Humans can never know for the certain why the universe was created or what caused it but, we can still create arguments and theories to best explain what might have created the universe. The cosmological argument is another idea to prove the existence of god. Many philosophers debate wheatear the cosmological argument is valid. The cosmological argument starts off quite simply: whatever exists must come from something else. Nothing is the source of its own existences, nothing is self-creating []. The cosmological argument states at some point, the cause and effect sequence must have a beginning. This unexpected phenomenal being is god. According to the argument, god is the initial start of the universe as we know it. Though nothing is self-creating cosmological believers say god is the only being the is self –created. Aquinas, an Italian philosopher, defended the argument and developed the five philosophical proofs for the existence of god knows as, the “Five Ways”.[]. In each “way” he describes his proof how god fills in the blanks of the unexplainable. The first way simply states that, things in motion must be put in motion by something. The second was is efficient because, nothing brings its self into existence. The third is, possibility and necessity [!]. Aqunhias’ has two more ‘ways’ but for the purpose of this essay I won’t be focusing on them heavily. These ways have started philosophers to debate and question his arguments ultimately made the cosmological argument debatable. The cosmological argument is however not a valid argument in explaining the existence of god because the conclusions do not logically follow the premises.
The main point in the cosmological argument is the first cause. As stated (by Aquinas) the world...
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...he conclusion does not logically follow. If nothing is self creating, god for whatever reason should not be an exception. Aquinas first way suggested thing in motion are put in motion something. Big Bang itself was a movement and god could not have set this motion himself, because it would mean god was put in motion by a something else in motion. By changing the conclusions for the cosmological argument to logically follow the premises would make it valid. Rather than forcing god as a conclusion, keeping an open mind and proposing counter arguments help us understand the possibilities out there. Maybe there is no god at all and the universe was always existed. Perhaps there was another universe prior to ours which was compressed so much the tiny spec of left exploded in a fraction of a second. Though the cosmological argument is invalid for explaining the existence
Thomas Aquinas, a leading scholar of the Middle Ages, argued that “Everything in the universe has a cause. Trace those causes back and there must have been a First Cause that triggered everything else. God is that First Cause.” This was known as his “First Cause” argument.
Within William Rowe’s Chapter two of “The Cosmological Argument”, Rowe reconstructs Samuel Clark's Cosmological Argument by making explicit the way in which the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or PSR, operates in the argument as well as providing contradictions of two important criticisms from Rowe’s argument.
The Main Strengths of the Cosmological Argument There are many strengths within the Cosmological Argument which have proven theories and ways to prove the existence of God. Many of these strengths have come from such scholars as; Copleston, Aquinas and Leibniz, all of which have put together major points to prove the existence of a non-contingent being. One of the main strengths of the Cosmological Argument is from Aquinas way I that was about motion. This would be a posteriori argument because you need to gather evidence from the world around you.
After exhibiting faulty methods of argument and frequent logical fallacies, the teleological argument fails as a well-crafted argument. The content of this argument refuses to account for evolutionary theory, and fails to solve the burden of proof in showing how everything is designed deliberately. Even the criterion for god, which William Paley outlines, is faulty and unachievable by the current state of reality. Although the argument proves that an amalgamation of forces formed the universe, to consider them conscious is begging the question. Ultimately, the teleological argument is an inadequate and dated explanation for the creation of the universe.
First off, The Cosmological Argument was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas in 1274 through his work entitled Summa Theologica (otherwise known as Five Ways). Its purpose was to prove God’s existence through sensory perception. In Part One, Article Three of Prima Pars, Aquinas states that in order to debate, one must become involved in the opposing argument, then afterwards argue their view. In this case, one must look at both the argument for God’s existence (Theism) and for God’s non-existence (Atheism) in order to truly understand the argument that they are arguing for or against. The cosmological argument is divided into three parts, each containing varying sub-arguments:
The question of God’s existence has been debated through the history of man, with every philosopher from Socrates to Immanuel Kant weighing in on the debate. So great has this topic become that numerous proofs have been invented and utilized to prove or disprove God’s existence. Yet no answer still has been reached, leaving me to wonder if any answer at all is possible. So I will try in this paper to see if it is possible to philosophically prove God’s existence.
St. Thomas Aquinas presents five arguments to demonstrate the existence of God. However, this paper focuses on the fifth argument. The fifth argument is regarded as the Teleological Argument and states that things that lack intelligence act for some end or purpose. While the fifth argument satisfies God’s existence for Aquinas, some contemporary readers would argue that Aquinas neglects the laws of physics. Others argue that Aquinas allows a loophole in his argument so that the Catholic conception of God is not the only intelligent designer.
Aristotle believed the universe existed since eternity and Christian philosopher John Philoponus (490–570 AD) seeked to refute this theory (Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology). This led to the the kalam cosmological argument. In A Defense of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God, William Lane Craig outlines the kalam cosmological argument. Craig states, the universe had a beginning at some moment in the finite past and, since...
Modern science can explain many things. However, one of the things is yet to prove and will most likely never prove, is: why was everything was created? This is where God steps in. He is the only one who could have created the universe. Thus it can be concluded that the world could not have been created by chance. It is extremely complex and ordered, so much so, that it but must be the product of intelligent design. This is God.
...t causation argument reasoned out in the first place. There had to be a beginning because “If there were no first efficient cause, there would be no last or intermediary efficient causes” (Aquinas, 45).
Secondly, the first and second arguments are invalid because the way the Big Bang happened and the universe was created was left to a good deal of chance and it would have been illogical for God to have created it that way. If God did create it in this form then it would be contradictory to Aquinas' idea of a completely rational, benevolent, and omnipotent God. Aquinas' third argument is unsound because he states that not every entity can fail to exist, but during singularity all of the matter in the universe is suspended in one lawless and unlocatable point. The lack of governing laws and any way to tell where that point would have been is proof that it may not have existed. The scientific proof of the beginning of the universe renders Aquinas' first three arguments from Summa Theologica unsound.
For the purposes of this debate, I take the sign of a poor argument to be that the negation of the premises are more plausible than their affirmations. With that in mind, kohai must demonstrate that the following premises are probably false:
of Gods existence. The factors that go into their views on reason will be compared and accented within this essay. The order of the universe is knowable to Descartes. He proves these by
Aquinas’ first proof says anything currently in motion was put in motion by another thing. This “mover,” as he calls it, cannot also be the “moved.” The mover transfers its own actuality of motion into the moved, which until then only has the potentiality of motion. Since nothing can have both actuality and potentiality at the same time, the mover and moved cannot be the same thing. Since the universe is motion, it could not have been something from the universe which put it into motion. Therefore, there is a God who first put the universe into motion.
Presently, the Big Bang theory is the most logical scientific explanation of how the universe began. The majority of cosmologists favor the Big Bang theory and the idea that the expanding universe had an initial, incredibly hot and dense start (Peterson 232). According to the Big Bang theory, at one point in time, more than 12 billion years ago, matter was condensed in a single place, and a huge explosion scattered matter out is all directions (“Big Bang Theory” 403). At the moment of its origin, the universe was infinitely dense and hot, but as the expansion occurred, the universe cooled and became less dense (Narlikar 12). The debris the spewed from the initial explosion became the building blocks of matter, forming the planets, stars, and galaxies (Narlikar 12). Officially, the Big Bang model is called the standard cosmological model (SCH), and it has been the most widely accepted theory of the origin of the universe since the 1960s (Rich and Stingl 1). Most astronomers are in agreement that the universe’s beginning can be traced back to 10 to 15 billion years ago following some type of explosive start (Narlikar 12). Big Bang theorists have estimated the actual bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago and was followed by an inflationary period that created time, matter, and space (Rich and Stingl 1).