself. - this is the uncaused causer and this means that it is not caused by anything else but is only dependant on itself it had always been.
what is the third argument?
- dependancy
- we are dependant on things for our survival.
- this thing is not dependant on things for its existence
we are dependant on out parents meeting to be here for example.
if all things in the world are contingent then at one time nothing would have existed as there would have been time before all contingent things existed.and if that was the case then nothing would have been able to come into existance.
means that there cannot be an infantine regression.
critiques of the argument.
- does not point to the christian god or a god at all could just be an inanimate object.
-self defeating as an argument all things need to have a cause but god does not why is there an exception.
what is the critique of causation?
this is the idea that it is wrong to make a connection between cause and effect. just because it has a cause it does not mean that it has to have an effect.
what is the fallacy of composition?
this is the idea that just because we are able to explain the world in small parts we don’t need to explain it as a whole. for example a ladder we know that the purpose of a rung is to take you to the next rung that takes you to the top so we would not need to explain the purpose of the whole ladder as we already know from the small parts.
- universe not caused as a whole.
what cant you have potentiallity without.
cant have potentiallity without actuallity.
