Questions + Answers 

1.        What is an Inductive reasoning?

• Inductive reasoning is where the premises support the conclusion, but they do not entail it. It is usually based upon information coming from the senses (the order and complexity we observe with our eyes). 

2.        What is a Deductive reasoning?

• Reasoning which if we accept the premise (starting point) of an argument is true, therefore the conclusion must be true.  The premises of an argument do entail the conclusion, i.e. the conclusion is necessary e.g. 1+1=2..

3.        What is a A Posteriori Argument?

 An argument which starts with human experience then builds up evidence to lead to a probable conclusion

4.        What is a A Priori Argument?

The conclusion is the logical result of the premise.

5.        What is the Cosmological argument?

In argument in which the existence of God is inferred from alleged facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects.

6.        What name is it also known as?

The Cosmological argument is also known as the first Cause Argument

7.        Name 3 supporters of the argument

Aquinas, Leibniz, Coplestone, Craig

8.        Name 3 critics of the argument

Hume, Kant, Russel.

9.        What type of argument is the Cosmological Argument?

Inductive A posteriori

10.    Who is Aristotle?

Greek Philosopher 385- 322 BC, student of Plato, theory causation- Four Causes, 1- The material, the efficient, and formal (Purpose/ telos).  Also developed Virtue ethics,

11.    What was Aristotle’s Cosmological Argument

The earliest formulation of a version of the cosmological argument is found in Plato’s Laws, 893–96, the classical argument is firmly rooted in Aristotle’s Physics (VIII, 4–6) and Metaphysics (XII, 1–6). For Aristotle, the existence of the universe needs an explanation, as it could not have come from nothing. There needs to be a cause for the universe.  Nothing comes from nothing so since there is something there must have been some other something that is its cause.  Aristotle rules out an infinite progression of causes, so that led to the conclusion that there must be a First Cause.  Likewise with Motion, there must have been a First Mover.

12.    What did Aristotle say about Causation

 ‘"Ex nihilo, nihil fit"- Nothing comes from nothing. Aristotle 300BC

13.    Who is Thomas Aquinas?

Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) was a 13C Catholic ‘scholastic’ Christian Priest and Philosopher who developed five proofs of Gods existence in his Summa Theologica (I,q.2,a.3) and his Summa Contra Gentiles (I, 13). 

14.    What is the 1st Motion Argument?

The argument from motion or change (the two terms are equivalent as if you move from A to B then you have changed).

·         Premise: 1  All things are in a state of change.

·         Premise: 2 Everything is a secondary mover.

·         Premise: 3 If all things are secondary movers then there must be infinite regress.

·         Premise: 4 If the above is correct then there is no Prime Mover. Without a Prime Mover, there can be no secondary movers, therefore, the point above is false as infinite regress is impossible.  (The reductio ad absurdum technique.)

·         Conclusion: 5 Therefore, there must be a prime mover. This we call "God".

15.    What does Aquinas say about the First Argument from motion?

"The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity because then there would be no first mover and consequently no other mover." Aquinas, Summa Theologica

16.    Simplify the premise of this argument

The premise of the argument hinges upon the assumed premise that there cannot be an infinite regression of change or motion, there must be something changeless, and unmoved.

17.    What is the wood and fire Analogy?

To illustrate the idea of change Aquinas describes fire as actually hot and wood as potentially hot but actually cold until fire is applied and then it becomes actually hot.  So things are changing from states of potentiality to actuality.  God however is all actuality and no potentiality.

18.    What is the 2nd Cause Argument?

This is the argument from causation.

·         Premise: 1 There is an order of efficient causes.

·         Premise: 2 No efficient cause can cause itself.

·         Premise: 3 If there is infinite regress then there is no First Cause.

·         Premise: 4 If the point above is true then there can be no subsequent causes.  Infinite regress is impossible.  (The reductio ad absurdum technique.)

·         Conclusion: C Therefore there must be a first cause of everything. This we call "God".

19.    What is the Archer and Arrow  Analogy?

Aristotle asks us to consider an arrow, which when if finds its target we would say must have been shot by an archer’

20.    What does Aquinas say about the second Argument from cause?

“There is no case known (neither, indeed, is it possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which would be impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity ...Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”

21.    What is the 3rd Contingency Argument?

Aquinas following the Arabic philosophers (falasifa), such as Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037), developed an argument from contingency, as follows

·         Premise:  1 A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed or could cease to exist) exists.

·         Premise:  2 This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence.

·         Premise:  3 The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.

·         Premise:  4 What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

·         Premise:  5 Contingent beings alone cannot provide a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.

·         Premise:  6 Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.

·         Premise: 7 Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.

·         Premise:  8 The universe is contingent.

·         Conclusion: C Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.

22.    What does Aquinas say about the third Argument from contingency and necessity?

“Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.”

23.    What does Aquinas say the problem of infinite regression?

“It is impossible for these always to exist, for that which can not-be at the same time is not.”

24.    What is the problem of infinite regression?

A key claim of each argument is that certain kinds of infinite chains are impossible. Is it possible that there be an infinitely long temporal series of causes? Some arguments that this is not possible; the ‘paradoxes of infinity’; the idea that if the history of the universe is infinite, the history of the universe does not get longer as time goes on. Responses to these arguments; the possibility that space is infinitely divisible.

25.    What is JL: Mackies analogy of train carriages and engine?

To explain the problem of regression Mackie asks us to imagine a train and think would a with a train even with infinite carriages every move- no- there allways needs to be an engine. So with the claim there is an infinite regression of events / causes which is only to say events require no causes!

26.    What does Richard Swinburne say about the problem of infinite regression?

 ‘A may be explained by B, and B by C, but in the end there will be some one object on whom all other objects depend. We will have to acknowledge something as ultimate – the great metaphysical issue is what that is’ Richard Swinburne, 1996

27.    What type of argument is this?

The first and second cause arguments are inductive and 'a posteriori' (based upon experience, as opposed to the use of logic) argument for the existence of God. 

28.    Who is Leibniz?

Leibniz (1646–1716) Leibniz was a German philosopher, mathematician, theologian, and scientist, whose achievements included the invention of calculus. Indeed, his intellect and achievements were such that they led

Diderot, a later French philosopher, to remark that “When one compares the talents one has with those of a

Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.”

29.    What is the analogy from the book of nature

Leibniz key premise seems to be that if nothing existed besides the sorts of things we find in the world, there would be no explanation of why these things exist. He illustrates this point by his example of the geometry books.  Leibniz thinks that, even we can explain the existence of each of the geometry books by the one from which it was copied, we can’t explain why these books exist at all.  And what goes for the geometry books, Leibniz thinks, goes for the world as a whole. Even if we can explain one state of the world in terms of the preceding state of the world, we lack an explanation of the fact that there is a world at all.

30.    What does Leibniz suggest about the principle of sufficient reason?

Leibniz (1646–1716) appealed to a strengthened principle of sufficient reason, according to which “no fact can be real or existing and no statement true without a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise” (Monadology, §32). Leibniz uses the principle to argue that the sufficient reason for the “series of things comprehended in the universe of creatures” (§36) must exist outside this series of contingencies and is found in a necessary being that we call God.

31.    What is Leibniz cosmological argument as a syllogism

·         Premise:   1. Any contingent fact about the world must have an explanation. (PSR)

·         Premise:   2. It is a contingent fact that there are any contingent things.

·         Premise:   3. The fact that there are contingent things must have an explanation. (1,2)

·         Premise:   4. The fact that there are contingent things can’t be explained by any contingent things.

·         Premise:   5. The fact that there are contingent things must be explained by something which is not contingent. (3,4)

·         Conclusion: C. There is a necessary being. (5)

32.    What is the difference between Aquinas and Leibniz use of ‘causation’

·         In esse and in fieri - The difference between the arguments from causation in fieri and in esse is a fairly important one. In fieri - "becoming", while in esse - "in essence". In fieri, the process of becoming, is similar to building a house. Once it is built, the builder walks away.  In esse (essence) is more akin to the light from a candle or the liquid in a vessel. Leibniz's argument is in fieri, while Aquinas' argument is both in fieri and in esse.

33.    Who is William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig is a contemporary Christian philosopher and apologist who did his doctoral work under John Hick at Birmingham on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. 

34.    What is the Kalam Cosmological argument

Craig marshals multidisciplinary evidence from Maths following al-Ghāzāli’s and modern Physics for the truth of the premises found in the kalām argument.  His argument as a syllogism

Premise 1 Everything that Begins to exist has a Cause

Premise 2 The universe began to exist

Premise 3 The universe has a cause which must by timeless, spaceless and personal

Conclusion: God is the cause of the universe therefore God exists.

35.    What is the analogy from blue and red books in an infinite library

William Lane Craig imagines a library with an infinite number of red books and an infinite number of black books. Each black book is a copy of a red book, except for its cover. This means that there are as many red books as black books. It also means there are as many red-and-black books as there are red books - which is contradictory paradox. Craig concludes that actual infinities can't exist in reality.

36.    What was  al-Ghāzāli’s conclusion?

Al-Ghāzāli (1058–1111) a Muslim argued that everything that begins to exist requires a cause of its beginning. The world is composed of temporal phenomena preceded by other temporally-ordered phenomena. Since such a series of temporal phenomena cannot continue to infinity because an actual infinite is impossible, the world must have had a beginning and a cause of its existence, namely, God.

37.    What type of argument is this?

It builds on an Inductive and a posteriori argument.

38.    Who is Hume?

David Hume, (1711-1776),  Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism of the cosmological arguments.

39.    What was his critique of the cosmological argument?

Hume addressed the Cosmological Argument in his famous book, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).   He attacks both the view of causation presupposed in the argument (that causation is an objective, productive, necessary power relation that holds between two things) and the Causal Principle—every contingent being has a cause of its existence—that lies at the heart of the argument. He argues if we can explain the parts we need not explain the whole- it’s a fallacy of composition.

•       Three characters in dialog, Cleanthes, Demea and Philo

40.    What were Humes 5 criticisms of the cosmological argument.

1)    The universe doesn't have to have a cause.

2)    The is a fallacy of composition as just because everything in the universe has a cause doesn't mean everything outside of the universe

3)    Everything has a cause, except for God, so the argument implies a contradiction

4)    Could just be an infinite regress and have no beginning.

5)    It may provide a suggestion of a first cause but it can't conclude that this first cause must be God.

41.    Who is Kant?

Immanuel Kant. Hume (1748), was greatly inspired by Hume's writings and developed many of his ideas. Kant launched a systematic attack on the traditional proofs for God's existence (he also named them!). He's most famous for his criticism of the Ontological Argument but he also launched some effective criticisms of the Cosmological Argument too.  Kant attacks the idea of God as a Necessary Being - so his criticisms apply most forcefully to Aquinas' 3rd Way, the PSR and perhaps the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA)

42.    What was his critique of the cosmological argument?

Kant in,  Book = The Critique of Pure Reason, contends that the cosmological argument, in identifying the necessary being, relies on the ontological argument, which in turn is suspect.  Kant maintained that the idea of a ‘Necessary Being’ was incoherent because our knowledge is limited to the phenomenal world of space and time and it is not possible to speculate about what may or may not exist independently of space and time. We can only know the things about the world around us because we experience these things every day. But we have no direct experience of the creation of the world – so we cannot consider the possibility of knowing the beginning of the universe. Therefore to try to arrive at a conclusion about the beginning of the universe ‘has no meaning whatsoever’. Kant disagreed with the argument from contingency (i.e. that God is a necessary being) because he says that necessity cannot be applied to anything that exists.  Necessary could be applied to statements that could be ‘tautological’ (Something which explains itself). Therefore to say that a being is necessary contradicts all reason and experience!

43.    What did Kant say

Problem of Epistemic distance- Kant makes a distinction between two types of reality: 1 Phenomen: the reality we experience through our senses; 2 Noumenon: reality as it actually is. God would be part of the Noumenon but, as human beings, we only ever experience Phenomenon. This means, no matter how much causation or contingency or motion we see going on in the universe around us, we can't draw any conclusions about what Noumenal reality is really like. We can't go from empirical observations to metaphysical conclusions. “Kant doesn't like the idea that we can conclude in the necessary being of God, as we are not necessary so we can't comprehend what is.” He argues  “If the supreme being forms a link in the chain of empirical conditions, it must be a member of the empirical series, and like the lower members which it precedes, have its origin in some higher member of the series” - immanuel kant

44.    Who is Russel?

An atheist and philosopher who debated the Catholic Priest Ruseel in a radio debate in 1948.

45.    What did Russel say about the first cause argument?

It would look analytic to say "the existent round square exists" but it doesn't.

"I see no reason whatsoever that the total has any cause whatsoever" "The universe is brute fact"  

"I do think the notion of the world having an explanation is a mistake. "I should just say the world is there and that's it"

46.    What was his critique of the cosmological argument?

Just because men have mothers does not mean all men have mothers

47.    Who is Fredric Copelstone?

A Catholic priest and philosopher

48.    What did Copleston say

"If there is a contingent being, then there is a necessary being"

"Only contingent beings can have a cause"

"If you add up chocolates, you get chocolates after all and not sheep"

49.    How does Copleston defend the cosmological argument?

Copleston in his 1948 radio debate with Russel sets out his argument for the existence of God - an argument from contingency that is a type of Cosmological Argument.

·         Premise P1   Everything in the universe is contingent

·         Premise P2  The universe is the aggregate of all the things in it

·         Premise C1   Therefore the universe is contingent

·         Premise P3   Contingent things require an explanation

·         Premise C2   Therefore the universe requires an explanation

·         Premise P4   An infinite regress of explanations is not an explanation

·         Conclusion: C3   Therefore an entity that possesses necessary existence (aseity) is needed to explain the universe

Copleston concludes that the only thing that could explain the universe would be something that existed necessarily - something that didn't require an explanation because it "contains within itself the reason for its own existence". He claims that God would be such a being and therefore God is needed to explain the universe.

50.    What did Swinburne say about the Cosmological argument

Richard Swinburne though rejecting deductive versions of the cosmological argument, proposes an inductive argument that is part of a larger cumulative case for God’s existence.

There is quite a chance that if there is a God he will make something of the finitude and complexity of a universe. It is very unlikely that a universe would exist uncaused, but rather more likely that God would exist uncaused. The existence of the universe…can be made comprehensible if we suppose that it is brought about by God. (1979: 131–32)