T H E C O S M O L O G I C A L A R G U M E N T

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Dialogue Education – Cosmological Argument

T H E  C O S M O L O G I C A L    A R G U M E N T

for the existence of God

There are many types of Cosmological argument, but it is better to concentrate on a small number of them and to probe their intricacies rather than to be content with general summaries. They all share many features in common – in particular, they argue from the world to God and are thus a posteriori. In the Timaeus, Plato uses a Cosmological argument to arrive at the Demiurge, but it is Aristotle's argument that has had most influence because it was used by St.Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle argued to an unmoved mover. This unmoved mover was not a personal God like the Christian God, and it had no religious significance – rather, it should be seen as the ultimate cause of the Cosmos. Plotinus, in the third century, modified Plato's argument, although again did not arrive at the Christian God. Plotinus' God created the world from himself (and not from nothing) by a necessary unfolding of himself - God had no choice. Plotinus' God was also beyond all description and NEEDED to create in order to become conscious (Process theology draws on this view).

The Islamic and Jewish philosophers tended to be in advance of Christian philosophers in the early middle ages. Alfarabi and Avicenna put forward distinctive proofs, including the significant KALAM argument. The Jewish thinker Maimonides put forward an argument which led to a God similar to that of Aquinas - he claimed that the ‘I AM’ of the Old Testament has absolute existence, and that He alone exists necessarily and absolutely.

AQUINAS' ARGUMENT

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Aquinas' Five Ways are the cornerstone of Catholic Natural Theology because they claim to show that language about God successfully refers. However, Aquinas was not creating new arguments but using old ones; for example, Aquinas' Fifth Way owed much to Plato's argument in the Timaeus. In the Five Ways, Aquinas argues:

  1. FROM MOTION
  2. FROM EFFICIENT CAUSES
  3. FROM CONTINGENCY AND NECESSITY
  4. FROM GRADES OF PERFECTION IN  THINGS, and
  5. FROM DESIGN.

It is not certain that Aquinas intended his arguments to establish the existence of God independent of faith. Lubor Velecky's book, argues that Aquinas did not intend the arguments as proofs – rather, he wished to show existing believers that it was rational to believe in God; he was not trying to convince atheists by philosophic argument. Velecky points out that Aquinas was already a firm believer, and wrote for a world which accepted Aristotelian categories - he would never have expected the arguments (which he treats very briefly) to have had the weight they have subsequently been given. However, it is not necessarily the case that Velecky is right; it may well be held that Aquinas DID intend to produce proofs and, indeed, that his whole system depends on their success.

The most interesting of Aquinas’ Five Ways is probably the third - the argument from contingency. My summary of it is as follows:

  1. Everything can 'be' or 'not be'
  2. If this is so, given infinite time, at some time everything would not be
  3. If there was once nothing, nothing could come from it
  4. Therefore something must necessarily exist (NOTE MOST CAREFULLY  that this is not God)
  5. Everything necessary must be caused or uncaused
  6. The series of necessary things cannot go on to infinity as there would then be no explanation for the  series
  7. Therefore there must be some Being 'having of itself its own necessity'
  8. This is what everyone calls God.

It is important to note that the overall aim of Aquinas' arguments is not to move back in a temporal sequence – rather, they seek to establish DEPENDENCE, the dependence of the world on God now. Aquinas believed that there was no way of establishing that the Universe had a beginning in time - this was a revealed doctrine. He did, however, believe that his arguments established the need for the world to be DEPENDENT on God.

Aquinas' arguments arrive at 'That which is necessary to explain the Universe' or that which is necessary to explain motion, causation or contingency. We do not know what God is, but whatever God is, God is that which is necessary to explain the Universe's existence. There is a jump, however, from whatever this is, to describing it as God. THIS GAVE RISE TO PASCAL'S QUOTE  - ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - not the God of the philosophers’. Aquinas ends his proofs by saying 'This is what everyone calls God', but this can be challenged. Aquinas’ Prime Mover appears radically different from the God of most Christians. If we said that God was 'whatever sustains the universe in existence', we would be somewhere near to what Aquinas was saying - but this 'whatever' may be some way from Yahweh.

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It is important to recognize that Aquinas ends up with God as de re necessary - necessary in and of himself and cause of himself. This is NOT meant to be the same as de dicto necessity (logical necessity, based on the way words are used - for instance 'All spinsters are female’) which applies in the Ontological argument.

It is necessary to be clear on the difference between de re and de dicto necessity. The Ontological argument starts with de dicto necessity and attempts to arrive at de re necessity. The de re necessary God is wholly simple. The crux of the notion of ...

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