Cosmological argument

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Cosmological argument

Advantages

  • Aquinas' arguments of motion, cause and necessity all follow a logical chain of reasoning.
  • The idea of cause and effect can be empirically observed in the world around us.
  • Gottfried Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason argues that the universe, within itself, doesn't seem to contain the reason for its own existence making it more likely that the cause lies beyond the universe.
  • It seems more logical/likely to have an uncaused first cause than to have infinite regress.
  • F.C Copleston argued that an infinite regress of contingent beings could never have brought about its own existence.
  • Can appear to make sense alongside the teleological and ontological arguments
  • Swinburne: "there could, in this respect, be no simpler explanation than one which postulated only cause"

Disadvantages

  • David Hume argued that we view the world as cause and effect but this isn't necessarily the case. (the way we see things not the way they are)
  • Bertrand Russell famously said "the universe just is" thus arguing that the universe is a brute fact and doesn't require a cause or explanation.
  • Richard Dawkins would argue that science will eventually find the cause of the universe.
  • This doesn't prove the traditional sustaining, theistic, Judaeo-Christian God but could only suggest a distant creator.
  • Immanuel Kant: the process of cause and effect are subjective of the universe and as such we can't infer that they work beyond it.
  • David Hume also argued that infinite regress is a theoretical possibility and since we haven't experienced the 'initial motion or cause' we can never assume there is one

Evaluation

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