• History and overview of cosmological arguments• Two examples:
1) Leibnizian2) Kalam
• Objections
Outline
Does God Exist?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Is the Universe eternal?
Overview of Cosmological Arguments
“A cosmological argument takes some cosmic feature of the Universe – such as the existence of contingent things or the fact of motion – that calls out for an explanation and argues that this feature is to be explained in terms of the activity of a First Cause, which First Cause is God” Alex PrussMany of the greatest thinkers have advocated some form of cosmological argument for the existence of God:• Plato, Aristotle, al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Aquinas,
Duns Scotus, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Clarke
Cosmological ArgumentsWorthy of Study
Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith: “the great majority of naturalist philosophers have an unjustified belief that naturalism is true and an unjustified belief that theism (or supernaturalism) is false.” For their naturalism typically rests on nothing more than an ill-informed “hand waving dismissal of theism” which ignores “the erudite brilliance of theistic philosophizing today.”You probably already believe in a Necessary Being:
http://www.necessarybeing.net/
Kalam Cosmological Argument
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause• Expecting causes to explain effects is fundamental to
science and reason
2. The Universe began to exist– Universe = totality of time, space, matter and energy
3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause
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Has the Universe Always Existed?What does Science Say?
Leading cosmologist Vilenkin developed models attempting to extend Universe into eternal past but now believes it’s impossible:
“With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal Universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”Based on Borde-Vilenkin-Guth (BVG) theorem (2003)
His “proof” depends only on well-established physics Only assumption is that Universe has on average expanded– If that is violated, run into roadblock with 2nd law of thermodynamics
• Eternal Universe would have already reached state of equilibrium• Usable energy would have been used up by now
Philosophical arguments against an eternal past
Peter Williams’s Book Analogy
Suppose I ask you to loan me a certain book, but you say: ‘I don’t have it right now, but I’ll ask my friend to lend me his copy and then I’ll lend it to you.’ • Suppose your friend says the same thing and so on…
1. If the process of asking to borrow the book goes on forever, I’ll never get the book
2. If I get the book, the process that led to me getting it can’t have gone forever• Somewhere down the line of requests to borrow the book, someone
had the book without having to borrow it. …
Pruss’s cannonball argument against an infinite regress of events being an adequate explanation
• An infinite regress of causes cannot provide a complete explanation• At noon the cannonball is at rest and precisely then a cannon is fired. At every time
after noon, the cannonball is moving. (Maybe the whole thing takes place in space.) – The cannonball ball is moving at 12:01 (due to inertia)– The cannonball ball moving at half a minute after noon or a quarter of a minute etc. – This could be stated for an infinite number of times after noon– But this hasn’t explained why the cannonball is moving at all at any time after noon– If the chainwise explanation was a good explanation, then a complete explanation of all
the motion of the cannonball could be given without mentioning the cannon. And that's absurd. So an infinite chain does not give an explanation of itself.
• If there was no “noon” and no cannon would the infinite chain explain itself? – No! The chain is no more explanatory if there is no “noon” and no cannon. Taking
away the real explanation does not turn the chain into an explanation.!
Kalam Cosmological Argument Summary
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause2. The Universe began to exist3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause
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But Does the Cause of the Universe Have to be God?
• Let’s deduce properties of cause of all of time, space, matter– Timeless, Spaceless, Immaterial, Immensely Powerful– Personal
• Conditions prior to the Universe being created never changed• If the cause initiating the Universe always existed, why hasn’t the effect
always existed?• An intentional agent would need to cause the Universe• Therefore the cause is plausibly personal
A cause outside nature implies a supernatural agent !It’s hard for something to look more miraculous than the coming into being of space, time, matter and energy from a complete absence of these!
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Alex Pruss’s Argumentfrom Contingency
Definition (Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy):“It is commonly accepted that there are two sorts of existent entities: those that exist but could have failed to exist, and those that could not have failed to exist. Entities of the first sort are contingent beings; entities of the second sort are necessary beings.”1) Every contingent fact has an explanation2) There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent
facts3) Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact4) This explanation must involve a necessary being
– Else it’s part of the set of contingent facts5) This necessary being is God
Cosmological ArgumentBackground
• The view that contingent facts need an explanation is called the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)– These arguments require only a weak form of PSR– This principle is fundamental to doing science
• We look for explanations for things that could have been otherwise
– Consider common claim of skeptics: “If we don’t accept naturalism, we will give up too quickly and settle for supernatural explanations.“• This presupposes belief in PSR• Einstein not only believed in PSR and but was bothered if the
reason wasn’t deterministic but only probabilistic – “God doesn’t play dice”
Argument for
Koon’s epistemological argument• Once we admit that some contingent states of affairs have no explanations, a
completely new skeptical scenario becomes possible: your perceptual states are occurring for no reason at all, with no prior causes.
• Objective probabilities are tied to laws of nature or objective tendencies, and so if an objective probability attaches to some contingent fact, then that situation can be given an explanation in terms of laws of nature or objective tendencies. Hence, if the PSR is false for some contingent fact, no objective probability attaches to that fact.
• Thus we cannot even say that violations of the PSR are improbable if the PSR is false. Consequently, someone who does not affirm the PSR cannot say that the skeptical scenario is objectively improbable. It may be taken to follow from this that if the PSR were false or maybe even not known a priori, we wouldn’t know any empirical truths. But we do know empirical truths. Hence, the PSR is true, and maybe even known a priori.
Beware of Straw Men
What is a Straw Man argument?We’ll look at common objections that represent a misunderstanding of the arguments as per Dr. Ed Feser1) The argument does NOT rest on the premise that
“Everything has a cause.”Rather it depends on whatever begins to exist having a cause!“None of the best-known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this … argument.” Edward Feser
Bad Objections
2) What caused God?” is not a serious objection to the argument.– What caused God?” really amounts to asking
“What caused the thing that cannot in principle have had a cause?”
– “What imparted a sufficient reason for existence to that thing which has its sufficient reason for existence within itself and did not derive it from something else?”
More Bad Objectionsfrom Ed Feser
More objections that are not serious objections to the cosmological arguments:3) “No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause has properties of
God”– Aquinas devoted hundreds of pages to this (in the 1200’s)– Many properties arrived at by deduction – timeless, spaceless, immaterial
4) “The argument doesn’t prove Christianity”– It’s not trying to, just that atheism is false– Important part of a cumulative case
5) “Science has shown such-and-such” is not a serious objection to (most versions of) the argument.”– Current science seems to tentatively affirm the second premise of the Kalam
• But that is unneeded if the philosophical arguments go through– Even the Kalam could never in principle never be disproved (in the strict sense) by science
since an infinite past could never proven
Who Made God?
• Question assumes everything must have a cause• Theists claim only that what begins to exist must be caused– Most philosophers historically have accepted this
• Atheists such as Bertrand Russell posited a self-existent Universe that did not need to have been created or explained!
• Cosmological arguments point by deduction to something eternally existent that brings about the first cause
• Since time itself had a beginning, an infinite regress of causes is impossible - something is eternal!– We now know that matter, space and time are not eternal– So the question is like asking “Who caused the ‘uncaused first cause’ ?”
• A “created God” is not even a coherent concept17
Who Made God?Should God count as a candidate explanation even if we cannot explain Him?
Not relevant to Kalam anyway!
• You can detect design without knowing origin of designer:– A spaceship of unknown origins found on Mars would rationally be understood as designed– Anthropologists routinely infer cave markings were designed without knowing source
• What is the best candidate for ultimate explanation? Each theory has a stopping place– Materialist – matter– Theist – God
• Goal is to evaluate evidence for or against the hypothesis that something/someone outside the Universe created it– It’s circular reasoning to exclude possibility that something outside of the Universe created it– Atheists content to posit an eternal Universe as not requiring an explanation
• Requiring an explanation to an explanation leads to an infinite regress– Knowledge progresses by providing one level of explanation at a time– At lowest levels we may never know why things work the way they do
• Christianity has never claimed nor would accept that God was created– Logic led Plato to conclude that there must be an uncaused First Cause 18
