The Key Ideas of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

St. Thomas Aquinas’s first cosmological argument, the prime mover, defines things in the world as being either in a state of potentiality or in a state of actuality. Those things that are in potentiality are things that have the capability of being reduced to another form. Such as a boy is potentially a man, or tree is potentially a house. Things that are in a state of actuality are things that are currently reaching their potential; such as that boy becoming a man, or that tree becoming that house. Aquinas observed that all things in a state of actuality had to have been put into that state by something that was already in actuality. In thinking about this he concluded that there would have to be an infinite regress of actual things making potential things actual. He concluded that this would be impossible because given that, there would be no first mover. He instead, postulated that there must be a first mover. A being that never had potential but only has existed in a state of infinite actuality. That what we call God.

He states that since the series of dependent beings couldn’t be caused by any external or internal source, that it would have to be cause “absolutely by nothing”. He then states that this is a “contradiction to be done in time; and because duration in this case makes no difference.” He also states that it is a “contradiction to suppose it done from eternity.” Since the universe has parts that come into existence at one occasion and not another, it must have a cause. There could supposedly be an infinite regress of causes if there was evidence for such, but lacking such evidence, God must exist as the cause.

Everything in the universe is dependant on something else which means that once there was a time when nothing existed. This means that the being which created the universe must have been external to it and also must be a necessary being, aka, must have always existed. Aquinas continued to argue that this necessary being is God and that if God didn’t exist, nothing else would. This logically explains the existence of the universe without it

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

Throughout many centuries philosophers have argued over the existence of God. In today’s society many people tend to hesitate in believing in a God because of the new scientific discoveries. For example, in the mid 1990s scientists built the Hubble telescope which revealed that there were billions of galaxies in our universe, this discovery led some people to question how can one divine being create so much and yet have a personal connection with everyone in the world. Which, in result, may take some scientific explanation to strengthen one’s belief in God, but for those who believe there is a benevolent God they do not need science to show proof that he exists because of their morals and beliefs they have been raised to follow. In this paper I will prove that God does exist by explaining the ontological, cosmological, and design argument.

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.

As regards the cosmological argument itself, McCloskey states that "all we entitled to infer is the existence of a cause commensurate with the effect to be explained, the universe, and this does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause." (p.63) This is indeed true, there is no reason to necessarily infer a God person, however; the inference is of the nature that suggests (hence the term infer) a cause of such magnitude that it is practically God-like. Moreover, his words do not disprove the rational of a God. Entitlement not to call this cause "God" is neither entitlement to deny calling this cause or considering this cause to be "God."

1. The first objection to the existence of God is the proponent of the Cosmological Argument makes the mistake of the collection of dependent beings as it itself one big depended

When you look at each of the arguments individually I can see how one might come to this conclusion. The cosmological argument only proves (if accepted) that there is a necessary being; however it does not prove that he is divine or perfect. The teleological argument by itself leaves us wondering why we also see chaos in the world around us. Not everything is orderly and perfect. You need to collectively look at each of the arguments prior to coming to a conclusion about the existence of God.

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.

His first Ontological Argument for God’s Existence starts by defining God based on Christian belief as “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” It is on the foundation of this definition that he builds his argument.

Later, he switches sides and has the argument that if God is a cause and effect relationship and people only acknowledge the effects of God, then there must be a cause and that cause is God. The next idea he addresses in the text is whether God exists or not. He begins with his arguments on why he doesn’t

then, that by which something is moved is itself moved, then it, too, must be moved by another,

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.

His reasoning is what is pure will rise above the earth, and what is non-pure will slip from it. People of faith take this concept and say there must be a supreme being governing this process, thus God must exist.