Aquinas went on to discuss the nature of contingency and necessity for the existence of God. He argued that all things in nature are subject to change. Also, that it is also possible for a thing not to be, then to come into existence, and then to cease to exist, such a car manufacturer discontinuing a make of car, and then after a period time re-introducing the model. If this is so, then at some time there was nothing at all. If this is so, then there must be something that brings contingent things into existence, since nothing can come from nothing. Therefore there must be a being that necessarily exists to bring the contingent world into being. This is what everyone understands to be God.
Aquinas then argued that everything in the world that exists is more or less good. There can be varying degrees of excellence, but there cannot be an infinite scale of good. Therefore there must be something that is perfection. This is what everyone understands to be God. Finally Aquinas argued purpose, the teleological argument, for the existence of God. He argued that everything works to some purpose or other, and this must be directed by some external power. Therefore there is an intelligent being which directs everything towards a purpose. This is what everyone understands to be God.
The philosopher F.C. Copleston supports Aquinas theory of God being an “uncauses cause” or First Cause. He argues that Aquinas was not speaking of a temporal first cause, rather an ontologically ultimate cause. Copleston draws attention to two different kinds of causes. The in fieri cause is one which causes an effect, and the in esse cause which sustains the being of that effect. In essense he is distinguishing that God is only the in fieri cause of the world, and a God who’s existence os necessary, the in esse cause of the world. In these terms God is described as an ontologically ultimate cause, since it is his permanent existence that sustains our existence. This distinction clarifies Aquinas’ argument of God being the uncaused cause.
The Cosmological Argument has faced criticism for proving the existence of God. Nothing occurs without a sufficient reason for why it is, whenever we ask a question “why”, we automatically presume there is an explanation. Looking for the reason for existence is not going to be part of continguent things. The sufficient reason for the world must be beyond this world. J.L. Mackie remarks that such justifications are not a priori as Aquinas argued. It is not justified that the purpose of a thing has to be explained. Things don’t have instrinsic purposes, we give them to them, this undermines sufficient reason. Whereas Aquinas looked at the world around him and looked for sufficient reason.
In a famous radio debate between Bertrand Russell and Fred Copleston ,broadcast in 1947, the Principle of sufficient reason was argued against Logical necessity. Copleston that an explanation was adequate to the existence of some particular being. When Russell asked the question “When is an explanation adequate?”, Copleston replied that an adequate explanation must ultimatly be a total explanation, to which nothing further can be added. But Russell objects to this fact, saying that there is no such thing as no expectation. We cannot expect to be able to know everything, as continguent beings. With the example of medicine and diseases, should we accept that an explanation for the cause of cancer is adequate information canbe obtained? Russell would argue against this statement, using the example of how medieval man though the world to be flat, but it time and exploration it was discovered to indeed round, an example of an explanation thought initially to be adequate, but later disproved. Russell therefore concluded that we should have an expectation of explanation. Copleston replies and challenges the assumption that a thing becomes intelligble only when completely explained.
The philosopher David Hume argues against a First Cause, God, for the universe. He maintained that the fact that everything within the universe has a cause does not necessarily mean that the universe must have a cause. He argued that we have no experience of universes being made, and so cannot speak meaningfully about the creation of the universe. To move from “everything that we observe has a cause” to “the universe has a cause” is too big a leap in logic.
Anthony Kenny, a modern philosopher disproves Aquinas, using his observations on Newton’s Laws of Motion, and noted the First Law of Motion. Kenny believed that “a body’s velocity would remain unchanged unless some other force, such as friction, acted upon it.” Kenny believes that it is possible for an object to be in one of two states, stationary or moving at a constant rat, without any external force acting upon it. This would appear to mean that Aquinas’ statement that nothing moves itself is wrong, and so argues against the existence of God and the First Cause or Mover.
Recent scientific theories and challenges argued by philosophers have begun to question whether God was the ultimate creator, responsible for the universe. Modern cosmology allows for an infinite past history of the universe since it is consistent with the universe since it is consistent with the evidence to have an infinite series of expanding and contracting universes. This is know as the Oscillating Universe Theory. If there was no starting point, then from any specific point in past time there is only a finite stretch that needs to be traversed to reach the present. Given that the universe had a beginning, some philosophers question whether God must be the cause. Even if God did start it, God could then cease to be. This is very far from the argument sustained in the Cosmological Argument, that God not only began the world but sustains it, and that without God things would cease to be.
