The cosmological
argument
for the existence of God
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2009-01-23

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Fast facts
• Cosmology is from the Greek word
cosmos, meaning universe or world
• The cosmological argument is an a
posteriori argument for the existence of
G/d
• Critics include David Hume, John Stuart
Mill and Bertrand Russell
• Advocates include Thomas Aquinas,
Maimonides and Frederick Copleston

Welcome
• Cosmology has its roots in Ancient Greek
Aristotelian philosophy
• Most famous version comes from Thomas
Aquinas
• Cosmology aims to prove G/d’s existence
by using the world around us
• This is a posteriori, not like the
ontological argument which aims to prove
G/d’s existence by moving from a
definition of G/d to the existence of G/d

Who was Thomas Aquinas?
• Thomas Aquinas is one of
the Catholic Church’s
most influential
theologians
• Much of his theology is
still in use in Catholicism
• He was a Dominican friar,
living in the 13th century
• Magnum opus: Summa
theologica

Quinque viae (Five ways)
1 Prima via Motus Argument from motion
2 Secundum via Causa Argument from cause
Argument from contingency
3 Tertia via
and necessity
4 Axiology Argument from perfection
5 Teleology Argument from design

Quinque viae (Five ways)
1 Prima via Motus Argument from motion
2 Secundum via Causa Argument from cause
Argument from contingency
3 Tertia via
and necessity
Cosmology covers the first three of Aquinas’ five ways
4 Axiology Argument from perfection
5 Teleology Argument from design

The first and second ways
• Aquinas organised his arguments for the
existence of God into the five ways;
quinque viae in Latin
• We’ll tackle the first two ways first...

Prima via (First way)
P1 Everything is in motion.
In order for movement, something’s potentiality (potentia) must
P2 be actualised (actus) by something already in a state of
actuality.
Nothing can be simultaneously in a state of potentiality and
P3 actuality, so nothing can move itself.
Following from P3, everything must be caused to move by
P4 something else. There cannot be an infinite chain of movers.
Without a first mover, there would be no subsequent movers.
C Reductio ad absurdum: We know there are subsequent movers,
and thus there must be a source of all change.

Secundum via (Second way)
Everything that occurs has an efficient cause, and that cause
P1 also has a cause.
Nothing, then, can cause itself since a cause always exists
P2 before its effects.
There cannot be an infinite regress of causes because if there
P3 was no first cause there would be no subsequent causes.
P4 Reductio ad absurdum: Must be causes as we have effects.
Therefore, there must exist a first cause that is itself uncaused.
C Ex hoc dicemus Deus. (This is what we call G/d.)

Secundum via (Second way)
Everything that occurs has an efficient cause, and that cause
P1 also has a cause.
Nothing, then, can cause itself since a cause always exists
P2 before reductio ad absurdum argument
A its effects.
takes a claim to be true and then
reduces it to absurdity in order to
There cannot be an infinite regress of causes because if there
demonstrate that it cannot be true
P3 was no first cause there would be no subsequent causes.
P4 Reductio ad absurdum: Must be causes as we have effects.
Therefore, there must exist a first cause that is itself uncaused.
C Ex hoc dicemus Deus. (This is what we call G/d.)

Aquinas’ Aristotle affection
• Aristotle believed that there
was an unmoved mover that
caused all movement in the
world with the intention of
moving to perfection
• Aquinas was heavily
influenced by Aristotle, and
his definition of G/d is a lot
like a rebranded unmoved
mover.

Actus and potentia (Act and potential)
• Understanding Aquinas’ idea of act and
potential, inherited partly from Aristotle, is
crucial in understanding the first and
second ways
• Act and potential can be expressed
diagrammatically, similar to process
boxes used in key stage two maths
lessons

Actus and potentia continued...
• ‘Input’
Potentia • Bree is potentially ‘hot stuff’
• ‘Process’
• She needs to be moved to my bed a source of
heat to become actually ‘hot stuff’
Motus
• ‘Output’
• Bree is ‘hot stuff’
Actus

Bree’s potentiality is
actualised through
motion

What’s the difference?
• Act and potential are essentially opposing
states...
Block of wood Burning wood

What’s the difference?
• Wood can burn, but can’t possess the
potential to burn and be burning at the
same time.
• It’s a logical impossibility.
• When the wood is burning (has been
moved to burn), it is a realisation (or an
actualisation) of the wood’s potential to
burn.

Aristotle’s legacy once again
• Yet more evidence of Aquinas pilfering
ideas from Aristotle! The efficient cause is
the agent which brings something about.
Example
My college has commissioned a statue of me to be
built at the entrance, because I’m so great. In this
case, the person chiselling away at the marble, and
the act of chiselling itself, is the efficient cause
because it causes the statue. Without the chiselling,
there’d be no statue.

The efficient cause is in actus
• So, from that we can infer that the efficient
cause is in a state of actuality (in actus) as
it needs to be so in order to cause.
• For Aquinas, G/d becomes the efficient
cause.

WWW: IR?
• What’s wrong with infinite regression,
rejected by Aquinas in his secundum via?
• According to Aquinas, we need a being
that is in actus to cause.
• But, in order to make sense of our
existence he says we need something that
is actus purus (pure act) – only actuality
which has never been potentiality.

This creates problems
• By rejecting infinite regression, Aquinas’
argument is flawed...
 His conclusions thus far state that there
is a first cause/mover, but the premises
state everything must have a cause.
 Who’s to say that the first cause/mover
that Aquinas talks of still exists today?
My father’s granddad and grandma are
dead, but my father’s parents and my
father are still here.

David Hume
• Scottish philosopher.
• 18th century, during
the enlightenment.
• Empiricist
(knowledge via
senses) and deist
(belief in a creator
G/d, that’s no longer
involved with us).
• Hume asked...

Must every event have a cause?
• For Hume, it’s not an analytic truth
• The only way we can know that every
event has a cause is if we verify it using
our experience
• We have no experience of the beginning
of the universe, so this can’t happen
• Moreover, the beginning of the universe
is hardly comparable to other causes...

Space and time are part of the universe
Universe created without
Everything in our world is
time, since time is part of
created in time
the universe
NOT COMPARABLE

Tag: Copleston
• Where Aquinas leaves off, Copleston picks
up... they make a good team!
• He clarifies Aquinas’ argument...
• Aquinas isn’t talking about a horizontal
series of causes:
Pen to
G/d [...] Oxygen Me Hand
paper

Copleston continued
• But instead of a vertical hierarchy of
causes...

Copleston continued
• What’s the difference?
• Any of the causes in the linear sequence
(the horizontal causes) may be removed
and may still work independently of
each other.
• In the hierarchy, each cause depends on
the cause above.
• However, there are different types of
cause...

Cause in fieri and in esse
in fieri in esse
• Children can exist • Activity of the pen cannot
separately of their exist separately of the
parents. hand writing.
• But, their parents are • The hand is required for
required for their cause. both the cause and to
sustain the cause.

G/d is cause in esse:
The ultimate ontological
being.

Turn tape over
END OF SIDE ONE

Contingency and necessity
• Something that is necessary relies on
itself alone for existence.
• Something that is contingent requires
other factors for its existence.
Example
Humans are contingent because we rely on oxygen
to keep us alive; take away oxygen and we die.
G/d, on the other hand, is necessary because G/d
doesn’t need oxygen to survive, G/d has his (its)
own reason for existence.

Copleston’s argument in premises
Everything in the universe is contingent and might not have
P1 been.
The universe, then, is the totality of all contingent things and is
P2 itself contingent.
Following that, the necessary cause of the universe must be
P3 outside of it.
Therefore, there exists a necessary being that sustains all
C contingent beings.
Copleston’s argument conforms to Aquinas’
third way...

Tertia via: contingency and necessity
Prima pars (first part)
P1 All things existing in this world are contingent.
If all things are contingent, then at some point there was
P2 nothing.
If at one point there was nothing, then nothing exists now.
P3 Reductio ad absurdum: this is false, since things do exist now.
P4 Needs to be some being which is the cause of all contingency.

Tertia via: contingency and necessity
Secundum pars (Second part)
All necessary beings have their cause of necessity either inside
P5 or outside of themselves.
Imagine each necessary being has its cause of necessity
P6 outside of itself.
If P6, were true, there would be no ultimate cause of reality.
P7 Reductio ad absurdum: following the second way (secundum
via), this is false.
There must exist a de re necessary being, which causes and
C sustains all other necessary and contingent beings. Ex hoc
dicemus Deus. (This is what we call G/d.)

Note the two parts to this proof
• Aquinas was writing in the 13th – 14th
centuries, where people believed in the
existence of Angels
• The Nine Orders of Angels are necessary,
so had he stopped after the first part, it
would have been reasonable to accept
that an angel could have created the
universe

De re and de dicto beings
[Obviously there is no visual
representation for G/d]
de re de dicto
• Always been present in • Called into reality (by
reality G/d)
• G/d • Nine Orders of Angels

Locked together
• Aquinas’ third way conveniently locks his
arguments so far into place, binding them
to form a proof...
 Nothing can move/cause G/d.
 Nothing can move/cause G/d’s
non-existence.
 Nothing that moves/causes can be
accounted for without G/d.

Final thoughts
• Three down, two more to go. Here we’ve
covered Aquinas’ first three ways and a
few criticisms from David Hume.
• We don’t cover Aquinas’ fourth way, the
argument from perfection
• The fifth way is Teleology, the argument
from design, which we’ll discuss in our
next instalment.