The Cosmological Argument - Does Everything Need a First Cause?

Think about dominoes falling - each one knocks over the next, but something had to push the first one. Aquinas believed the universe works the same way, and that "something" is God.

His Second Way focuses on cause and effect. Everything we see is caused by something else, creating a chain that can't go back forever. There must be a first efficient cause - God. Just like dominoes, the universe needs that initial push.

The First Way looks at motion and change. Nothing moves by itself - everything is moved by something else. Aquinas called this the unmoved mover. He borrowed from Aristotle's idea that things move from potentiality to actuality (like wood has the potential to become hot when fire acts on it).

The Third Way deals with dependency. Everything depends on something else to exist - they're contingent. But if everything was dependent, nothing would exist at all. There must be a necessary being that doesn't depend on anything else - God.

Key Point: The Kalam argument (developed by Craig) argues that infinite things can't actually exist in reality - the universe must have had a real beginning, and that beginning needed a personal creator.

The Teleological Argument - Does the Universe Look Designed?

When you see a complex watch, you don't think it happened by accident - you know someone designed it. William Paley argued the universe is like that watch, showing clear signs of intelligent design.

Aquinas's Fifth Way pointed to design qua regularity - everything in nature seems to work together perfectly. An acorn "knows" to become an oak tree, but since it has no intelligence, something intelligent must be directing it. That something is God, like an archer directing an arrow.

Paley's watchmaker analogy is brilliant in its simplicity. If you found a watch on a heath, you'd instantly recognise its intricate, purposeful design. The natural world shows even more complexity - bird eggs incubating at perfect temperatures, the incredible design of the human eye.

F.R. Tennant took this further with the anthropic principle. The universe seems perfectly fine-tuned for human life - if conditions were slightly different, we wouldn't exist. He also noted the aesthetic principle - natural beauty serves no survival purpose, yet it exists everywhere.

Design Features: The argument points to order (regular patterns), benefit $life-supporting conditions$, purpose (everything working towards goals), and suitability for human existence.

Strengths and Weaknesses of These Arguments

Both arguments have real strengths that make them compelling. They're posteriori arguments - based on what we can actually observe and experience. Everyone understands cause and effect, and it's hard to deny the apparent design in nature.

The Big Bang theory actually supports the cosmological argument by showing the universe had a beginning. Scientists can explain the explosion but not what caused it. Swinburne's cumulative argument suggests that while one proof might not convince you, several together create strong evidence.

However, Newton's first law challenges Aquinas - objects in motion stay in motion without needing a constant mover. Anthony Kenny used this to argue that things can move themselves. There's also a logical problem: if nothing can cause itself, how can God cause himself?

The arguments might be self-contradictory. They claim everything needs a cause, then exempt God from this rule. Hume pointed out the fallacy of composition - just because parts of the universe are caused doesn't mean the whole universe is caused.

Think About It: Ockham's razor suggests the simplest explanation is usually best - but is "God did it" simpler than natural explanations?

Hume's Challenges and Scientific Alternatives

David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, delivered devastating critiques of both arguments. For the cosmological argument, he argued we have no experience of universe-creation, so we can't meaningfully discuss what caused it. That's his empirical objection.

His fallacy of composition argument is particularly clever. Just because every part of the universe seems caused doesn't mean the universe as a whole needs a cause. It's like saying because every brick is small, the wall must be small too.

Hume also questioned whether the first cause would be the God of classical theism. Even if something started the universe, why assume it's all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good? Maybe it's just a very powerful alien!

The Big Bang theory offers a scientific explanation for the universe's origin without needing God. Red shift observations show the universe is expanding, suggesting it started from a single point about 13 billion years ago. This gives us a natural explanation for cosmic origins.

Hume's Point: We might not need an ultimate first cause - the chain of causes could potentially go back forever, with no particular beginning required.

More Problems with Design Arguments

Hume's attack on the teleological argument was equally ruthless. He focused on the problems with analogies - comparing the universe to a house or watch. Houses and universes are so different that the comparison breaks down completely.

His house analogy critique is brilliant. If we're comparing God to a human designer, we're limiting God to human-like qualities. Builders have apprentices, so maybe there are apprentice gods. Builders leave when finished, so maybe God is absent. Multiple builders work on houses, so maybe there are multiple gods.

These critiques show how analogies can backfire - they're a double-edged sword for religious believers. The very comparisons meant to prove God's existence might actually limit or disprove it.

Darwin's theory of evolution delivered the final blow to design arguments. Natural selection explains apparent design without needing a designer. Complex features like eyes evolved gradually because they helped survival. Fossils support this theory by showing species that no longer exist.

Darwin's Impact: Evolution provides a scientific explanation for life's complexity, removing the need for a divine designer to explain natural "engineering."

The Ontological Argument - Proving God Through Logic Alone

St Anselm attempted something incredible - proving God exists using pure logic, without any reference to the physical world. This a priori approach relies only on reasoning, not evidence.

Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" - basically, the greatest possible being. His argument uses reductio ad absurdum - showing that denying God's existence leads to logical contradictions.

The painter analogy explains his reasoning. A painter imagines a painting before creating it. The painting exists first in the mind (in intellectu), then in reality (in re). What exists in reality is greater than what exists only in the mind.

Since God is the greatest possible being, he must exist both in the mind and in reality. If God existed only in our minds, we could imagine something greater - a God who actually exists. But nothing can be greater than the greatest possible being, so God must exist in reality.

Proslogion 3 adds that God has necessary existence - he can't not exist. Necessary existence is greater than contingent existence (depending on something else), so the greatest being must exist necessarily.

Key Insight: This argument is deductive - if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. It's also analytic - it's about the meaning of words and concepts, not empirical facts.

Developing the Ontological Argument Further

René Descartes refined Anselm's argument in his Fifth Meditation. Starting from "I think therefore I am," he argued that we imperfect beings couldn't have created the concept of a perfect being - it must come from the perfect being itself.

Descartes used powerful analogies. The triangle analogy shows that imagining God without existence is like imagining a triangle without three sides - logically impossible. The mountain and valley analogy makes the same point - you can't have a mountain without a valley.

Norman Malcolm focused on Anselm's Proslogion 3, arguing it's stronger than the first version. He described God as an unlimited being - having no limits and possessing all perfections to the greatest degree. Such a being would be worthy of worship.

Malcolm's key insight: God's existence is either impossible or necessary - there's no middle ground. If God's existence were logically contradictory, it would be impossible. Since it's not contradictory, God's existence must be necessary.

An unlimited being cannot have contingent existence (depending on other things) because that would be a limitation. Therefore, God must exist necessarily.

Malcolm's Logic: God's existence can only be impossible if it's logically absurd. Since it's not absurd, it must be necessary - and necessary things must exist.

Major Challenges to the Ontological Argument

Gaunilo attacked Anselm with a brilliant reductio ad absurdum. Using Anselm's logic, we could prove anything exists. Imagine the greatest possible island - by Anselm's reasoning, it must exist because existing islands are greater than imaginary ones.

This overload objection doesn't pinpoint where Anselm's argument goes wrong - it shows that if the argument worked, we'd have to accept absurd conclusions. We could "prove" the existence of perfect pizzas, perfect cars, or perfect anything.

Anselm replied that his argument only works for necessary beings, not contingent objects like islands. Islands depend on other things (land, water) and people disagree about what makes them perfect. God is different - a necessary being that doesn't depend on anything else.

Immanuel Kant delivered the most famous critique: existence is not a predicate. Predicates describe things (cats are furry, black, small), but saying something exists doesn't describe it - it just states that it's real.

Kant's 100 thalers example illustrates this perfectly. One hundred real coins don't contain any more properties than one hundred imaginary coins - they have exactly the same description. The only difference is that one set exists and the other doesn't.

Kant's Devastating Point: If existence isn't a property things can possess or lack, then Anselm's entire argument collapses - you can't include existence as part of perfection.

The Problem of Evil - Why Do Bad Things Happen?

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, why does evil exist? This question has troubled believers for centuries and given atheists their strongest argument against God's existence.

Moral evil comes from human actions - murder, theft, cruelty. Natural evil comes from physical processes - earthquakes, diseases, natural disasters. Both types cause immense suffering that seems incompatible with a loving, powerful God.

Epicurus posed the classic challenge: "If God can abolish evil and really wants to, why is there evil in the world?" This creates the inconsistent triad - God's omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and evil's existence can't all be true simultaneously.

J.L. Mackie argued these three claims are logically inconsistent - believing in God while acknowledging evil is "positively irrational." Either God isn't all-powerful, isn't all-good, or evil doesn't really exist.

William Rowe focused on intense suffering that seems pointless. A five-year-old girl brutally murdered, a fawn burned alive in a forest fire - what possible good could justify allowing such horrors? An omniscient God would know about them, an omnipotent God could prevent them, and an omnibenevolent God would want to.

Statistical Challenge: Gregory Paul noted that of roughly 400 billion humans who've lived, only 50 billion reached maturity - 350 billion died as children, often horribly, before they could even choose faith.

Augustine's Solution - The Augustinian Theodicy

Augustine's theodicy attempts to solve the problem of evil while maintaining God's perfect goodness. His solution starts with Genesis - God's original creation was perfect, but humans messed it up through free will.

Evil as privation is Augustine's key insight. Evil isn't a "thing" God created - it's the absence of good, like darkness is the absence of light. When humans turned away from God, evil entered the world as a corruption of goodness.

The Fall explains everything. Adam and Eve's disobedience brought sin into the world, and since we're all their descendants, we're all seminally present in Adam's sin. Every human is born corrupted, deserving punishment.

But there's hope. Christians call the Fall "felix culpa" (happy fault) because it led to Jesus's coming. Without sin, there would be no need for salvation, no demonstration of God's incredible love through sacrifice.

Soul deciding gives humans ultimate responsibility. God gave us free will, and each person chooses their eternal fate by obeying or rejecting God. Hell isn't cruel - it's the just consequence of choosing evil over good.

Augustine's Logic: Evil exists because God values freedom so much that he allows us to choose wrongly. True love requires the possibility of rejection - forced love isn't really love at all.