The Cosmological Argument

Argument stating that God exists because he is the ultimate cause of everything; he is necessary and everything else is contingent

Summary: God exists because the first cause of everything must be necessary

1) Proving God from MOTION
P1 - things in the world are moving
P2 - things cannot move themselves
C - there is an unmoved mover who causes things to move: God

2) Proving God from CAUSE
P1 - every effect/event has a cause
P2 - the universe is an event
C - there is an uncaused cause that started everything: God

3) Proving God from CONTIGENCY/NECESSITY
P1 - everything that exists is contingent and can stop existing
P2 - if everything is contingent, there must have been a time where nothing existed
P3 - something cannot come from nothing
C - there must be a necessary being that always existed upon which contingent beings depend upon to exit

4) Proving God from GRADES OF IMPERFECTION
P1 - within any genus we observe degrees of perfection
P2 - there cannot be an infinite scale of perfection
C - God is perfection

Descartes: we have three categories of thoughts

1) IDEAS - sensible objects i.e images, sounds

2) VOLITIONS/FEELINGS - emotions i.e anger, hope

3) JUDGEMENTS - judging ideas or feelings i.e reflecting on the truth of thoughts

P1 - impossible to be wrong about ideas

P2 - God is an idea

P3 - God at least exists in the mind

P1 - something must have caused everything
P2 - to avoid infinite regress, the first cause must be outside knowledge (God)

Formal causes: effects that DO SHARE characteristics of the cause
Eminent causes: effects that DON'T SHARE characteristics of the cause
Effects have intentional/object reality which describes how real they are based on traits

P3 - if we have the idea of God, the cause of the idea must have greater intentional reality as a formal/eminent cause
P4 - ideas can't be wrong
P5 - the idea of God must have been caused by something with greater or equally as great reality as God
P6 - God is the most perfect being possible
P7 - God caused the idea of himself
C - God is the ultimate necessary cause and exists

1) Hume: not every event has a cause because it's a synthetic truth and we can't apply a cause to the start of universe

2) Time came into existence along with start of universe so time didn't exist, therefore universe has no beginning
CRITICISM
Science: universe is approx. 15 billion years old (finite). Anything that is finite must have a cause of its existence
RESPONSE
Causes cannot exist in time if time didn't exist in the universe therefore eternal God

3) Universe could've been caused by previous universe
CRITICISM
Infinite regress; doesn't make sense - in order to reach the present, infinite amount of time would've had to pass but this is impossible
RESPONSE (ish)
Swinburne: hypothesis that God exists is best argument; science nor philosophy can give a better answer and it's better to give any answer than none