Success of Aquinas’s Cosmological Argument Thomas Aquinas’s cosmological argument is a posteriori argument that Aquinas uses to prove the existence of God. Aquinas argues that, “Nothing can move itself, so whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this causal loop cannot go on to infinity, so if every object in motion had a mover, there must be a first mover which is the unmoved mover, called God.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3). I do agree with Aquinas’s cosmological argument in proving the existence of God with several reasons. According to the cosmological argument, first of all, Aquinas claims that, “it is impossible that a thing should be both mover and moved, namely it should not move itself.” (Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3) This part of the argument is obviously correct.
Evaluate Aquinas’s concept of a prime mover? Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is honoured as a saint by the Christian church. He was a medieval religious writer who wrote the “Summa Theologica” in which he described 5 ways to prove the existence of a god or a prime mover, which means something has originally caused us all to exist. These five ways are; 1. The unmoved mover 2.
One of Aquinas’ ways of proving God’s existence; ‘the uncaused causer’, states that every cause in the universe has an effect, the chain of cause and effect must have a terminus to avoid infinite regress. Aquinas rejects infinite regress because it denotes that there cannot be an answer to the question “what is the explanation?” Therefore there must be a necessary being that started the chain, this for Aquinas is God but this is not a satisfactory answer for everyone. Bertrand Russell, somewhat like Aristotle, states that the universe is a “brute fact”, although unlike Aristotle did not see that there needed to be a Prime Mover or Uncaused Cause. Russell made another criticism when he suggested that one cannot go from saying that every event has a cause thus the whole universe has a cause, it is 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 totality (whole, everything) has a cause.
Infalsafiable it may be I do not find it persuasive due one singular point of contention. I cannot find tenable any argument that is contingent on the existence of God or any divine spirit. Berkeley’s answer to his own admission of the likelihood of the continued existence of ideas over time is contingent on the existence of God or some sort of Divine perceiver. Berkeley’s theory presents God that is at all times perceiving. If, for lack of better terminology, God were to “turn his head” all that is not being perceived would cease to exist.
I disagree that Hume's arguments to causation are successful to a full extent due to the fact that Hume's challenges criticise causation from the point of view that empirical evidence is our only source of knowledge, suggesting we cannot know whether the effect due to cause can be discovered because "the effect is different from the cause, and so can never be discovered." Yet why should we apply the limitations of our ability to state that God does not exist? To further evaluate, Hume states we are bound by empirical data and so we will only be able to 'induce' that the regress of cause and effect exists and so this regress falls foul to Hume's Fork. The criticism of Hume's challenge is formulated in the sense that because philosophically and empirically "we will never know the true origins of the universe" it does not mean that "the universe is the "brute fact" as stated by B. Russell. A second challenge of Hume is that we are able to possibly imagine that something can cause itself into existence.
Inclination essentially relinquishes scholarly objectivity. McCloskey contended that the cosmological argument was an argument from the presence of the world, as people know it. He expressed that having faith in an uncaused first cause for the universe is an issue in light of the fact that nothing about our universe powers us to that conclusion. The reason impact defense comprehends a connection between things that are in existence and will come
This further reinforces that we have no choice or influence on our lives and the events that happen, so therefore God will know the ethical decisions we will make as he has already predestined them in our lives. Hard determinism is the teaching that denies humanity has free will and believes that all actions have a prior cause. It removes moral responsibility for our actions. Hard determinists would therefore agree with the statement above, and will believe that God does infact know what ethical decisions we will make as he has already perceived it. This idea links to predestination in the fact that it believes everything in the universe- even human action- has a cause which precedes it.
The second of Aquinas' proofs is based of cause and effect. Nothing can be the cause of itself and it would have had to exist before it caused itself, which is logically impossible. There can not be effect without cause, which proves that the
The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God. If morality is independent of God and God’s commands only exist because the moralities of actions are predetermined, then God is no longer sovereign. If morals are independent of God’s commands then God is not sovereign over morality. This goes against the definition of a theistic God which defines God as the creator and ruler over everything. It also puts limits on God’s power.
According to Aquinas, the chain of movement cannot go back to infinity. So there must have been a first, unmoved mover who began the movement of everything in the universe. Aquinas argued that this was God. Aquinas said that objects only changed because of some external force had brought about the change. He used the idea of objects having the potential to become actual but said that this could