Cosmological argument

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Aquinas (Argument from Motion)
(Summa Theologica) Everything is still until put into motion by an already moving (actualised) mover. This must also be true of the universe, but there must be one mover to start it all with no need to be moved (avoid infinite regress).
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Aquinas (Argument from Causation)
(Summa Theologica) Everything has an efficient cause, an already actualised thing which causes it. E.g. Wood must already be hot to create fire. To avoid infinite regress, must have been one first mover (only this can be efficient cause of itself).
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Aquinas (Argument from Contingency)
(Summa Theologica) All things in the universe are caused and sustained by outside factors, and have the possibility not to exist. Therefore at one point nothing existed, and there must have been one necessary thing (must exist) to cause it (God).
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Leibniz
Principle of sufficient reason - 'of nothing nothing comes', everything must have a cause.
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Kalam Argument
The universe and all it contains has a start. Therefore the it must have a cause, which must be God.
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Swinburne
There is a possibility that the universe has no beginning, and that in actual fact God is continually causing the universe/interacting with it through time.
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Lane-Craig (modern Kalam)
Actual infinities are impossible (library analogy), so the universe had a start. The cause must have been God, and since he would have chose to make it he is a personal being.
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F.R. Copleston
The universe (like everything else) was caused. This cause 'has a reason to exist within itself' (it is necessary). Analogy - add all chocolate up in infinity = infinite chocolate, but chocolate is contingent so the infinite series of chocolate is.
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Hume
Fallacy of composition, we only expect everything has a a cause because of our limited experience, god being necessary is contradictory.
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Immanuel Kant
(Critique of Pure Reason) We can only know what we experience, therefore trying to know about the start of the universe is meaningless. Necessity can only be applied to statements like "1+1=2" not conscious beings.
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Bertrand Russell
The universe is a "Brute fact", physicists observed "individual transition in atoms have no cause", says there is no need for ultimate reason (vs. Leibniz).
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Quantum Theory
Some quantum particles can cause themselves and then disappear from existence, is this is true then why must the universe have a cause?
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Challenges of the Kalam argument
Misunderstanding of infinity, and is contradictory by saying God can be infinite whereas the universe can't be. Just because we can't imagine, doesn't mean it can't be.
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Challenge from the Big Bang Theory
The big bang wouldn't necessarily need a cause, and before it there was potentially no time (Hawking) so God couldn't have existed.
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Science against the argument from motion.
It is out of date, it is more accurate to say that everything is constantly in motion.
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Science against the argument from contingency
Just because each thing at one point didn't exist, doesn't mean at one point nothing existed, how would it all start?
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

(Summa Theologica) Everything has an efficient cause, an already actualised thing which causes it. E.g. Wood must already be hot to create fire. To avoid infinite regress, must have been one first mover (only this can be efficient cause of itself).

Back

Aquinas (Argument from Causation)

Card 3

Front

(Summa Theologica) All things in the universe are caused and sustained by outside factors, and have the possibility not to exist. Therefore at one point nothing existed, and there must have been one necessary thing (must exist) to cause it (God).

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Principle of sufficient reason - 'of nothing nothing comes', everything must have a cause.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The universe and all it contains has a start. Therefore the it must have a cause, which must be God.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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