Exploring the Possibility of Updating the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

The strategy used by Cosmological arguments for God based on contingency begins with things exist because they are necessary and or they are contingent. Something that is necessary is something that cannot have failed to exist. Math can be used as an example as a necessary thing. For example, 2+2=4 in our world right now. If the world was different 2+2 would still equal 4. Something that is contingent is not necessary. Things that are not necessary is something that could have failed to exist. My life is contingent because if my parents had never met they would have never fell in love and created me. They could have met other people and fell in love with them. They then would have created something that was not me. We must now bring up explanations

Within McCloskey’s article he refers to three well known theist arguments as proofs the cosmological, teleological and argument from design. The Cosmological argument

1. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is based on the principle of cause and effect. What this basically means is that the universe was the effect of a cause, which was God. One of the oldest and most well known advocates of the Cosmological Argument was Thomas Aquinas who outlines his argument for the existence of God in his article entitled The Five Ways. The first way in his argument is deals with motion. Aquinas says that in order for something to be in motion something had to move it because it is impossible for something to move without the presence of some sort of outside force upon it. Therefore the world around us, nature, and our very existence could not have been put into motion without the influence of the

Leibniz and Aquinas adopt the view of contingency to explain the sufficient reason of ‘something rather than nothing’. To Hume’s fallacy of composition; which asserts that just because parts of a thing is caused by one thing, it is a mistake to believe the whole is created in the same way, it is only a matter of having one simple substance that makes up the whole thing. Let’s take for example a car which has different parts, made by different people; the wheel, the seats the doors etc. when each part is broken down into the simplest form in any form of matter, it is still an atom with sub atomic particles. Leibniz’s attempt to use contingency to suggest a cosmological argument is

In the following paper, I will outline Samuel Clarke’s “Modern Formulation of the Cosmological Argument” and restate some of the points that he makes. Samuel Clarke’s argument for the existence of God states that “There has existed from eternity some one unchangeable and independent being” (37). The argument follows a logical flow and can be better understood when the structure is laid out and the argument reconstructed.

Parmenides of Elea once presented the expression ex nihilo nihil fit, which translates to nothing comes from nothing for one of his many theses. The Cosmological Argument, an argument of the posteriori category, meaning that it requires data based on past experiences, argues for the existence of God with this type of expression at its core. By attempting to prove how the universe must be influenced by an independent being that has godlike qualities, cosmological arguments suggest that it is rational to believe in an omnipotent being and its accountability of creating the universe.

The Key Ideas of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God A) The cosmological argument is to prove the existence of god. In this type of argument we are looking at cause and not design. This type of argument is an aposteriori argument because it is based upon experience. Thomas Aquinas puts the key ideas into 3 ways.

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

The Kalam Cosmological Argument presented by Dr. William Lane Craig states that everything that beings to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist; therefore: the universe has a cause. The Cosmological argument argues that the universe that we live in has a cause and purpose. There must be a creator (God) of the universe because the universe cannot have a cause without something or someone feeling the need to create. In the Craig-Dacey debate Dr. Dacey opening argument or rebuttal was aimed to disprove God’s existence. Dr. Dacey begin to show that the concept of God is self- contradictory.

The Cosmological Argument as previously discussed, is the existence of the universe and “cosmos” is the direct suggestion that God exists. This can be and is often indicated as the “first-cause argument”. This is because they believe that God is the first reason for the cause of the existence of the universe. One of McCloskey first complaints is that people are not suitable to believe that the universe needs a cause. McCloskey finds this to be true simply because, it would require a root for the universe which in turn, would also obligate a source for God. He then continues to profess that even if the cosmological argument is able to facilitate us to hypothesize the existence of God, then there would be no reason to hypothesize that God has to be omniscient, omnipotent, and many more. There are living things in our world that have no clue how they came to be. Essentially everything that happens has to be caused by something, which would mean that the actualization of our universe has to be contingent on a cause. He also stated that he believes that the cosmological argument, “does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause,“ (McCloskey, 51).

The goal of the cosmological argument is to support the claim that God exists as the first cause of the universe. According to Nagel, the argument runs as following:

Many philosophers have explored the cosmological argument, including Aquinas, in much depth, through his Five Ways in the Summa Theologica.

Many philosophers have provided their arguments for the existence of God. Their arguments are a priori or a posteriori. A posteriori is based on experience of how the world is. In which the Cosmological view of William L. Rowe comes from. This paper will show how Rowe took the cosmological argument and its principle of sufficient reason and failed to make it an established argument of the existence of God.

I believe that that the Cosmological argument gives good reason to believe in the existence of God. The Cosmological argument focuses on everything having a cause except one thing that started it all, this starter is known as the “Prime Mover”. The Prime Mover is the one that starts everything without anything having a previous effect on it. With that people have assumed that the logical answer to who the prime mover is, is God. This to me seems the most logical of arguments because although there is the idea of eternity and an eternal cycle there has to be a starting point. I do not believe the argument is successful.

A cosmological argument focuses on the notion of causation and that everything in the universe including us must have an initial cause, for nothing comes from nothing. Thomas