The Cosmological Argument | A Five Minute Summary

Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or Philosophy student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know.

In our last post, we looked at the teleological argument for the existence of God. In this post, discover the cosmological argument for God's existence!

Cosmological arguments rely on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which suggests that everything must have a reason or cause. Like ontological arguments, they claim that God has necessary (rather than contingent) existence; unlike ontological arguments, they tend to be (but are not always) a posteriori.

One thing to remember about the cosmological argument is that the “domino-flicking” first cause implied by the argument is does not prove the existence of the Abrahamic God who is still present in the universe.

Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument

Thirteenth century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas was inspired by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who argued in the Metaphysics that there must be an unmoved mover who is the ultimate cause of the universe. Aquinas’ cosmological argument posits God as the first cause, or Prime Mover.

Aquinas’s first three arguments of his “Five Ways” to prove the existence of God are cosmological, beginning with a general truth about natural phenomena and proceeding to the existence of God. In the first two, he uses a reductio ad absurdum to avoid an infinite regress.

The first “way” is the argument from motion, building on Aristotle’s claim that everything that moves is moved by something else. The series of movers must have begun with a first mover or prime mover, had not itself been moved by another agent.

The second “way” is the argument from causation, building on Aristotle’s efficient cause (the entity responsible for a change in something, for instance a sculptor carving a statue). Because every efficient cause must itself have an efficient cause, there must be an immutable first cause to avoid infinite regress.

The third way is the argument from contingency, which distinguishes between possible beings (capable of existing and not existing) and necessary beings. If every being were possible, there would be nothing in existence now, because no being can come into existence except through a being that already exists. Therefore, there must be at least one necessary being. As there cannot be an infinite chain of necessary beings whose necessity is caused by another necessary being, there must be a being that is necessary in itself.

J. L. Mackie objects that Aquinas mistakenly thinks that an infinite chain of causes are like infinite hooks hanging from a wall; if you take away the wall, the hooks fall. However, that is not how an infinite regress works (the hooks hang from each other). Moreover, Is it possible that a cause can cause itself? If there is an exception to the rule that everything must have a cause, why can the universe not be the exception?

William Lane Craig uses Einstein’s theory of relativity, Hubble’s discovery of cosmological redshift and the resulting Big Bang theory to argue that the universe had a begining, which he thinks supports the cosmological argument.

However, there are also challenges coming from modern science. Aquinas seems to be refuted by a Darwinian explanation, which gives us a cause for human life. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics to question the idea that everything with a beginning has a cause.

Descartes’ Trademark Argument

René Descartes, in Book III of his Meditations, also produced a cosmological argument in the form of the “trademark argument.” The fact that we have a “clear and distinct idea” of God in our minds must have been caused by something in reality, just as a manufacturer leaves a trademark on his products.

He also develops a cosmological argument along the lines that he cannot be his own cause; his own idea of a perfect being cannot be caused by himself: it must be caused by a perfect being. He also cannot bring about his continued existence from one moment to the next.

However, Descartes uses the concept of God to validate his clear and distinct ideas, then uses the concept of clear and distinct ideas to prove the existence of God, a critique known as the Cartesian Circle.

The Russell-Copleston Debate

In the twentieth century, there was a famous radio debate between philosopher Bertrand Russell and Jesuit Priest Frederick Copleston about the existence of God. Copleston used Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason to suggest that God is the reason for the universe.

Russell (following Hume) pointed out that what is true of the parts may not be true of the whole. This is known as the fallacy of composition. Just because every member of a football team has a mother, this does not mean that the football team itself has a mother. Likewise, just because everything in the universe has a cause, this does not mean that the universe itself has a cause.

Many of the objections to the cosmological argument build on the work of Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume argued that, to avoid an infinite regress, we should look for natural, rather than supernatural causes. He argues that the cosmological argument misuses the word “necessary” and on this Russell agrees: he says that that only propositions, not beings, can be “necessary.” Hume further objects that we learn our idea of causation from experience; we cannot work out the cause if we have never seen it before. He also asks why believers do not look for a cause for God.

In our next post, explore the ontological argument for the existence of God!

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The Cosmological Argument: Is God the Cause of the Universe?