The second way is based on cause. Aquinas asserts that there is chain of cause and effect in the world. (He does not refer to the motion as cause and effect as in the first way, but there are similarities). Nothing can cause itself. Something must have started everything off however, or the chain of cause and effect would not have started. This first cause was itself uncaused. This first cause is God. Aquinas’ idea rests here on the ideas of contingency and necessity. He claims that everything is contingent; everything relies on something else for its existence. However, not everything can be contingent, or nothing would have started in the first place; thus something is needed (necessary) to start everything off. This first cause must be God (as God is the creator, the being that started everything).
The third way is the notion of contingency. Things come into being and cease to be. These things are all contingent (dependent on something else for their existence). Yet there must have been a necessary being (a being which had to exist) in order to start the chain of creation. This necessary being is God. The theme of contingency and necessity provides Aquinas with his third way of viewing Gods action. All beings and objects and states of being are contingent: the parents cause the child to be, the potter causes the wheel to turn and the pot to be created. All these contingent things must have a first cause though, or else they would not be there. This first cause must be necessary, because it is needed as a starting point and cannot be contingent, or else it would not be the start, only what started it. God is already seen as being the creator, so the idea he was the first and necessary creator fits His description, thus the conclusion is that God is the first creator.
Professor Frederick Copleston is a leading Jesuit philosopher and he put forward his version of the cosmological argument in a debate on BBC Radio in 1947. His argument is shorter than Aquinas’, but the reasoning is similar. Copleston reformulated the argument by concentrating on contingency. He said that we know that there are some things that do not hold within themselves their reason for being. Copleston’s term for these are ‘might-not-have-beens’. He said that everything in this world is dependent. Copleston said that there must be a full and complete explanation for the universe. The universe is not self-explanatory. It relies on something else. There are things in the universe which are contingent, they might have not existed. E.g. you would have not existed if your parents had not met. All things in the world are like this, nothing in the world is self-explanatory, and everything depends on something else for its existence. Therefore, there must be a cause of everything in the universe which is outside of it. This cause must be a self-explanatory being i.e. one which contains within itself the reason for its own existence. A necessary being that causes everything to come into being. Copleston considers this necessary being is God.
Part B
‘The cosmological argument cannot stand up to Humes & Bertrand Russell’s objections’
Discuss.
A number of objections have been raised against the cosmological argument. David Hume made a number of objections to this argument. All of which Bertrand Russell agreed with. There are a number of objections as to why people may think that the cosmological argument cannot stand up to Humes & Bertrand’s criticisms.
In his book ‘Dialogues on Natural Religion, IX’, David Hume argued against the existence of God. Hume said that al our knowledge came form experience through our sense. He said people are allowing their imagination to lead them to make a strong connection between cause and effect. He went on to say that we observe events that seem to have a link. He said they are separate events occurring at separate times. He pointed out that it was just a habit from the mind to link the two together.
Hume’s second argument to the cosmological argument was how can anything that exists form eternity have a cause. If it did you would be implying that time existed before time could have been measured. He said even if the universe had a beginning it does not mean that something started it.
His last point was that we have no experience of what takes place when a universe is created. Therefore we cannot talk about the universe being created. He said that we have no experience of universes being made, and so we cannot speak meaningfully about the creation of the universe. To move from ‘everything we observe has a cause’ to ‘the universe has a cause’ is too big a leap in logic. This is the same as saying that because all humans have a mother, the whole human race has a mother. The universe does not have to have a beginning. It could always have been there.
Bertrand Russell realised that Copleston’s argument rested upon an acceptance of the two notions; contingency and dependence. He preferred to believe that the universe had no cause. ‘I should say that the universe had no cause’. By doing so there is no need to ask the question Why is the universe here? This also means that there is no danger of coming up with the answer ‘God’.
Bertrand Russell argued that Copleston like Aquinas before him makes a big jump from individual causes within the universe to one cause for the universe. He said you cannot move form individual causes to claim that the totality of all this has no cause. Just because humans have a mother it does not meant has the universe has a mother.
Russell went on to argue that if the universe has o have an explanation then God has to have an explanation. Why should God be self-explanatory in a way that the universe cannot.
I don’t think that the cosmological argument can stand up to David Humes’ and Russell Bertrand’s objections because there are some things that the supporters of the cosmological argument cannot reply to such as the fact that why should God be self-explanatory in a way that the universe cannot be. At this point of this argument supporters are silent. This argument is mainly for people who already believe in God and believe that he is the creator of the universe. However to people who don’t believe in God I don’t think this is a very good argument to prove Gods existence as it has gaps in it.