the cosmological argument

The cosmological argument: in its simplest form it goes thus, that everything existent has a cause, and that the universe exists, so it must have a cause, and that cause must be God. Accepting this argument leaves us with a causeless, or self-causing, God, while rejecting it leaves us with a causeless universe. Either way you’re stuck with a problem of original cause. Of course, if you argue that God doesn’t have a cause then the simple form of the cosmological argument is unsound, as the first premise is false.

There are two modifications of this simple cosmological argument, both designed to avert this sort of refutation. They are the kalam (apparently this is Islamic) or temporal cosmological argument, and the argument for contingency. Both treat God as a special case. In the first case, God has no beginning in time, unlike everything else, so you modify the argument’s first premise thus: everything that begins has a cause. In the second, similar case, God is non-contingent, unlike everything else, so you alter the first premise to say that everything that’s contingent has a cause. Of course, these special qualities of God are assumed rather than proven, so it’s not on the face of it too convincing.

I’ve just read a defence of the cosmological argument by one Bert Thompson which is plainly written enough (far from always being the case with theistic writers), and quite thought-provoking in parts, especially early on, but which makes quite a few startling and unconvincing leaps towards the end. I think I should address these philosophers and writers directly.

To Bert Thompson. Your defence of the cosmological argument contains, I think, some serious flaws. The basis of your argument is that since the universe is not eternal, and not self-causing, it must have an antecedent cause, which you describe as ‘superior to itself’ since all causes must be superior to or greater than their effects. You then claim that this cause must be mind rather than matter.

My first difficulty is that the universe is not really defined in your piece. Dictionaries variously define it as all existing things, the cosmos, all of creation. I myself have no difficulty with the assumption that the universe exceeds the current and perhaps future powers of science to measure and define it. For this reason I have an open mind on the debate, still very much a live one, as to whether or not the universe is eternal. Most cosmologists, as far as I’m aware, accept the big bang theory, and they accept that what is generally described as the universe is expanding. Of course the issue of temporality with respect to the known universe is profoundly affected by the theory of relativity which explains this universe as a space-time continuum. The argument goes that with the big bang, beginning began. That’s to say, there was no before. Of course, this is counter-intuitive, along with so much of modern theory in physics and cosmology, and I’m not satisfied at all with the explanation that the big bang ‘just happened’, but I also believe that it’s quite plausible that far more exists out there than the known universe (though I see no reason to believe that what is out there is anything other than ‘matter’). In short, I tend to agree that what we currently know as the universe must have been caused, but I cannot see that as any warrant for the existence of a deity, rather it suggests to me that what we currently know of the universe is more limited than some of us care to admit.