The Invalidity of the Cosmological Argument Essay

Saint Thomas Aquinas stated this first creator is God and that God was so powerful he needs no creator to exist. The third argument of God's existence that was given unto to us from Saint Thomas Aquinas is The Cosmological argument. This argument is otherwise known as The Proof from Necessary versus Possible Being. The Cosmological argument can often be confused with the second argument of The first cause but they are different in many ways.

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

Some of the three major arguments for the existence of God are cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments. Cosmological argument is the reasoning that the being of the universe is powerful proof for the existence of a God who made it. There are two main forms of cosmological argument, the modal and temporal. Modal cosmological argument, also known as the argument from contingency, recommends that because the world may not have existed, we then need some clarification of why it does exist. When there is more than one likelihood, something has to decide which of the possibilities is understood clearly. Therefore the world is contingent, because there has to be a logical reason for its existence. This form of argument also claims that the only type of existence that doesn’t need any clarification is a being that does not failed to exist such as God. Temporal cosmological argument, also known as the Kalam argument, contends that all evidence are that there is a point in life at which the world began to exist, and that this starting must either have been caused or uncaused. The cosmological argument used by Aquinas declares that since nothing originates from nothing. Therefore the world must have been brought into reality by something outside it, which can be called "God".

In this essay, I will be arguing against Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument that every motion can only be traced back to the creator of all motions and ultimately, the universe. First I will present Aquinas’ Cosmological argument regarding motion which directly concludes that a higher being, who is not dependent on the motion of any other thing or being, must exist to have caused the existence of the universe. I will also present opponents of this argument such as David Hume who argues that a “First Mover” might not even be needed to exist but rather that an infinite regress could be the explanation of the universe and that no explanation for what initiated this infinite chain of motions is required. Finally, I will disclose my personal opinion on the issue of how all of existence began. My standpoint will be much more inclined toward Hume’s argument against Aquinas but I will be presenting a new idea with a lot of scientific backup that neither of them could have possibly taken into account at the time.

The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused.

In the article, The Kalam Cosmological Argument by Theodore Schick, he states that there is scientific proof for explaining the creation of the universe but this proof also provides evidence of what others believe shows the existence of God, who to them, is the one who created the big bang that then created the universe. Within this article, there are several arguments that lie within the main premises of the overall argument that oppose to the idea that God is the creator of the universe. This argument would also be deductive and invalid. When doing the test for validity, there is a possibility that the conclusion could be false because it might not necessarily be God who was the cause for the universe but rather it was only the science that

Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument is a method for proving God’s existence and its foundation is based on the fact and observation that the universe exists. Aquinas states that in order for the universe to exist (an idea that we know to be true), there must also exist a cause that caused the existence of the universe. He concludes his argument by saying that God, an unperceivable image, is the cause of the universe, which further verifies His existence. This argument proves that in order to accept the factual, former claim that the universe exists, it is necessary to accept the latter claim that God exists as well.

The existence of God as puzzled minds for many years. Philosophers have argued that god may or may not exist to the human mind or that there can be more than one type of god. Our ways of thinking have gradually expanded over the years and it has allowed us to make more complex ideas on lost history but there is still some questionable knowledge on whether there is a god or not. We as humans could be missing valid information to find the correct answer.  Cosmological argument refers to existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God, is deduced or inferred as highly probable from facts concerning causation, change, ect in the respect of the universe as a whole within in. My question lies, what put that there? It

This week's reading sparked memories of my childhood where I asked questions like "what is the last number in the world?", or "who is God's mom?", and getting the answer, "infinity", or "he is his own mom", was beyond my understanding. However, the three different arguments for God's existence are not beyond my understanding and although I agree in some measure, these arguments can be easily grasped. Cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments can be summarized as: because "this", God exists. Cosmological arguments state that because the universe exists, so does God. Most philosophers with this argument agreed that the universe did not just appear and something had to create it. Teleological arguments follow the same premise whereas

I can support his other arguments by saying that if there is not a first cause then there cannot be an intermediate and final cause. However, the absence of any such cause can clearly does not resemble to our judgmental observation and from that, we can say that the result must have a stable cause. So analyzing an extra further on Aquina argument, we can understand that there must be a cause for everything. For instance, the existence of turning a phone on. This phone cannot cause it’s appearance to come out of nowhere. This phone cannot cause it to appear without having this phone a creator by someone. In result, there is a phone creator who created the phone and cause it existence, but the phone creator and the phone did not cause their existence. So we can say that something caused their existence and this can build up to assume that everything in existence has a first cause which finalizes to the start of all causes and all things.

Existence of God as a perfect being who has created the world has always been the subject of continuous debate for the scholar people and philosophers. During the history many different arguments have been proposed for the existence of God. Some of these arguments are based on science, some based on history and some based on philosophy. Two of the most important philosophical arguments in this matter are the ontological argument and cosmological argument. Each of these arguments tried to proof existence of God in different way.

Therefore all beginnings have to have a cause. The universe is not eternal because it has a beginning. The second premise claims, "The universe began to exist" J.P. Moreland gives a philosophical

A hybrid of the cosmological arguments is a superior explanation of God. The cosmological argument is an argument for God that claims that the existence of God is probable using empirical data. The data is derived from time, causality, motion, and the big bang theory. These arguments are based on a posteriori or observable facts that can be measured. In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas delivers a cosmological argument. In the five ways, (i) he claims that things are in motion and God must be the first mover. (ii) He uses the principle of sufficient reason to demonstrate that everything is caused to exist by something else, other than itself. The principle of sufficient reason can be defined as: everything that exists and has a reason or explanation for its existence. (iii) God’s non-existence is impossible, because things actually exists. (iv) Some things in the world are good, hence God the ultimate good exists. Finally, (v) Things that lack knowledge have a purpose or an end. Aquinas’ argument is able to follow the chain of causation to the first mover through empirical data. Additionally, the Kalam argument is similar to Aquinas’ argument, but claims that infinity is impossible, and the universe has a beginning. If there were infinity, there would not be specific instances in time because infinity would not have a beginning or end. This argument is compatible with current scientific theories that state

The early idea of the cosmological argument was developed by two historic philosophers named Plato and Aristotle. The idea of the cosmological argument was to provide the proof of the existence of God. A philosopher named Saint Thomas Aquinas then took this idea and developed it into what he calls his “The Five Ways”. The five ways that Aquinas provided to prove that God existed is by the unmoved mover, the first cause, the argument from contingency, and the argument from degree.

The Cosmological argument can be simplified into three reasons that everything that begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. Using the first proposition and the basis of metaphysics, something cannot come from nothing. If this were possible, everything and anything that comes into being emerges from nothing. Some may argue the quantum theory, which gives particles the ability to come into existence from nothing, but these particles do not materialize from nothing. Instead, they appeared from a quantum vacuum. So again, everything that exists has to have a cause. If everything were caused by something else though, then there would be no first cause, and if there were no first cause, then the first effect would not exist. Therefore, the ultimate cause of the universe then must be uncreated. A being that does not exist in time so therefore does not come into existence. In this case, God is the ultimate creator because he exists outside of time and has neither beginning nor end. This type of argument argues the existence of contingent things on the necessity of a God being the ultimate