Defense Against the Dark Arts: The Cosmological Argument

The Cosmological Argument

(St. Thomas Aquinas)

     The Cosmological Argument Is one of the more formal arguments for the existence of a god. It takes several forms and may be a bit intimidating at first. Some forms of the argument are simple to say but require lengthy replies to be debunked, making it a favorite of apologists in formal (timed) debates as a good way to eat up your opponents time. But taken step by step it is not too difficult to work through. Here goes nothing...

     A little history first. The cosmological argument dates back to Plato and Aristotle. It was adapted by Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish philosophers but the most influential form of the argument was adapted by St. Thomas Aquinas.

     Aquinas put it 3 different ways. 

Argument from Efficient Causes

Argument from Motion

Argument from Possibility and Necessity

They all take on the same form so I will address the efficient cause argument

1. There exist things that are caused (created) by other things.
2. Nothing can be the cause of itself (nothing can create itself.)
3. There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.
4. Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called God.

Problem 1: Which god?

 

    At first glance this looks pretty solid logically and It convinced me for a short while before I became an atheist. The first Issue I took with it was the fact it had been used to prove a number of different gods (Yahweh, Allah, Brahma, etc) and they couldn't all be right. This made the argument insufficient to demonstrate any particular god. It also made me a Deist (Someone who believes in a creator god... that doesn't really do anything els in the world) for a week or two before I figured out what els was wrong with it.

Problem 2: Who created god?

     The big problem here is that while the argument hits a real issue in philosophy, the answer it provides is not really an answer at all. We have what is called an infinite regress problem meaning the answer to the question just creates another question... over and over again with no end in sight. 

     Kinda like when a child asks "Why?" and whatever your response is, the child simply repeats "Why?". Technically the child is not asking anything wrong but we tend to get annoyed when asked too many questions especially when he/she gets down to one we don't know the answer to.

     Aquinas said there must be something to fix this problem of infinite regression and he calls that fix god. But does saying "god did it" answer the problem or just push it one more question back? The next logical question as every christian parent knows is, "where did god come from?" I asked this as a child and quickly learned that it was not a question that parents liked to be asked. But if we are to be brave in our quest for truth we must ask, "Who created god?". This leads right back into an infinite regression. God was created by another god who was created by another god who was created by... on and on and on.

     A common response is that god is the only thing that is eternal therefore nothing made him. But that is no answer, you could say that about anything. To assert that this response works for god and not anything els is to make a Special Pleading Fallacy because you have no real reason to believe that there is any difference between "god is the only thing that is eternal" and "Blork, the time travelling hippopotamus, is the only thing that is eternal". It does not matter at all if one is ancient conventional wisdom and the other a whimsically lovable imaginary friend. Ideas must stand on their own merit, tradition does not indicate truth.

Problem 3: How do you know something cannot cause itself?

     This problem is a hasty generalization. With advancements in quantum physics and general relativity we are learning more and more that the universe acts very weird on the scale of the very small and the speeds approaching light speed.

    Things like Vacuum Fluctuations and Barrier Tunneling are challenging our common sense ideas. But this is to be expected our common sense is tuned to the size scale of things we live with and the speeds we travel at normally. We should be cautious when applying common sense that we have gained from observing everyday human life to particles so small you can't see them with the best microscope or when they are moving 99% the speed of light.

     While this is not proof positive that the argument is flawed it is a stern warning that we have been wrong before and we should tread lightly. The right time to believe something is when sufficient evidence is provided.

There are a few more intricate and sophisticated versions of the cosmological argument out there and I will post my take on them in the future. But I'm done for now. As always any comments or corrections are welcome and appreciated.  

Thank you,

-Adam

Tth