One of the traditional arguments for the existence of God, championed especially by Aquinas. The basic argument is that the existence of the universe cannot be explained by things in the universe, and that there must be one first cause, itself uncaused.
The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of God, traditionally known as an "argument from universal causation," an "argument from first cause," and also as the "uncaused cause" argument. Whichever term is used, there are three basic variants of this argument, each with subtle but important distinctions: the argument from causation in esse, the argument from causation in fieri, and the argument from contingency. The cosmological argument does not attempt to prove anything about the first cause or about God, except to argue that such a cause must exist.
Origins of the argument
Plato and Aristotle both posited first cause arguments, though each with certain notable caveats. 1225 – 1274 CE), probably the best known theologian of the Middle Ages, adapted the argument he found in his reading of Aristotle to form one of the earliest and the most influential versions of the cosmological argument. His conception of first cause is the idea that the universe must have been caused by something which was itself uncaused, which he asserted was God.
The argument
Framed as an informal proof, the first cause argument can be stated as follows:
Every finite and contingent being has a cause.The cosmological argument can only speculate about the existence of God from claims about the entire universe, unless the "first cause" is taken to mean the same thing as "God." Thus, the argument is based on the claim that God must exist due to the fact that the universe needs a cause. In other words, the existence of the universe requires an explanation, and an active creation of the universe by a being outside of the universe—generally assumed to be God—is that explanation.
In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of cosmological argument for the existence of God has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was put forth by William Lane Craig):
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.A more detailed discussion of the argument
A basic explanation might go something like this: Consider some event in the universe. Each of those causes would be the result of some other set of causes, which are in turn a result of yet other causes. Thus there is an enormous chain of events in the universe, with the earlier events causing the later events.
Currently, the theory of the cosmological history of the universe most widely accepted by astronomers and astrophysicists includes an apparent first event—the Big Bang—the expansion of all known matter and energy from a superdense, singular point at some finite time in the past. Though contemporary versions of the cosmological argument most typically assume that there was a beginning to the cosmic chain of physical, or natural causes, the early formulations of the argument did not have the benefit of this degree of theoretical insight into the apparent origins of the cosmos. And to Aquinas, it remained logically possible that the universe has already existed for an infinite amount of time, and will continue to exist for an infinite amount of time. In his classic Summa Theologiae, he posited that even if the universe has always existed, (a notion which he rejected on other grounds), there is still the question of cause, or even of "first cause."
The argument from contingency
Aquinas also used an argument from contingency (Summa Theol. I,2,3), which is distinct from the first cause argument. Thus contingent beings are insufficient to account for the existence of contingent beings, meaning there must exist a Necessary Being for which it is impossible not to exist, and from which the existence of all contingent beings is derived.
The argument relies on a sort of modal, probabilistic logic to argue there must have been a time when no contingent beings existed.
The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz made a somewhat similar argument with his Principle of sufficient reason in 1714.
"In esse" and "in fieri"
The difference between the arguments from causation in fieri and in esse is a fairly important one. (It may require occasional maintenance, but that is beyond the scope of the "first cause" argument.)
In esse (in existence) is more akin to the light from a candle or the liquid in a vessel. This form of the argument is far more difficult to separate from a purely "first-cause" argument than is the example of the house's maintenance above, because here the "first cause" is insufficient without the candle's or vessel's continued existence.
Thus, Aristotle's argument is in fieri, while Aquinas' argument is both in fieri and in esse (plus an additional argument from contingency). Leibnitz, who wrote more than two centuries before the "big bang" was taken as granted, is arguing in esse. As a general trend, the modern slants on the cosmological argument including the Kalam argument, tend to lean very strongly towards an in fieri argument.
Counterarguments and objections
Several objections to the cosmological argument have been raised. One very simple objection is that, in the formulation above, the conclusion (4) There must be a first cause (which itself does not have a cause) leaves open the question of why the First Cause should not require a cause. Though this is not an intrinsic self-contradiction with the assumption (1) that every effect should have a cause, since not everything is necessarily an effect, it may be argued, not without controversy, that an infinite regression of causes is in fact possible.
Another objection is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify this first cause with "God" in the theistic sense. The argument does not ascribe to this First Cause some of the basic attributes commonly associated with "God," such as self-awareness and will (though there are some theists who actually do make such attempts when using this argument ). At best, the argument demonstrates the necessity of a "supernatural" first cause, without showing any particular attributes of that cause, save perhaps that it is eternal and existentially perfect. Furthermore, the argument only requires God as a first cause, but need not require that God continue to interact with the universe beyond that purpose; Some deists have agreed that the argument proves that God created the universe, but maintained nevertheless that God then ceased to interact with the material universe.
Opponents also point to the semantic difficulty that the cosmological argument seems to apply temporal concepts to situations where time does not exist. things which exist outside of time do not have to be caused. Similarly, time can begin, but not require a cause, since all human concepts of a caused beginning have something before that beginning (including the cause);
Defenders of cosmological arguments that do not assume the finite age of the universe argue that the eternal existence of the universe would not eliminate the problem of origin. On a similar note, one could also claim that the universe has always existed and its "creation" is thus not causal in nature, so no "first cause" is necessary. Option (2a) is held by some of those like Aquinas who think that God's essence is identical with God's existence, or by those who hold, more weakly, that God's existence follows from his essence. Option (2b) essentially holds that there is a sound ontological argument for the existence of God, albeit we may not have discovered it yet. Thus, if one could show the premises of the cosmological argument to be true and show that options (1) and (2a) were not tenable, then the cosmological argument would turn into an argument for the existence of an ontological argument.
Alternately, the defender of the cosmological argument can restrict the principle of sufficient reason in such a way that it does not require us to give an explanation of the existence of the First Thing. These restrictions would require arguments, respectively, that the universe is contingent or that the universe's existence is explicable. The cosmological argument as held by Aristotle, Aquinas, Maimonides and Averroes does not concern itself with a "first cause" that starts at the beginning of time. The cosmological argument is posited on the assumption that everything in the experience of our five physical senses is natural and that everything natural is caused, contingent and dependent - subject to cause by the uncaused cause. i.e.: Aristotle, who first formulated the argument, believed the natural, caused universe was infinite, without beginning. Aquinas, who re-formulated the argument as a proof for monotheism, understood the Divine as outside of time, viewing all of time, indeed being present in all of time, simultaneously like a vast simulcrum
3. Criticisms of this argument should be divided into those that criticize the essence of the dualistic argument: that the universe has a cause that is different in substance from the natural universe, versus those that criticize the monotheistic extension of the argument that the cause of the universe is God (as asserted by Maimonides, Aquinas and Averroes).
The Aristotelian formulation of the argument held that the universe is of an essence or substance such that all things in the universe are caused: dependent and contingent. He postulated an alternative essence or substance that does not have the qualities of dependency or contingency and which, therefore, does not require a cause, but which itself may be the source upon which our natural, caused universe, is dependent, or contingent. Consider some of the varieties of physical, cosmological expanations for the origin of the universe: (a) understanding that time itself is part of the natural order, we cannot say "before" time, but we say that at the instant of the big bang, conditions that do not exist under present day manifestations of physical laws caused an inflationary expansion of space or (b) "branes", moving through imperceptible dimensions stretch in opposing directions until they turn back on themselves, eventually colliding and causing new universes to come into being.
In either case, though the "cause" is not supernatural as the monotheistic form of the cosmological argument suggests, it is, nonetheless, "specialized" and yields to a form of naturalistic dualism (present-day natural conditions versus past natural conditions). Monotheistic innovations of the argument distinguish themselves by postulating that the dualism is supernatural and that whatever the "uncaused cause", it is the Divine.
Almost all physical cosmologists subscribe to a theory of universal origin that is effectively dualistic in nature and basically reflective of the Aristotlean reasoning underlying the original cosmological argument - they simply do so without making the jump to assume any spiritually supernatural qualities of a universe's dual source. On careful consideration of the big bang, for example, some sort of dualistic "cause", itself presumably not caused, or at least not caused by the "natural" forces manifest by current conditions in our universe, appears prima facie to be inescapable.
Understood as such, where the inherent dualism of the cosmological argument forces neither a naturalist (uncaused cause was not Divine) or supernaturalist (uncaused cause was Divine) conclusion, it is possible to formulate versions of the cosmological argument that lend to an atheistic conclusion.
Scientific positions
Modern quantum physics is sometimes interpreted to deny the validity of the first premise of the cosmological argument (that everything has a cause), showing that subatomic particles such as electrons, positrons, and photons, can come into existence, and perish, by virtue of spontaneous energy fluctuations in a vacuum.
Modern physical cosmology is neutral on truth of the second premise (that the universe "began" to exist and is not a result of infinite regression of causes), asserting that while spacetime as observed tends toward a singularity giving the universe an observed finite age, this does not discount the possibility that the stochastic processes that govern the early evolution of the universe actually cause the universe to be eternal. This era of the universe and its associated energy regime remains one of the unsolved problems in physics and as such does not lend itself either to the existence of a "first cause" or lack thereof.
Recently, newer, speculative theories have been offered by a number of theorists, but there is no scientific consensus as of yet on whether the universe necessarily began to exist or whether it is eternal (for example, "big bang," expansion of cosmos, then contraction, then "big crunch," then a "big bang" again, once every 30 or 40 billion years ad infinitum).
A commonly stated workaround for the cosmological argument is the nature of time. "A Big Bang Cosmological Argument For God's Nonexistence" FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY in April 1992 (Volume 9, No.
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