The Cosmological Argument

Plato

Attempts to establish a conclusion absolutely. Deductive argument

Aims to make a conclusion probable. Inductive argument

• Premises are based on experience
• Conclusion is probable - easier to convince people

• Human experience is fallible
• If we don't agree on a premise then the argument fails
• The conclusion is only probable

Everything that has a beginning has a cause. Since the universe has a beginning it must have a cause outside the universe

Every event is caused by some previous event, creating a chain of causes. This chain of causes must have a First Cause, which it itself is not caused

Events in the universe are contingent (they need not have occurred) so must be in a chain of events caused to occur. This chain must have its origins in a necessary being/event

Nothing is the way it is without sufficient reason for being so(Gottfried Leibniz)

Goes back forever

In fieri

• In esse
• Believed the universe had existed for an infinite amount of time

• Based on movement (change)
• Nothing can move itself
• Everything requires something to move it
• Causes don't go back infinity so there must be a Prime Mover

• Everything has a cause
• Nothing is its own cause
• You cannot have an infinite no. of causes
• Therefore there must be an uncaused causer

• Nothing lasts forever
• Therefore it is possible the universe has not lasted forever
• Nothing can be made from nothing
• Therefore there must be something eternal - God

• No reason to believe everything has a cause - could be infinite regress
• Human experience is limited and subjective
• The fallacy of composition
• If God can be his own cause then why can't the universe?
• Even God existed it would not prove he is omnibenevolent etc

• Kalam argument suggests that the universe is finite and therefore there must be a God
• Three Ways suggests the universe is not infinite because there is a God

If there are an infinite amount of guests and another guest turns up then it wasn't infinity in the first place