The Cosmological Argument

Science can offer us explanations of things that are within the universe, but does the universe as a whole have an explanation?

Cosmological Argument Is an argument which says that God has to exist because the world exists.

The world couldn’t exist without God because he created it

This argument is based on Cause and Effect.

Have you ever wondered…..

“What caused the universe to exist?”

“That’s easyThe big bang!!”

We need to take the scientific approach to thisScience tells us that everything has a cause. Let that be your starting point.

What caused the big bang??

And what causedThat cause?

And what caused that cause?

Science teaches us thateverything has a cause.

Make that your starting point.

My name is St. Thomas Aquinas

But right now I am going to follow the scientists advice.

Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments

Thomas Aquinas was probably the most important philosopher of the medieval period.

Aquinas was trying to connect/join the Christian faith with the philosophy of Aristotle (an ancient Greek philosopher/scientist/mathematician) whose works had just been ‘re-discovered’ and were being taught in the religious universities of Europe.

Everything has a cause

Somethingmust have caused the universe

Somethingmust have causedthe big bang

Somethingmust have causedthat cause

Yes, the big bang

Somethingmust have causedthat cause

Somethingmust have causedthat cause

something must have caused that cause

something must have caused that cause

something must have caused that cause

something must have caused that cause

something must have caused that cause

something must have……….

This is getting boring.

Yes I agree(Remember me? St Thomas Aquinas)

but I have a solution!!

It’s just sillyIf we keep asking“What caused that cause,”Then we’ll never stop asking it! (Infinite regress)And that just doesn’t make sense

The only sensible explanationIs that there must have been…………

a first cause uncaused by anything else !!!Let me explain it in

black and white……

At the beginning - a first cause,uncaused by anything else. That first cause

was the creator God.

Everything has a cause. The Universe exists so it must have a

cause. You cannot have infinite number of causes. Therefore there must be an uncaused

cause, which causes everything to happen without itself being caused by anything else.

Such an uncaused cause is what people understand by ‘God’.

The Cosmological Argument

Cosmological Argument

The Universe Exists

Nothing can cause itself to exist

Everything is caused by something otherthan itself

The universe was causedby the Big Bang

What caused the Big Bang?

Cannot have aninfinite series ofcauses

Cannot have caused itself

Caused by somethingexternal to it

Something thatis outside theuniverse

Something thathas caused itself

That somethingis GOD

The Uncaused cause in simple talk means…

Everything has a cause… even a cause has a cause.

BUT

Something had to make the first cause happen. That something is what we know as ‘God’.

The strength of the argumentIs that it is based on the scientific principle that everything has a cause.The second strength of the argument is that it starts off by saying, “the universe exists.” That can’t be denied, we are part of it.

The argument has two weaknesses

Firstly, you may have proved a “first cause” but that doesn’tmean it still exists or that it was God.It may have died or disappeared.

The second weakness is this.You start off by saying“everything has a cause,”

It doesn’t make sense, and it’snot logical to then say“something has no cause.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxdtl2dfY8&feature=related

How did Aquinas claim that God was the First Cause of the universe? 4KU

What are the weaknesses of the First Cause argument? 4KU