PHILOSOPHY: Aquinas Cosmological Argument

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  • THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: AQUINAS
    • Key Terms
      • A Posteriori - After Experience
      • Actuality - When something is in the state of doing something, e.g. fire is actually hot
      • Contingent - True by virtue of the way things in fact are, and not by logical necessity
      • Potentiality - When something has the power to be in another state, e.g. wood has the potential to be hot
      • Infinite Regression - The belief that all things are moved/ causes by previous motions/ causes going back in time infinitely
      • Sufficient Reason - The principle that all things need a total explanation to account for them
    • Aquinas presented his first three ways to prove God's existence a posteriori in the Summa Theologica. These form the Cosmological Argument.
    • Aquinus's First Way from Motion
      • 1.Everything in the world is in a state of motion
      • 2. Motion is the reduction form Potentiality to Actuality
      • 3. Nothing can move itself, it must be moved into a state.
      • 4. Motion cannot regress infinitely. If there was no first motion, there would be no subsequent motion and no current motion, but we observe motion.
      • 5. There must be a first motion that itself unmoved. if the first motion were itself moved, then it would not be the first motion, so it has to be Pure Actuality
      • 6. This is what we call God . Aquinas is arguing that there is a FIRST MOVER. He is then stating the God of Christian faith is in fact this first mover.
    • Second Way from Causality
      • 1. Everything is an effect that is caused. We can observe cause and effect in our daily life.
      • 2. Nothing can cause itself . Everything must be caused by something that is not itself.
      • 3. Causation cannot regress infinitely. If there was no first cause, there would be no subsequent affects and therefore no current  effects. But we observe cause and effects
      • 4. There must be a first cause that itself uncaused. If the first cause were itself uncaused, then it would not be the first cause. Therefore, the first cause cannot be caused. It must be pure cause and so uncaused
      • 5. This is what we call God. Aquinas is arguing that there is a first cause. He is then stating the God of Christian faith is in fact this first Cause
    • Third way from Necessity and  Contingency
      • 1. All things are contingent. Everything we observe could potentially not exist
      • 2. All things that exist contingently at one point did not exist. Allowing for an infinite amount of time, there could happily be a time when there was nothing in existence at all.
      • 3. Nothing comes form nothing. If ever there was nothing, then , since nothing can come from nothing, there would be nothing at all. But evidently there is something.
        • 4. There must be a necessary existence. In order to account for why there is something at all, we must accept that there is something that cannot not exist but is necessary.
      • 5. This is what we call God. Aquinas is arguing that there is a Necessary being. He is then stating the God of Christian faith is in fact this necessary being.
    • HUME'S CHALLENGES
      • 1. We Have no experience of the universe being created.
        • Hume challenges by saying all we can ever know of motion and effect comes from experience. Seeing as we never saw the creation of the universe we can never discuss it with any certainty or knowledge. This is used to challenge the postulation that all things need an initial cause.
      • 2. Causation cannot be observed
        • Challenge Hume took from WILLIAM OCKHAM who said "The principle of causation itself cannot be experienced and so is assumed". Hume gives the example of the billiard balls. When we see one ball supposedly hitting another we are in fact making an assumption as we never experience the causation or connecting, we just assume it is happening.
      • 3. Necessary being has no meaning
        • Argument also used by BERTRAND RUSSELL to challenge the logic of the cosmological argument. When Aquinas says that there has to be a "Necessary being" for all contingent things has no meaning  in itself. Russel supports this by saying that the only necessary things are ANALYTIC propositions  like triangles have three sides. Hume Supports Kant's claim that all existential propositions are SYNTHETIC and so no being can ever be said to necessarily exist
    • STRENGHTS
      • All things move from their material cause (potentiality) to their formal cause (actuality).  And so if you trace back all movement you must come to a prime mover (First Mover)
      • All things have an efficient cause (cause) in order to achieve some cause (effect). And so if you trace back all causes you must come to a first mover (Prime Mover)
      • Some things in the world are not the explanation for their own existence e.g. we  depend on our parents to exist and the air we breathe to continue existing.
      • The World is the real or imagined aggregate of contingent things. There is no world separate from the aggregate of things in the world. And so nothing about the world explains the existence of it.
      • We must look for a total explanation for all things. If we find it at all well and good, if not we proceed further until we find total explanation. Thins links to Gottfried Leibniz argument for sufficient reason.
    • WEAKNESSES
      • IMMANUEL KANT argues that the causes and effect are subjective to this universe and that we cannot see outside of the universe so we cannot see what caused the universe.
      • BERTRAND RUSSEL argued in his radio debate with Copleston the terms used in the cosmological argument hold no meaning. not only does necessary being mean nothing, and in fact  it makes no sense to discuss a total cause. It is enough to know the striking of the match caused the flame without looking for a total explanation. for this reason the cosmological argument goes to far in its assumption from what we can know from principles of cause and effect
      • Provides no proof but still relies heavily on faith.
      • Aquinas states that infinite regression is impossible, however Einstein proves that energy cannot be made or destroyed but instead displaced/ distributed. So how can something come from nothing, meaning infinite regression is entirely possible

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