Cosmological Argument

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  • Challenges to the Cosmological Arguement
    • Kenny
      • Argues against Aquinas' first way
        • Things do move themselves (e.g. people, animals)
        • Newton's first law argues movement can be explained by a body's own inertia
        • Others have argued this is wrong as when the body is at rest it still undergoes changes
    • The Big Bang Theory
      • Scientific observation has confirmed there was a beginning o the universe
      • States that the universe developed when matter and gases reached such a high pressure
    • Hume
      • Wasn't sufficient evidence to prove the cause of the universe or even that the universe was created
        • No experience of the creation of the universe so cannot speak meaningfully of it
        • All our knowledge can be reduced to some experience that our senses have provided
      • We think we know a lot more about the external world than we actually do
        • We allow imagination to make a connection between cause and effect
        • Aquinas was wrong to make a connection between cause and effect
      • Universe did not have to have a beginning, but it did - doesn't mean anything caused it
        • Therefore does not prove God caused the universe to exist
    • Kant
      • Impossible for people to have any knowledge of God or what he created
        • Cannot know God therefore should not talk about him so cannot suggest if God created the universe
      • Idea that every event must have a first cause cannot apply to something we haven't experienced
    • Russell
      • "The universe is there and that is all"
      • Believed words were often used without the user really knowing what they mean
        • Philosophical logic - where philosophical questions were reworded in maths terms
      • Famous radio debate with Coppleston
        • Could not agree and Russell concluded Coppleston was making a fallacy of composition just because we have a mother does not mean the universe has a mother
      • Idea of contingency flawed as God would need a specific category of his own for being a necessary being

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