Cosmological argument

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The cosmological argument is a metaphysical argument for the existence of God, or a first mover of the cosmos. It is traditionally known as an "argument from universal causation," an "argument from first cause," and also as an "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. This cause is known in Latin as "causa sui."

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[edit] Origins of the argument

Plato and Aristotle, depicted here in The School of Athens, both developed arguments from a first cause.
Plato and Aristotle, depicted here in The School of Athens, both developed arguments from a first cause.

Plato and Aristotle both posited first cause arguments, though each had certain notable caveats. Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) posited a basic cosmological argument in The Laws (Book X). He argued that motion in the world and in the cosmos was "imparted motion" that would have required some kind of "self-originated motion" to set it in motion and to maintain the motion.[1] Plato also posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work Timaeus. For Plato, the demiurge lacked the supernatural ability to create ex nihilo or out of nothing. The demiurge was only able to organize the "anake." The anake was the only other co-existent element or presence in Plato's cosmogony.

Aristotle (c. 384–322 BCE) also put forth the idea of a first cause, often referred to as the "Prime Mover" or "Unmoved Mover" (the πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον or primus motor) in his work Metaphysics. For Aristotle too, as for Plato, the Ibn Sina also created a variation of this argument.

Thomas Aquinas (c. 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 that was itself uncaused, which he asserted was God.

Many other philosophers and theologians have posited first-cause arguments both before and since Aquinas. The versions sampled in the following sections are representative of the most common derivations of the argument.

[edit] The argument

Framed as an informal proof, the first cause argument can be stated as follows:

  1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
  2. Nothing finite and dependent (contingent) can cause itself.
  3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
  4. Therefore, there must be a first cause; or, there must be something that is not an effect.

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):

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

[edit] A more detailed discussion of the argument

Modern thinkers sometimes cite evidence for the Big Bang to support the claim that the universe began to exist a finite time ago.
Modern thinkers sometimes cite evidence for the Big Bang to support the claim that the universe began to exist a finite time ago.

A basic explanation might go something like this: Consider some event in the universe. No matter which event you choose, it will be the result of some cause, or more likely a very complex set of causes. 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. And either this chain of events has a beginning, or it does not.

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, singularity or 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. The Big Bang Theory, however, does not address the issue of the origin of the primordial singularity, so it does not address the issue of a 'first cause' in an absolute sense.

Plato's demiurge and Aristotle's Prime Mover each referred to a being who, they speculated, set in motion an already existing "stuff" of the cosmos. A millennium and a half later, Aquinas went on to argue that there is an Uncaused Cause, which is just another name for God. 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 that he rejected on other grounds), there is still the question of cause, or even of "first cause."

Thomas Aquinas developed a cosmological argument from contingency.
Thomas Aquinas developed a cosmological argument from contingency.

[edit] The argument from contingency

In the scholastic era, it was unknown whether the universe had a beginning or whether it had always existed. To account for both possibilities, Aquinas formulated the "argument from contingency". Aquinas follows Aristotle in claiming that there must be something that explains why the universe exists. Since the universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably not exist — that is to say, since it is contingent — its existence must have a cause. And that cause cannot simply be another contingent thing, it must be something that exists by necessity, that is, it must be something that must exist in order for anything else to exist.[2] In other words, even if the universe has always existed, it still owes that existence to Aristotle's Uncaused Cause,[3] though Aquinas used the words "... and this we understand to be God".[4]

Aquinas' argument from contingency is distinct from a first-cause argument (because it assumes the possibility of a universe that had no beginning in time), but is instead a form of argument from "universal causation". He observed that in nature there are things whose existence is contingent, that is, possible for it to either be or not to be. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which such things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If that is so, there would exist nothing that could bring anything into existence. 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 German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz made a somewhat similar argument with his Principle of sufficient reason in 1714. He wrote: "There can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition, without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although we cannot know these reasons in most cases." He formulated the cosmological argument succinctly: "Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason ... is found in a substance which ... is a necessary Being bearing the reason for its existence within itself."[5]

Aristotelian philosopher Mortimer J. Adler devised a refined argument from contingency in his book “How to Think About God”:

  1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and action of an efficient cause implies the existence and action of that cause.
  2. The cosmos as a whole exists.
  3. The existence of the cosmos as a whole is radically contingent (meaning that it needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence to preserve it in being, and prevent it from being annihilated, or reduced to nothing).
  4. If the cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence, then that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused, in other words, the Supreme Being, or God.

His premise for confirming all of these points was this:

The universe as we know it today is not the only universe that can ever exist in time. We can infer it from the fact that the arrangement and disarray, the order and disorder, of the present cosmos might have been otherwise. That it might have been different from what it is. That which cannot be otherwise also cannot not exist; and conversely, what necessarily exists can not be otherwise than it is. Therefore, a cosmos which can be otherwise is one that also cannot be; and conversely, a cosmos that is capable of not existing at all is one that can be otherwise than it now is. Applying this insight to the fact that the existing cosmos is merely one of a plurality of possible universes, we come to the conclusion that the cosmos, radically contingent in existence, would not exist at all were its existence not caused. A merely possible cosmos cannot be an uncaused cosmos. A cosmos that is radically contingent in existence, and needs a cause of that existence, needs a supernatural cause, one that exists and acts to exnihilate this merely possible cosmos, thus preventing the realization of what is always possible for merely a possible cosmos, namely, its absolute non-existence or reduction to nothingness.

Adler concludes that there exists a necessary being to preserve the cosmos in existence. God must be there to sustain the universe even if the universe is eternal. Beginning by rejecting belief in a creating God, Adler finds evidence of a sustaining God. Thus, the existence of a sustaining God becomes grounds for asserting the creating activity also. The idea of a created universe with a beginning and (most likely) an end now becomes more plausible than the idea of an eternal universe. Adler believed that "to affirm that the world or cosmos had an absolute beginning, that it was exnihilated at an initial instant, would be tantamount to affirming the existence of God, the world's exnihilator."[6]

[edit] "In esse" and "in fieri"

The difference between the arguments from causation in fieri and in esse is a fairly important one. In fieri is generally translated as "becoming," while in esse is generally translated as "in existence." In fieri, the process of becoming, is similar to building a house. Once it is built, the builder walks away and it stands of its own accord. (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. George Hayward Joyce, SJ, explains that "...where the light of the candle is dependent on the candle's continued existence, not only does a candle produce light in a room in the first instance, but its continued presence is necessary if the illumination is to continue. If it is removed, the light ceases. Again, a liquid receives its shape from the vessel in which it is contained; but were the pressure of the containing sides withdrawn, it would not retain its form for an instant." 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.[7]

Thus, Aristotle's argument is in fieri, while Aquinas' argument is both in fieri and in esse (plus an additional argument from contingency). The distinction is an excellent example of the difference between a deistic view (Aristotle) and a theistic view (Aquinas). 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.

[edit] Counterarguments and objections

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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 [1]). It simply names the First Cause as "God" without proving that it has all the characteristics that that name usually implies. 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. 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; in other words, it does not prove a provident God. 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. For example, in physics, "cause" is a temporal concept that requires time; things that exist outside of time do not have to be caused. Since time is merely a property of the universe, the laws of time (i.e. cause) are not applicable to the universe considered as a whole. 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); this is not true of time itself. This class of counterargument assumes that causality is necessarily temporal, which itself is a point of dispute.

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. If one believes that time is infinite and that causality must be temporal, then there would be no need for a "first cause" of any sort. However, it is not yet certain whether physics supports or disproves an eternal universe — some scientific models continue to suggest a eternal, cyclical, or oscillatory universe rather than a single creation event. The question of the nature of time has not been resolved by modern physics, being treated differently by quantum mechanics and relativity, thus its implications for how the visible universe originated must remain an open issue.

Gottfried Leibniz argued that "there [is] something rather than nothing" because there is a being that is necessary for all else to exist.
Gottfried Leibniz argued that "there [is] something rather than nothing" because there is a being that is necessary for all else to exist.

Gottfried Leibniz stated the problem in his conclusion, although his terminology included some assumptions. If his principle of sufficient reason is indeed universally applicable, then the First Thing must either (1) be its own cause or (2) have a non-causal explanation. The non-causal explanation would either (a) make the First Thing's existence be in some way self-explanatory or (b) make it follow in an explanatory way from self-explanatory truths, such as the truths of logic.

All three options have had defenders. Thus, option (1), the causa sui option, is defended by Descartes. 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, although we may not have discovered it yet. It follows from the principle of sufficient reason that one of the three options holds, but a defender of the Principle does not need to give an independent proof of any one of these options. It is, after all, the conclusion of the argument that one of these holds. In fact, this conclusion might be the starting point for responding to the problem of identifying the First Thing with God — that is how it is in Aquinas, for instance. 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. We would then know that there is a sound ontological argument, even if we did not know what it is.

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. One such restriction would be to restrict the Principle only to require the explanation of contingent facts. Another is to restrict the Principle only to require the explanation of explainable facts. These restrictions would require arguments, respectively, that the universe is contingent or that the universe's existence is explicable.

If the principle of sufficient reason does not hold, then the "selection" among potential alternatives must be random or a "brute fact". Defenders of the Principle will insist that neither option really makes sense.

[edit] Criticisms of counterarguments

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To evaluate arguments/objections, it is necessary to consider the following:

1. 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.

2. 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.

That includes time. Time is understood as "natural" in substance, while the uncaused cause is not natural and therefore not operable in time. 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 simulacrum

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 the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, the Christian philosopher Aquinas, and the Islamic philosopher 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 that, therefore, does not require a cause, but that itself may be the source upon which our natural, caused universe, is dependent, or contingent.

Laying aside that Aristotle believed the universe to be infinite in nature, stated in its original formulation as such, this is not saying a very different thing from modern, naturalistic cosmology. When we look for the origin of the universe we effectively postulate "substances", forces or circumstances that are "pre-natural". 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. This is not special pleading as some have said, as special pleading applies to the same claiming to be different, not to the different, in fact, being different. 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.[8]

[edit] Scientific positions

The argument for a Prime Mover is based on the scientific foundation of Newtonian physics and its earlier predecessors — the idea that a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside source. However, while Newton's ideas survive in physics since they conveniently and easily describe the movement of objects at the human (that is, not cosmic or atomic) level, they no longer represent the most accurate and truthful representations of the physical universe. Some scientists feel that the development of the laws of thermodynamics in the 19th century and quantum physics in the 20th century have weakened a purely scientific expression of the cosmological argument.[9]

Modern physics has many examples of bodies being moved without any moving body, seriously undermining the first premise of the Prime Mover argument, that every object in motion must be moved by another object in motion. Physicist Michio Kaku directly addresses the cosmological argument in his book Hyperspace, saying it is easily dismissed by the laws of conservation of mass and energy and the laws governing molecular physics. He quotes one of many examples — "gas molecules may bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving." According to Kaku, these particles could move forever, without beginning or end. So, there is no need for a First Mover to explain the origins of motion.[10] It does not provide an explanation for the reason those molecules exist in the first place however. Another example of movement without a moving body is the motion generated by the zero-point energy, although this is not generated by nothing but by the irreducible potential for motion inherent in all areas of space due to the uncertainty principle and thus has a cause.

The argument from first cause however does not necessarily involve any Prime Mover, only a first cause, which may or may not be a motion. The casual principle, that all contingent things have causes, is the foundation of the first cause argument. Some feel that the uncertainty principle weakens the casual principle, although whether the uncertainty principle involves a fundamental break with the casual principle or whether it is only epistemological and not ontological, that is whether it tells us about limits of our knowledge or actually shows that events are determined by probabilities and not causes is an unresolved issue.[11]

Some argue a challenge to the cosmological argument is the nature of time. The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into being, the start of both space and time. Then, the question "What was there before the universe?" makes no sense; the concept of "before" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time, and thus the concepts of cause and effects so necessary to the cosmological argument no longer apply. This has been put forward by Stephen Hawking, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole, although this is a proposed hypothesis by Hawking and not a scientific fact.[12] However many cosmologists and physicists do attempt to investigate what could have occurred before and caused the Big Bang, using such scenarios as the collision of branes to give a cause of the Big Bang, although such hypotheses are highly speculative.

[edit] Islamic view

Main article: Kalam cosmological argument

The Islamic variant of the cosmological argument was originally developed by Averroes. Al-Ghazali refutes the idea of an eternal world and then uses that as a starting point for his first proof for God.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ "Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God", in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967), Vol. 2, p232 ff.
  2. ^ Summa Theologiae, I : 2,3
  3. ^ Aquinas was an intense student of Aristotle's works, a significant number of which had only recently been translated into Latin for the first time (by Ibn-Rushd, also known as Averroes).
  4. ^ Summa Theologiae, I : 2,3
  5. ^ Monadologie (1714). Nicholas Rescher, trans., 1991. The Monadology: An Edition for Students. Uni. of Pittsburg Press. Jonathan Bennett's translation. Latta's translation.
  6. ^ http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1995/PSCF3-95Cramer.html
  7. ^ Joyce, George Hayward (1922) Principles of Natural Theology. NY: Longmans Green.
  8. ^ Smith, Quentin (April 1992). "A Big Bang Cosmological Argument For God's Nonexistence". Faith and Philosophy 9 (2): 217-237. Retrieved on 2007-01-02. 
  9. ^ * Michio Kaku. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-286189-1
  10. ^ * Michio Kaku. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-286189-1
  11. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  12. ^ Transcript of Stephan Hawking's lecture "The Origin Of The Universe" in the Hebrew University In Jerusalem, December 14th, 2006

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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