Evidently the Cosmological argument as proposed by Aquinas is open to both interpretation and criticism.

The Cosmological argument demands an explanation for the existence of God. Some have rejected this demand.

Main critiques of the argument are:

David Hume ‘Dialogues concerning Natural Religion’

Bertrand Russell ‘Why I am not a Christian’.

Why cannot there be an endless series of causes?

Mackie in ‘The Miracle of Atheism’ 1982 gave an analogy of an infinite number of carriages.

Each carriage may move the next, but ultimately it only makes sense if there is an engine.

If nothing can cause itself, how can God be an uncaused causer?

It is stated that the cause of the universe must lie in something outside of it. Thus Aquinas saw God not as another thing but something BIGGER – he is of totally different order and not subject to the same conditions as the universe.

GOD

Why must regress lead to one cause? Could different causes not lead to different Gods?

Why does Aquinas’ three ways have to lead to the Christian concept of God?

The universe is not contingent – matter/energy in the universe is eternal – some objects come and go but the matter of which they are composed is forever and exists necessarily.

The universe is about matter not God.Dark matter

David Hume (1711-1776):

Stated that it is illegitimate to move from saying that every event in the universe has a cause to the claim that the universe has a cause.

Bertrand Russell (19872- 1970) made a very similar point by remarking that this was like moving from saying that every human being has a mother to the claim that the human race as a whole has a mother.

One cannot move from individual causes to the claim that the totality (everything) has a cause.

Russell when asked about the possible explanation for the universe he said:

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.” (1964)

When making this statement he was debating the existence of God with F.C Copleston (1907-1994).

They were debating what is known as ‘The principle of sufficient reason’

A more modern form of the Cosmological argument, postulated by Leibniz (1646-1716).

It looks at the argument from a slightly different angle and talks about reasons.

Leibniz argued that everything that happens has a reason, i.e. there is some explanation, known or unknown for things.

The world does not contain within itself the reason for its existence.

The reason for its existence must therefore be God.

Aka – ‘The Kalam Cosmological argument’ and is popular in Islam.

Its origins originate to about 850CE to a group which belonged to the Islamic Kalam tradition of philosophy.

The argument was used by John Locke (1632-1704) and had a 20th century revival in the writings of William Craig.

The argument claims that everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist, the universe has a cause of its existence.

Transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being.

This cause is God.

•It is possible to imagine something coming into existence without a cause – support for this comes from subatomic physics. It appears that electrons can pass out of existence at one point and then come into existence elsewhere without any cause.

• But does this not result in our limits of investigative knowledge and equipment? – at one time scientists did not know electrons existed – so the electrons passing in and out of existence may have a cause we do not know.

•The Big Bang theory – could this not be the cause?

•Could God of started the universe then ceased to be?

The argument commits what is called the fallacy of composition: it assumes that a characteristic of parts of a thing is also a characteristic of the whole thing. The fact that members of a team had biological births does not mean that the team itself had a biological birth. Likewise, the fact that each thing in the universe has a cause does not mean that the universe in its entirety has a cause. Speaking about causes makes sense only in regard to things in the world, not the world as a totality.

(7 May 1711 – 25th August 17 – 1776)

Scottish Philosopher, contributed to Scottish Enlightenment.

The nature of any being necessary for bringing the universe into existence is beyond our comprehension and so not necessarily restricted to God, i.e given that we have no reason to assume that we fully understand the characteristicsrequired for some being or event to be a first cause, we have no reason to assume that God is the only being orevent that could have them.