Examine the view that the cosmological argument provides an explanation for the world and is a trustworthy basis for belief in God? (21) The cosmological argument is an à posterioriargument based ultimately on the existence of the cosmos, and the indication it leads to a supreme being generally identified as God. The existence of the universe, the argument claims needs an explanation or a cause, the only appropriate cause for this could be God, this argument is based on experience rather than theoretical logic. Aristotle claims ‘if there is movement and change then there must be an unmoved mover’ although there is one huge problem with this, why does God have no cause? Most scientists argue that "God" is not a scientifically proven cause, whereas Aristotle would argue that God is ‘a remote and unchanging being who allows his world to be changeable so that it can gradually move towards the perfection which he already enjoys.’ A further fault with this would be the principle that the universe can’t explain its own existence, Why is it here at all?
This merely states that if we look around at the universe we will see things that may or may not have existed if there was not a God or other necessary being. A necessary being is a being that cannot fail to exist (pg. 69). McCloskey goes on to claim that the cosmological argument “ does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect , uncaused
All humans have a set of basic beliefs about Gods existence, which determine our views about the existence of miracles. Theists, also known as realists, believe that God literally exists as a real divine being, and this includes the characteristics, which are intrinsic to Gods existence of omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipotence. A traditional view of theism is also called realism, as they believe God to be a real entity and not just a projection of human imagination. Extreme liberal supporters who believe that God is simply a projected of human imagination are called anti-realists. They say that God does not exist in an objective and real sense; they do not think he is a real human entity existing in the world.
For Anselm, God cannot not exist. Descartes supported Anselm in his book ‘meditations’ and developed Anselm’s argument particularly in terms of necessary being. He based his argument for God’s existence on the idea that God is a ‘supremely perfect being’. Descartes believed that we can conclude that God exists, because existence is a predicate of a perfect being; therefore God must exist to avoid being self contradictory.
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.
Anaximander, who was a student of Thales, argued that the four elements, water, air, earth, and fire can change into one another and therefore none of those elements could be the principle element, the Arche. Anaximander’s Arche was something he called Aperion. Aperion, he claimed, was an infinite, boundless substance that all of the elements were derived from and that things can into being by necessity. Anaximander was also very interested in astronomy. From his observations, Anaximander concluded that the sun was nothing more than a disk with hot gas escaping out of it, and that the stars were holes in the sky where light shined through.
Science Physics Core science questions and answers- Topic 1- The solar system- 1. What is a geocentric model? It is a model with the earth at the centre. 2. Describe two differences between ptolemy’s and Copernicus’s models- What is at the centre of the model and the way in which the planets followed smaller circles in their orbits in ptolemy’s model.
An a priori argument is an argument in which all the premises are a priori propositions. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God was supposed to be an a priori argument. Argument from Design – an a posteriori argument that God exists, advanced by Aquinas and Palely, criticized by Hume. The argument claims that some feature of the world (like the simplicity of its laws or the fact that organisms are intricate and well-adapted) should be explained by postulating the existence of an intelligent designer, namely God. Argument from Evil – an argument that claims that the existence of evil shows either that there is no God, or that God can’t be all-powerful, all knowing, and all good.
Cosmological Argument The cosmological argument is less a particular argument than an argument type. It uses a general pattern of argumentation (logos) that makes an inference from certain alleged facts about the world (cosmos) to the existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God. Among these initial facts are that certain beings or events in the world are causally dependent or contingent, that the universe (as the totality of contingent things) is contingent in that it could have been other than it is, that the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact possibly has an explanation, or that the universe came into being. From these facts philosophers infer deductively, inductively, or abductively by inference to the best
In the absence of a force both the amount and direction of momentum will not change. When two objects with a particular angular moment relative to a common fixed point interact they affect each others angular momentum and the total angular momentum is conserved. When you consider an orbit, the angular momentum is distributed between the spin of the planet itself and the angular momentum of its orbit, but, if a planet is found to spin more slowly than expected, astronomers suspect that the planet has a satellite, since the total angular momentum is shared between the planet and its satellite for the sake of conservation. Some scientists believe that large impacts in the early history of the Solar System may have affected the rotation of some planets. One may have caused Venus to rotate in retrograde and another could account for the 23 degree axial tilt of the Earth.