Editing Cosmological argument (section)

== Versions of the argument ==

=== Aquinas's argument from contingency ===

In the [[scholasticism|scholastic]] era, [[Aquinas]] formulated the "argument from [[Contingency (philosophy)|contingency]]", following [[Aristotle]], in claiming that [[Unmoved mover|there must be something to explain the existence of the universe]]. Since the universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably ''not'' exist (i.e. it is contingent) its existence must have a cause. This cause cannot be embodied in another contingent thing, but something that exists by [[INUS|necessity]] (i.e. that ''must'' exist in order for anything else to exist).<ref name=Aq5w/> It is a form of argument from [[universal causation]], therefore compatible with the conception of a universe that has no beginning in time. In other words, according to Aquinas, even if the universe has always existed, it still owes its continuing existence to an [[Primum movens|uncaused cause]],<ref>Aquinas was an ardent student of Aristotle's works, a significant number of which had only recently been translated into Latin by [[William of Moerbeke]].</ref> he states: "...&nbsp;and this we understand to be God."<ref name=Aq5w/>

Aquinas's argument from contingency is formulated as the [[Five Ways (Aquinas)#Third way: The Argument from Time and Contingency|Third Way]] (Q2, A3) in the ''[[Summa Theologica]]''. It may be expressed as follows:<ref name=Aq5w/>

#There exist contingent things, for which non-existence is possible.
#It is impossible for contingent things to always exist, so at some time they did not exist.
#Therefore, if all things are contingent, then nothing would exist now.
#There exists something rather than nothing.

He concludes thereupon that contingent beings are an insufficient explanation for the existence of other contingent beings. Furthermore, that there must exist a ''[[INUS|necessary]]'' being, whose non-existence is impossible, to explain the origination of all contingent beings.

<ol start="5"><li>Therefore, there exists a necessary being.</li>
<li>It is possible that a necessary being has a cause of its necessity in another necessary being.</li>
<li>The derivation of necessity between beings cannot regress to infinity (being an essentially ordered causal series).</li>
<li>Therefore, there exists a being that is necessary of itself, from which all necessity derives.</li>
<li>That being is whom everyone calls God.</li></ol>

===Leibnizian cosmological argument===

In 1714, German philosopher [[Gottfried Leibniz]] presented a variation of the cosmological argument based upon the [[principle of sufficient reason]]. He writes: "There can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition, without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although we cannot know these reasons in most cases." Stating his argument succinctly:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rescher |first1=Nicholas |year=1991 |title=The Monadology: An Edition for Students|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press}}</ref>

:"Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason ... is found in a substance which ... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself."

[[Alexander Pruss]] formulates the argument as follows:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pruss|first1=Alexander R. |author-link=Alexander Pruss |editor1-last=Craig |editor1-first=William Lane |editor2-last=Moreland |editor2-first=J. P. |editor2-link=J. P. Moreland |title=The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |date=May 18, 2009 |pages=25–26 |chapter=The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument|isbn=978-1405176576}}</ref>

# Every contingent fact has an explanation.
# There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts.
# Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact.
# This explanation must involve a necessary being.
# This necessary being is God.

Premise 1 expresses the [[principle of sufficient reason]]. In premise 2, Leibniz proposes the existence of a [[logical conjunction]] of all contingent facts, referred to in later literature as the ''Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact'' (BCCF), representing the sum total of contingent reality.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Oppy |first1=Graham |title=On 'a new cosmological argument'|journal=Religious Studies|year=2000 |pages=345–353 |volume=36 |issue=3|doi=10.1017/S0034412500005308 |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/OPPOAN }}</ref> Premise 3 applies the principle of sufficient reason to the BCCF, given that it too, as a contingency, has a sufficient explanation. It follows, in statement 4, that the explanation of the BCCF must be necessary, not contingent, given that the BCCF incorporates all contingent facts. Statement 5 proposes that the necessary being explaining the totality of contingent facts is God.

Philosophers Joshua Rasmussen and T. Ryan Byerly have argued in defence of the inference from statement 4 to statement 5.<ref>{{cite journal|title=From a necessary being to God |last1=Rasmussen |first1=Joshua |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=1–13 |year=2009|doi=10.1007/s11153-008-9191-8 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=From a necessary being to a perfect being |last1=Byerly |first1=Ryan T |journal=Analysis |volume=79 |issue=1 |pages=10–17 |year=2019|doi=10.1093/analys/any009 }}</ref>

===Duns Scotus's metaphysical argument===

At the turn of the 14th century, medieval Christian theologian [[Duns Scotus|John Duns Scotus]] (1265/66–1308) formulated a [[metaphysical]] argument for the existence of God inspired by Aquinas's [[Five Ways (Aquinas)#First way: The Argument of the Unmoved Mover|argument of the unmoved mover]].<ref name= Scotus1>{{cite web |last=Duns Scotus |first=John |title=Ordinatio I/D2/Q2B |year=1300|website=The Logic Museum|url=http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Duns_Scotus/Ordinatio/Ordinatio_I/D2/Q2B  |access-date=27 September 2024}}</ref> Like other philosophers and theologians, Scotus believed that his statement for God's existence could be considered distinct to that of Aquinas. The form of the argument can be summarised as follows:<ref name= SEPScot>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Williams |first=Thomas |title=John Duns Scotus |year=2019|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duns-scotus/#ProExiGod |access-date=27 September 2024}}</ref>

#An effect cannot be produced by itself.
#An effect cannot be produced by nothing.
#A circle of causes is impossible.
#Therefore, an effect must be produced by something else.
#An accidentally ordered causal series cannot exist without an essentially ordered series.
<ol style="list-style-type: lower-alpha;margin-left: 5.2em;">
<li>Each member in an accidentally ordered series (except a possible first) exists via causal activity of a prior member.</li>
<li>That causal activity is exercised by virtue of a certain [[substantial form|form]].</li>
<li>Therefore, that form is required by each member to effect causation.</li>
<li>The form itself is not a member of the series.</li>
<li>Therefore [c,d], accidentally ordered causes cannot exist without higher-order (essentially ordered) causes.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="6"><li>An essentially ordered causal series cannot regress to infinity.</li>
<li>Therefore [4,5,6], there exists a first agent.</li></ol>

Scotus affirms, in premise 5, that an [[Cosmological argument#Accidental and essential ordering of causes|accidentally ordered series of causes]] is impossible without higher-order laws and processes that govern the basic principles of accidental causation, which he characterises as essentially ordered causes.<ref>{{harvnb|Duns Scotus|1300}} Paragraph 54: "Such an infinity of succession is impossible save from some nature that endures permanently, on which the whole succession and any part of it depend."</ref>

Premise 6 continues, in accordance with Aquinas's discourses on the [[Five Ways (Aquinas)#Second way: The Argument of the First Cause|Second Way]] and [[Five Ways (Aquinas)#Third way: The Argument from Time and Contingency|Third Way]], that an essentially ordered series of causes cannot be an infinite regress.<ref>{{harvnb|Duns Scotus|1300}} Paragraph 53.</ref> On this, Scotus posits that, if it is merely possible that a first agent exists, then it is [[logical consequence|necessarily]] true that a first agent exists, given that the non-existence of a first agent entails the impossibility of its own existence (by virtue of being a first cause in the chain).<ref name= SEPScot/> He argues further that it is ''not impossible'' for a being to exist that is causeless by virtue of [[ontology|ontological]] perfection.<ref>{{harvnb|Duns Scotus|1300}} Paragraph 53: "... an effective thing does not necessarily posit any imperfection; therefore it can be in something without imperfection. But if no cause is without dependence on something prior, it will not be in anything without imperfection."</ref>

With the formulation of this argument, Scotus establishes the first component of his 'triple primacy': The characterisation of a being that is first in [[Four Causes#Efficient|efficient causality]], [[Four Causes#Final|final causality]] and pre-eminence, or maximal excellence, which he ascribes to God.<ref name=SEPScot/>

=== Kalam cosmological argument ===
{{Main|Kalam cosmological argument}}

The Kalam cosmological argument's central thesis is the impossibility of an infinite [[temporality|temporal]] regress of events (or past-infinite universe). Though a modern formulation that defends the [[temporal finitism|finitude of the past]] through philosophical and scientific arguments, many of the argument's ideas originate in the writings of early Christian theologian [[John Philoponus]] (490–570 AD),<ref>{{cite book |last=Erasmus |first=Jacobus |title=The ''Kalām'' Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |pages=41–52 |isbn=9783319734378}}</ref> developed within the proceedings of medieval [[Islam]]ic [[scholasticism]] through the 9th to 12th centuries, eventually returning to [[Christian theological]] scholarship in the 13th century.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-kalam-cosmological-argument | title=The Kalam Cosmological Argument | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }}</ref>

These ideas were revitalised for modern discourse by philosopher and theologian [[William Lane Craig]] through publications such as ''[[The Kalām Cosmological Argument]]'' (1979) and the ''Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology'' (2009). The form of the argument popularised by Craig is expressed in two parts, as an initial [[deductive argument|deductive]] [[syllogism]] followed by further philosophical analysis.<ref name="craig-sinclair"/>

==== Initial syllogism ====

#Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
#The universe began to exist.
#Therefore, the universe has a cause.

==== Conceptual analysis of the conclusion ====

Craig argues that the cause of the universe [[logical entailment|necessarily]] embodies specific properties in creating the universe ''[[creatio ex nihilo|ex nihilo]]'' and in effecting creation from a timeless state (implying [[agent causation|free agency]]). Based upon this analysis, he appends a further premise and conclusion:<ref>{{harvnb|Craig|Sinclair|2009|pp=193–194}}</ref>

<ol start="4"><li> If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who ''[[wikt:sans#English|sans]] (without)'' the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.</li>

<li> Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who ''sans'' the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.</li>
</ol>

For scientific evidence of the finitude of the past, Craig refers to the [[Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem]], which posits a past boundary to [[cosmic inflation]], and the general consensus on the standard model of cosmology, which refers to the origin of the universe in the [[Big Bang]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Kragh |first=Helge |year=1996 |title=Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe |url=https://archive.org/details/cosmologycontrov00helg |url-access=registration |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-691-02623-7 |page=319}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Reichenbach|2022}} 7.4-7.5</ref>

For philosophical evidence, he cites [[Hilbert's paradox of the grand hotel]] and [[Bertrand Russell]]'s [[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman#References to Tristram Shandy|tale of Tristram Shandy]] to prove (respectively) the impossibility of actual infinites existing in reality and of forming an actual infinite by successive addition. He concludes that past events, in comprising a series of events that are instantiated in reality and formed by successive addition, cannot extend to an infinite past.<ref>{{harvnb|Reichenbach|2022}} 7.2-7.3</ref>

Craig remarks upon the [[theology|theological]] implications that follow from the conclusion of the argument:<ref>{{cite book|last= Craig|first= William Lane|title=The Kalam Cosmological Argument|year=2000|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|isbn=978-1-57910-438-2}}</ref>

:"... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."