Essay on The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God

and to do it to the best of their abilities. This also leads on to the

1. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is based on the principle of cause and effect. What this basically means is that the universe was the effect of a cause, which was God. One of the oldest and most well known advocates of the Cosmological Argument was Thomas Aquinas who outlines his argument for the existence of God in his article entitled The Five Ways. The first way in his argument is deals with motion. Aquinas says that in order for something to be in motion something had to move it because it is impossible for something to move without the presence of some sort of outside force upon it. Therefore the world around us, nature, and our very existence could not have been put into motion without the influence of the

The argument also indulges in an infinite regression. It assumes that a transcendent god created the entire universe. However, it fails to account for what created the god. As stated in the lecture slides, a committee of lesser beings may have created the god, but that begs the question about who created the committee. One could object to this idea and believe that god has always existed, transcending time and reality itself. Once again, however, this logic is just as applicable to the universe. The universe is as capable of existing forever as a god is.

Parmenides of Elea once presented the expression ex nihilo nihil fit, which translates to nothing comes from nothing for one of his many theses. The Cosmological Argument, an argument of the posteriori category, meaning that it requires data based on past experiences, argues for the existence of God with this type of expression at its core. By attempting to prove how the universe must be influenced by an independent being that has godlike qualities, cosmological arguments suggest that it is rational to believe in an omnipotent being and its accountability of creating the universe.

As regards the cosmological argument itself, McCloskey states that "all we entitled to infer is the existence of a cause commensurate with the effect to be explained, the universe, and this does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause." (p.63) This is indeed true, there is no reason to necessarily infer a God person, however; the inference is of the nature that suggests (hence the term infer) a cause of such magnitude that it is practically God-like. Moreover, his words do not disprove the rational of a God. Entitlement not to call this cause "God" is neither entitlement to deny calling this cause or considering this cause to be "God."

The real meat of the concept of first cause is completely left out. The argument from contingency and the temporal argument are never mentioned. When making an argument for or against anything, both sides should be explained equally and fairly. This is a one sided argument. When McCloskey argues against the cosmological proof he uses the argument against first cause and a necessary being as not being an argument, because one cannot say something is necessary for existence just because of its mere existence. If McCloskey wanted to try and validate his argument at this point, it would have been more logical to try and explain away the necessary being cause with The Big Bang Theory, or evolution. Then a real debate could ensue with a counter argument of creation. There are many valid points to be made with C-14 carbon dating and the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. DNA remains the same in all creatures and if evolution was a fact, something would have evolved past what it has been in so many years. There are no new creations and if anything mankind on a general basis seems to be de-evolving in some areas. McCloskey’s argument is not sound. An argument is not a real argument or debate by just simply saying it cannot be. His argument is just so much spinning on the subject. It seems to be one of those if I say it is, so then it is. All the proofs for the existence of God

When you look at each of the arguments individually I can see how one might come to this conclusion. The cosmological argument only proves (if accepted) that there is a necessary being; however it does not prove that he is divine or perfect. The teleological argument by itself leaves us wondering why we also see chaos in the world around us. Not everything is orderly and perfect. You need to collectively look at each of the arguments prior to coming to a conclusion about the existence of God.

The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused.

As Dawkin’s central argument says, “Not everything but anything the begins to exist needs a cause.” So if everything has a cause, than God has to have a cause, right? False, the truth is whatever started to exist has a cause. You can not force an answer out if it doesn’t exist. It’s simply against nature, and that’s why atheists don’t want to believe.

Besides proving god’s existence, the cosmological argument’s fundamental function is to negate the possibility of an infinite regress, which means that things just keep going backwards in time forever without any definitive beginning. The cosmological argument consists of two precedents and one conclusion: (1) Everything that exists has a cause, (2) the universe exists (and therefore must have a cause), (3) ergo, god exists because he is what caused the universe. During Flanagan’s assessment of the argument, he indicates the logical fallacies that cause the argument’s downfall. First of all, the argument is, as Bertrand Russell put it, “flagrantly inconsistent” in nature because it, “…insists first that everything has a cause and then denies that everything that exists has a cause on the grounds that this would require believing in an infinite regress” which is exactly what the argument hopes to avoid. In other words, the fallacy is that the argument states that while everything in existence has a cause, god himself, who exists, is

First, from the Bibliology article, Lewis Sperry Chafer (1957) explained, “The cosmological argument depends upon the validity of three contributing truths: (a) that every effect must have a cause; (b) that the effect is dependent upon its cause for its existence; and (c) that nature cannot produce itself” (p. 10). Scientist argue

Overall, the cosmological argument, while making a good attempt to prove the existence of God is largely unsuccessful chiefly because it makes huge empirical assumptions. Firstly, it assumes that the world does, in fact, exist. And secondly, we cannot prove that a world exists on the basis of a posteriori premises, therefore cannot infer from it that it has a cause, and

A cosmological argument focuses on the notion of causation and that everything in the universe including us must have an initial cause, for nothing comes from nothing. Thomas

I believe that that the Cosmological argument gives good reason to believe in the existence of God. The Cosmological argument focuses on everything having a cause except one thing that started it all, this starter is known as the “Prime Mover”. The Prime Mover is the one that starts everything without anything having a previous effect on it. With that people have assumed that the logical answer to who the prime mover is, is God. This to me seems the most logical of arguments because although there is the idea of eternity and an eternal cycle there has to be a starting point. I do not believe the argument is successful.

The first cause argument is based on cause and effect, it attests that the universe must have a cause, and that this cause is God. The first cause argument is also known as the cosmological argument. The universe could not have come into being without something that started it. Therefore, this argument does show that God exists. This essay will analyse the first cause argument, provide proof of why God is shown that he exists by the first cause argument and, explore the objections and counter objections that people have when it comes to this argument.