Cosmological Argument

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  • Created by: Jennious
  • Created on: 12-05-14 11:53
Inductive
Posteriori, synthetic - based on experience, conclusion is probable, has a chance of being true.
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Deductive
Priori, analytic - not dependent on experience, logically necessary conclusion, conclusion offers new information.
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Cosmological Argument
Premise + Premise = Conclusion
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1st Premise
All events require a cause.
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2nd Premise
The universe is an event.
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Conclusion
God is the cause of the universe - inductive.
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Contingent
Doesn't have to exist.
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Necessary
It has to exist.
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Infinite
Never ending.
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Aquinas' First Way
Motion. Potential - Actual. First Mover
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Aquinas' Second Way
Cause and Effect. Un-caused causer. First Efficient Cause
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Aquinas' Third Way
Possibility and Necessity. Contingency. Absurdity of nothing existing. Necessary being.
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Basis in Observation
Uses a posteriori evidence (empirical). Factual/observable. Inductive argument (proof)
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Rejection of Infinite Regress
Contingent beings are temporary. Only explanation for contingency is necessity. If there is no beginning, then there is no middle or end.
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God as:
First mover, first cause, and necessary being.
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Principle of Sufficient Reason
Suggests need for an explanation. Something must stand outside the entire sequence. Something that does not need further explanation. - A God who is eternal and necessary.
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God as the temporal first cause.
A cause that is first in time. God is in fieri. Series stretches back in time into past. eg. Pond, once made,builder does not have to exist. God started process but doesn't exist now as it is complete.
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In fieri
To become something, commended, but not completed.
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God as Sustainer of Motion, Change and Existence.
In esse, idea of sustainer. Continued existence is necessary for the three ways. eg. Piano, dependent on the person who continues to play it. God's existence is needed/necessary to sustain the existence of everything.
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God as explanation of why there is something rather than nothing:
Something/everything needs an explanation. Just because something does exist, does not explain its existence. Infinite regress provides no explanation.
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Fallacy of Composition - Russell
The error which concludes that since parts have a certain property, the whole likewise has that property. "Objects in the universe were created, therefore the universe as a whole was created."
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Universe is Contingent
The universe is not contingent, matter and energy are eternal. the universe could not fail to exist. - brute fact. Ultimates are about matter, not a metaphysical God.
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Why only one cause?
Why must the regress lead to one first cause? Independent happening may lead to independent causes. There would then be more than one first cause.
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Infinite Regress
Why cant there be an endless chain of causes?
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Why is God uncaused?
Arguments beings with 'the world' and concludes with concepts of which we have no experience. If nothing can cause itself, how can God be seen as uncaused? The cause of the universe must be external.
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Medieval Science
Aquinas' arguments lie of assumptions that are no longer held.
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Different Gods
Why can't the 3 ways have a different 'God' each? Why does it conclude with the Christian God? Mother causes child and eventually dies.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Priori, analytic - not dependent on experience, logically necessary conclusion, conclusion offers new information.

Back

Deductive

Card 3

Front

Premise + Premise = Conclusion

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

All events require a cause.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The universe is an event.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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