Cosmological argument

Hume provides another criticism of the argument he states that if we agree that the notion of cause and effect is real we must accept that causes resemble their effects. Our world is limited and if our world is an effect this leads to the conclusion that it was caused by a limited God. However, this is not always the case; sometimes causes don’t resemble their effects. For instance take avalanches they are great in size and impact however they can be caused by the smallest of things, maybe God created an limited world on purpose, maybe it was indeed Gods plan to create a world with flaws in order to produce the best environment in which we could grow morally and spiritually, after all there does seem to be some proof for this occurring in the world as people who go through struggles often claim a new sense of self and moral awareness after overcoming the struggle they have been through and even natural disasters seem to bring people together to overcome the situation, it seems that within the world we often see the best of people in the worst situations. However if this was indeed Gods plan it still seems as though there is just too much suffering in the world to justify it this way. The theist may reply by saying we will all be rewarded in heaven however if we are all saved does this not mean that bad people (murderers, rapists etc.) would be saved too, if this is heaven do we really want to be there? We cannot know if we will be saved it is unfalsifiable which makes it an invalid argument.

Hume has a further objection; he states that if science has proven all the causes in the universe individually it then seems absurd to ask the question what caused everything as a whole, or does it? You could easily say if you ask three individuals why they are catching the train and your response is one person is going to work another is visiting relative and the other is going shopping it then seems stupid to then ask why they are all catching the train. This works for that situation but it does not seem to work for universe as a whole as it still feels as if there are unanswered questions.

The Kalam argument states that everything has a beginning but because time comes into existence with the universe, the universe didn’t happen at a given time so it has no beginning. However this seems to contradict science which states the universe has a finite past, it is around 15 billion years old. All finite things have a cause, and as time existed only with the universes existence this mean the cause of the universe must be outside of time. For many theists this is not a problem as God could exist outside of time. However would this not infer an almost deistic God who created the universe and left it to its own device, rather than the God of theism who is involved with creation? If the universe has a beginning it could have been caused by another universe in a chain of infinite regress of causes. This would suggest that something has always existed. However even if we have a infinite regress of causes we can only explain them in terms of the previous cause, we might still ask what causes the chain of causes. This means that by saying something has always existed we still haven’t answered the question of why is there something making this an invalid argument.

Richard Swinburne takes a different approach he has an inductive cosmological argument. He states that we cannot deduce Gods existence but we can infer it as looking at all the arguments for God not just the cosmological argument it seems that God is the most probable explanation for the order and purpose within the world, for religious experience and for miracles. Although it is not an analytic truth that everything that begins must have a cause it is very probable, and our experience support this. The scientific theory of the Big Bang and the fact that there are problems with the notion of infinity suggest that there must be a cause and a beginning to the universe. If we reject God as the answer we have no other sufficient explanation. However, this does not mean we won’t find another explanation; it may seem probable now that God is the cause but in the future science may come to explain the universe. Swinburne states that we have a reason to believe that science will not explain the universe as any scientific explanation would have to rely upon the assumption that something else exists and it is governed by scientific laws. If we explain the universe with another universe we must explain this existence of this new universe and science is not able to do this as it is unable to explain where Scientific laws come from and why they are the way they are because science must assume a law to prove a law, they are brute there is no explanation for them unless we find a different kind of explanation for them. If we explain the universe using God we don’t encounter this problem because it is a personal explanation. We explain what we do in a personal way for instance for instance I am writing this essay because I intended to. We explain things in terms of a person and purpose. So saying God made the universe because God intended to seems better than a scientific explanation as if we explain something in terms of a person we explain everything there are no gaps we explain the universe and scientific laws which is something science cannot do. This makes it probable that the universe is a product of God.

Swinburne’s argument does not state all the attributes of God nor does it deny that science could explain the universe it just states that God is a better explanation; so for all we know science could explain the universe or the God that Swinburne claims to have created the universe is not the God of theism. Swinburne simply states God is good but as we have discussed previously a Good God who uses evil as a tool does not seem to add up. Using Swinburne’s definition of God I can still ask what caused God and this is why he is not further than science in explaining the existence of the universe. Now if both science and God leave us with unanswered questions why do we need God at all? Can’t we just accept that we explain scientific laws?

In conclusion, he Kalam argument seems to fail at clearly proving God by deduction and Swinburne fails at inductively proving God’s existence. Maybe there isn’t an answer. Bertrand Russell states the universe is just there and people should not seek an explanation as it seems impossible that we will find a sufficient reason for the universe as even explaining the simplest of things, for example striking a match to produce a flame, requires a detailed explanation. However, it still is logical to want an answer. It might seem that Russell has just given up on unlikely odds rather than providing an actual response, at the same time the want for an answer does not mean there is an answer, maybe it is just human nature to be curious.