The Cosmological Argument

“Why is there something instead of nothing?”
~Gottfried Leibniz

The cosmological argument is based on an undeniable fact. The universe exists. It tries to find an explanation for the universe, its origin and why it is changing. The argument has baffled thinkers for over two thousand years, but Plato’s idea that a prime mover can be the only explanation for the universe remains to be the most philosophically influential.

But despite its popularity, the argument has also provoked much criticism. I will outline the most famous application of the argument, as offered by Thomas Aquinas, and state and assess two objections; Hume’s argument that the cause of the universe need not be the God of classical theism, and Russell’s idea that the universe needs no explanation at all.

Aquinas proposed three ways for God’s existence in the classic version of the cosmological argument. He concluded from each that God can be the only explanation for the universe. For example, in the Argument from Motion, he noted that everything in the world is moving but nothing can move by itself. Neither can there be an infinite regress of things moving other things. He argued that there must be a prime mover and he called this God. Similarly, the Argument from Contingency claims that all things in nature are subject to change. Since nothing can come from nothing, there must be a necessary being that brings contingent things into existence. This he called God. Finally, the Argument from Causation noted that everything in the universe has a cause but nothing is the cause of itself. There has to be a first cause to start the chain of causes. Again he called this God.

But it is the Argument from Causation that sceptic David Hume objected to the most. Hume accused Aquinas of making a leap in logic. The fact that everything within the universe has a cause does not necessarily mean the universe itself must have a cause. Why do we need a cause for the whole chain if we can explain each item in the chain; “Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts” (Hume, D. 1935 p.190). He argued that we have no experience of the universe being made, and so we cannot speak meaningfully about the creation of it.

However, William Lane Craig rejects this. He argues that the universe cannot be infinite because you cannot add to an infinite amount. The past can be regarded as a succession of events added onto one another. So since the universe is finite, it must have had a beginning. Whatever exists must have a cause, therefore the universe had a cause to its existence (Craig, W.L. 1991 pp. 85-96).

As John Mackie wrote, we would not expect a railway train with an infinite number of carriages to get along without an engine. He writes that God is like an engine, not just another truck, but a machine which has the power to move without requiring something else to act upon it (Mackie, J.L. 1982).

More importantly though, Hume says Aquinas is guilty of moving from the need to identify a first mover to identifying it as God. Even if the existence of the universe points to a prime mover, he argues this need not be the God of classical theism; “Any particle of matter, it is said, may be conceived to be annihilated, and any form may be conceived to be altered. Such an annihilation or alteration is not therefore impossible. But it seems a great partiality not to perceive that the same argument extends equally to the Deity, so far as we have any conception of him…” (Op. Cit. p.190)

But Craig rejects this idea too. He argues that if the universe has a cause, it came about naturally or through a ‘personal choice.’ The laws of nature did not exist before the universe. There were no natural causes to bring the universe about. Therefore, the world came about due to random forces of nature. He says, “The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time… We are brought not merely to the first cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator” (Op. Cit. p.92). Craig suggested that this personal agent must have existed outside time and space, since these began at the point of creation. The ‘personal agent’ is a transcendent being which Craig calls God.

However, despite the criticisms of his argument, David Hume has inspired similar ideas in other thinkers. Bertrand Russell does not believe that we need to seek an explanation for the universe. In fact, Russell denies that the universe needs an explanation at all; “The whole concept of cause is one we derive from our observation of particular things. I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever…What I’m saying is that the concept of the cause is not applicable to the total” (Hick, J. 1964 p.232). In a debate with Frederick Copleston, Russell makes the existence of the universe a brute fact; “I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all” (Loc. Cit.).

However, Russell has attracted huge criticism for his lack of curiosity about the cause and origin of the universe. His universe would appear to be entirely without reason. In the debate, Copleston famously replied, “If one refuses to sit down at the chessboard and make a move, one cannot be check-mated” (Loc. Cit.). But like Hume, Russell noted that explaining the individual constituents is sufficient enough; “Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother...That’s a different logical sphere” (Loc. Cit.). Russell in effect withdrew from the debate by refusing to consider that it was valid to ask questions without origins. It is precisely this reason why Russell’s objection to the cosmological argument is often perceived to have no substance.

Leibniz rejects Russell’s claim altogether. Through the Principle of Sufficient Reason, he argued that even if the universe had always been in existence, it would still require an explanation, since we need to establish why there is something rather than nothing. Self-causation is incoherent so the cause of the universe must be something other than the universe itself. It seems that God is the best solution for this since He is capable of creating a universe without being a part of it. Without God, the existence of the universe is unexplained (Tyler, S.K. 2001 p.21).

Richard Swinburne uses Ockham’s razor to suggest that "God is simpler than anything we can imagine and gives us a simple explanation for the system" (Ibid. p.22). J.S. O’Connor, a Jesuit Professor of Physics, says that, “the existence of an intelligent being as the First Cause of the universe can be established by rational scientific inference" (O’Connor, J.S. 1940 p.369). Even Professor Dawes Hicks who accepts the objections of Hume and others admits that the cosmological argument has a certain core of truth. So, what is the truth?

The cosmological argument is one of the oldest and most popular for the existence of God.
If we follow the logic, Aquinas and his contemporaries have presented us with an argument that we cannot ignore. The universe exists. Nothing comes from nothing. The universe has a cause. Stephen Hawking describes the universe as “finite but unbounded” (Hawking, S.W. 1989 p.44), but the question of what caused the universe remains to be solved. The argument of Bertrand Russell, although popular among atheists, is lacking any justification. Professor John Hick calls the atheistic argument “the more economic option” (Tyler, S.K. 2001 p.22), which suggests it is the easiest to swallow, but still we cannot deny that nothing comes from nothing. Science has proven this. And since the God of classical theism is perceived to be outside time and space, it would seem, just as Leibniz argued, that he can be the only explanation.

Hume, whilst not denying that the universe has a cause, disagrees that God can be the only explanation. Atheist Richard Dawkins has similar ideas. He writes that the First Cause argument works by setting up an infinite regress which God is wheeled out to terminate, “but we are never told why God is magically able to terminate regresses while needing no explanation himself,” (Dawkins, R. 2006). In typical atheist fashion, he notes that the first cause could not have been an intelligence, since “intelligent, complex, statistically improbable things come late into the universe.” The fact remains that there is no evidence that God exists. Although objections to the cosmological argument, especially in Russell’s case, have been weak, it is the fact that the cosmological argument is based purely on faith and reason, with a lack of evidence, that makes it so hard to believe in my opinion.