500 Words on the Cosmological Argument

Guys!! I can scarcely believe my stupidity! Having taken about two and a half of your precious earthly minutes to explain the ontological argument I was somehow deaf to your choruses of ‘yes Nick, but what about the cosmological argument?’ So here, to sate your lust, are 500 words on why God is the cause of everything.

The argument is very simple really and dates back to Hellenistic times although it is most famously associated with St Thomas Aquinas.

1) Everything which exists (contingent beings) could, under different circumstances, not exist.

2) It follows, therefore, that there is a reason that they exist as opposed their not existing; they have a cause.

3) This cause must be something other than itself. This is obvious if you think about it: We are talking about bringing things into being. A thing which at one moment exists must have not existed prior to that moment. It cannot have bought itself into existence as to do so it would have had to have existed prior to its existence. You don’t have to be a genius to realise that that makes no sense whatsoever.

4) Other contingent beings alone are not good enough to account for the cause of contingent beings. This is the case because it would mean that there were always objects to serve as the cause of other objects. This would just create an infinite regression and would never explain why the universe exists as opposed to not existing (see premises 1&2)

5) Therefore a non-contingent being must be involved in the cause of contingent beings.

6) A non-contingent being, or a being without matter, is just a posh way of saying God. Consequently God Exists.

Now as it stands this argument looks better than the ontological one, which just goes round and round in circles in a space just left of reality. The most obvious reply to this is that we observe causality by observing things which have causes. As we don’t see the causes of the universe so we can claim that the universe just is. Unfortunately the answer to this is that we see causality in everything else so why should we not extrapolate to the universe, just because we cannot observe its cause doesn’t mean its not there. Put another way: All dogs drink water, just because my dog isn’t drinking water at the moment doesn’t mean that the statement is incorrect. Bertrand Russell does have an answer to this but it is somewhat obscure, so I shall omit it here.

Far more convincing to me is the fact that the conclusions of the argument are contradictory. God is a metaphysical necessity and therefore must exist. Yet this takes us back to premise 1. If God exists then it is possible that under altered circumstances could not exist. Therefore there must be a cause for God existing as opposed to not existing, so God is a contingent being and therefore cannot be a first cause.

Anyway folks that’s me out of words.