Arguments
Uncertainty of Cause
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David Hume observes that while we may perceive two events that seem to occur in conjunction, there is no way for us to know the nature of their connection. Based on this observation, Hume argues against the very concept of causation, or cause and effect. We often assume that one thing causes another, but it is just as possible that one thing does not cause the other. Hume claims that causation is a habit of relationship. He notes that when we repeatedly observe one event following another, our assumption that we are witnessing cause and effect seems logical to us. Hume holds that we have a natural belief in causality, from our own natural habits, and that we can neither prove nor discount this belief. However, if we accept our limitations, we can still function without abandoning our theories about cause and effect.
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Hume believed that all knowledge comes from our experience of the worked. Something can only be called a cause if it is observed to be causing something. The linking of cause to effect depends upon them being observed as two separate things. However, we cannot get "outside". The worlds to observe its cause.We have not experienced the creation of a Universe. Yet we are prepared to argue that because there are causes of things within the Universe, there is a cause for the Universe as a whole.
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Religion suggests that the world operates on cause and effect and that there must therefore be a First Cause, namely God. In Hume’s worldview, causation is assumed but ultimately unknowable. We do not know there is a First Cause or a place for God.
These difficulties were noted by Dorothy Emmet in a book written at the end of her life:
“First Cause’ is not the first member of a casual sequence [...] It is an eternal non-temporal activity on which everything else depends.”
The problems mentioned put together an argument:
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause so that it can exist
- The universe began to exist
- Therefore, the Universe must have a cause for its existence
It appears weak. Premise 1 is not self-evidently true. We cannot know that everything has a cause – we cannot deduce the necessary of all from many instances.
Premise 2 is an assumption. It is widely shared by many and seems implicit to the Big Bang Theory, but it is not the truth.
Premise 3 is open to the objections of Hume against causation. Even if the universe had a cause, it is not legitimate to assume that this cause is G-d.
Necessity and Contingency
- There is no reason to assume that there need to have been a time when there was once nothing. There could be overlapping chains of contingent beings, so that there was never a period. There is no logical impossibility in this, there is no contradiction intrinsic to the concept of an endless chain of contingent beings.
- A further problem has been raised. The question was whether it makes sense to speak of a “necessary being”. It seems impossible to argue that we have any concept of necessary being because what can be necessary? And if nothing but G-d is necessary and we cannot see necessity directly then there is no concept.
The appeal to Imagination
William Temple “[...] it is impossible to imagine infinite regress [...but] it is not impossible to conceive it”. He meant that something is unthinkable if we cannot hold the concept without contradiction. The concept of a square circle cannot exist because the two words conflict each other. But infinite does not contradict regress; you can imagine infinity but not think of it, the word makes sense as a concept and can be understood. It is impossible to imagine which shows the limitation of the imagination but not the limitation of things.
The Copleston-Russell Debate
Copleston
Copleston was a Professor in the University of London. His version of the Cosmological Argument was first proposed in a famous radio debate with Bertrand Russell broadcast in 1947. Copleston’s argument comes in four steps:
- There are some things which need not exist – they are contingent, and look beyond themselves for the reasons for their existence.
That is, objects which might not exist had a certain event not happened.
This means that the existence of some things can be explained by referring to something beyond themselves. They depend on something else for their existence.
2. Copleston goes on to suggest that the world is the sum total of all objects. None of these objects contain within themselves the reason for their own existence.
That is, every object in the world depends on some other object for its existence. The world is the sum total of all these things.
3. If everything within the world requires something else to exist, the cause of the entire universe must be external to the universe.
4. This explanation must be a being which exists, but which contains within itself the cause of its existence. Its existence is “self-explanatory”.
Copleston refers to this as a “Necessary Being”.
Compare this with the Ontological Argument and its attempt to argue that God’s existence is “necessary”.
Russell
Russell’s initial response was simply to reject the terminology that Copleston used. He argues that the Universe is neither contingent nor non-contingent.
“I should say that the Universe is just there, and that is all”
Copleston argued that this was tantamount to refusing to sit down at the
chess-game in order to avoid being beaten.
Russell also suggested that the argument appeared to suggest that because everyone has a mother, then the Universe must have a parent. While this might be true for each Human Being, it does not follow for the Universe.
- Copleston argues that everything within the Universe has a cause.
- Russell argues that it does not.
However, if Russell could be persuaded to accept that everything has a cause, he would probably want to argue that the existence of “God” needs an explanation just as much as the Universe needs an explanation.
Criticisms
- A problem which needs addressing is the sense in which G-d can ever be the stopping point in explanation. To say “G-d did it” seems not to end the question but create more – why did he make this or that etc... To answer those questions, we would need to know the mind of G-d which religious people say is a mystery we will never know.
- A point worthy of comment is that there is, as Russell and Copleston suggested, a kind of stalemate., as if atheist and theist can both agree that either the universe is ultimately explicable, or a mere brute fact. One proposition is true, or the other is; there seems no obvious way behind that dilemma.