Philosophy- Cosmological Argument Flashcards
(14 cards)
Contingent existence
-describes a being or entity which depends on something else for its existence and cnn be considered not to exist
-the world, meaning must have been brought into existence at certain point in time by something else, cannot have brought self into existence, contingent on soemthing else (God)
Necessary existence
-describes a being which cannot be thoight not to exist and was not brought into being by anything else
-world contingent on something else, God
Brute fact
-the world cannot just exist and not have a cause, or it would be a brute fact (cannot be explained or has no cause)
priori or posteriori?
-posteriori
-uses empirical evidence available to us in world, its existence
Aquinas argument summary
-based on Aristotle
-possible to explain how parts of world came to exist eg individual humans through parents, does not explain how whole world came to exist
-the world cannot be result of infinite regression, illogical
-must be a first cause which caused whole worlds existence
-must be God
Aquinas First Way- Argument From Motion
-things in world moving, nothing moves by itself
-things that are not in motion cannot create soemthing in motion
-forms a chain of moved and moving
-chain cannot go back forever (infinite regression)
-must be a first mover that stated chain, God
Aquinas Second Way- Argument from Efficient Cause
-everything has efficient cause
-something cannot bring itself into being, impossible
-something has to already exist to create soemthing else
-must be an ultimate efficient cause to explain existence of world
-God efficient cause of everything, necessary eternal being always existed
Aquinas Third Way- Argument from Contingency and necessity
-world made up of contingent beings
-has to be necessary being which was able to create contingent beings
-only existence of necessary being csn explain existence of contingent beings in world
-necessary being is God
Causal argument- Kalam
-world must have a cause, just as everything else has a cause
-world csnt have been created out of nothing
-world must be something which isnt caused itself
-this being must be God therefore he exists
-universe has beginning in tjme therefore needs explanation, if always existed no explanation needed
-relies on causal principle, if cause and effect hold then a casual explanation is needed for the universe itself
William Lane Craig
-more recent proponent
-everything that’s exists has a cause
-since the universe begsn to exist, it must always have a cause of existence
-no scientific explanation that provide sufficient explanation for cause of universe such as why Big bang happened
-therefore the cause of the universe must be God
Leibniz- Sufficient Reason
-needs to be an explanation for why world exists instead of nothing
-even if the world always existed, explanation still be necessary
-reason cannot be gained from world itself, must be gained from something outside world (transcendent being)
-only sufficient reason possible for existence of world must be God created it
Hume criticisms
-reject motion necesssry existence, ‚no meaning’, idea of necesssry being meaningless as he can say that a necesssry being does not exist without contradiction
-not analytically true that every effect has cause, possible that something does not have cause. We have never experienced this, equally we did not experience start of universe, cannot make assumptions. Cause an effect not always true we just haven’t experienced anything else, we’re just associating things based on experience suggesting there is cause but may not be true
-world itself could have necessary existence, even though no evidence, could be the case in way we don’t understand, no reason this should only be attributed to God
-‚the cause of the whole is sufficient explained by explaining the cause of the parts’ (fallacy of composition), we do not need to know cause of entire world because explanation is contained within the parts
Bertrand Russel criticisms
-it is possible that the world could always have existed and therefore not have a cause
-supports the idea of the world being a brute fact
-agree with Hume, no such thing as necesssry being, existence of God is not analytic, not self contradictory to say he does not exist
-partial explanation for world is satisfactory
-universe is simply ‚without explanation.. the universe is just there’
-argues that infinite regression csn exist, there is nothing to suggest it can’t except for human intuition, ‚failure of imagination’
Aristotle argument
-behind every movement is a chain of events that brings about the movement
-chain of events must lead back to something with moves but itself is unmoved —> Prime mover
-source of all movement, eternal, necessary existence, does not depend on anything else, NOT CONTINGENT
-suggest everything has four causes: material, formal, efficient, final
-science good at describing first 3, but does not explain final cause
-if everything has cause, universe just have cause
-final cause for universe must be prime mover
