Preview

Do you agree the first cause argument proves God's existence?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
458 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Do you agree the first cause argument proves God's existence?
Do you agree that the first cause argument proves that God exists?
The first cause argument takes the existence of the universe to entail the existence of a being that created it. It does so based on the fact that the universe had a beginning. There must, the first cause argument says, be something that caused that beginning, a first cause of the universe.
I do believe that the first cause argument proves God’s existence.
This is because the universe consists of a series of events stretched across time in a long causal chain. Each one of these events is the cause of the event that comes after it, and the effect of the event that comes before it. As a result something must have been at the top of the chain that caused everything which I believe is God. In addition the first cause argument tells us that the past cannot stretch back into infinity but rather must have a beginning. The argument then proceeds by suggesting that if the universe has a beginning then there must be something outside it that brought it into existence. This being outside the universe, this Creator, the first cause argument tells us, is God.
However some people may disagree with my idea that the first cause argument proves that God exists. One reason for this is because of the big bang theory (not the T.V series). This theory tells us that matter was once concentrated in a really small point. This began to enlarge rapidly in a hot explosion and it’s still expanding today. Unlike the first-cause argument, this argument is not self-refuting because it does not imply that god has a cause. If god had no beginning in time, he need not have a cause. Moreover, this argument doesn't deny the possibility of an infinite causal chain. It simply denies that the actual chain of causes is infinite. Another reason could be that not everything has a cause. As scientists have observed some events that have no apparent cause, that appear to be entirely random. Subatomic particles behave very strangely

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    People use the Cosmological argument to claim that this uncaused cause has to be God and there is no other explanation that could change that the initial cause of the universe is God. According to William L. Rowe in “The Cosmological Argument”, the cosmological argument has several key elements that make the argument into one that is to be taken into…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One argument for the existence of God is the basic design argument. It states that: the world has purpose and order, the complexity of the universe shows evidence of design, such design needs a designer, the only designer of something as great as the universe is God. This provides evidence for the existence of God as natural objects, such as the human eye, are so complex that the chance of them occurring randomly are so minute that it is much more likely that the eye had a designer. This is because each individual part of the eye must be the exact right size and in a specific condition to be able to function at all. A designer who is capable of designing something so detailed must be omnipotent – no question. The only possible being who is able to create something so divine must be God. Therefore the Basic argument shows evidence for the existence of God.…

    • 984 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Keller rebukes this by quoting Francis Collins in his book The Language of God, saying “the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it.” (133). This statement captures perfectly one of the fatal flaws in the Big Bang theory; something outside of nature had to create nature itself. How more perfectly can one describe the person of God?! God not only fits this description, but it parallels John 1:3 when John says that “all things were made through Him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (ESV).…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Starting off, the atheistic view of the beginning of the universe occurring by chance is irrational and irreverent in many ways. The thought of the universe just existing from no cause, let alone not a personal cause is just illogical. This universe has a contingency for God and the Kalam cosmological argument proves this. The Kalam cosmological argument is a well-organized argument for God that has been developed from Muslim philosophers al-Kindi and al-Ghazali, and has been reinvented by philosopher William Lane Craig. The Kalam argument is very simple and straightforward. It is dealt with as a series of dilemmas. Those dilemmas starts with since the universe exists, is there a beginning or no beginning, is that beginning caused or uncaused, and is that cause personal or impersonal. The first premise states that whatever begins to exist as a cause. This premise if very logical and denying it is only possible to have things come from a cause is counterintuitive. The second premise of the Kalam cosmological argument states that universe began…

    • 1296 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The cosmological argument argues the existence of God since there had to be a creator of all things in nature that depend on something else for their existence. McCloskey’s idea is that the existence of the universe is not enough to confirm the existence of God. An argument that can be used against this statement is the non-temporal form of the cosmological argument. In the book “Philosophy of Religion” by Evans and Manis, the non-temporal form has three components. First there is some contingent beings exist (Evans and Manis, 69). The second component is that if any contingent being exist then a significant being must exist (69). Third, there must be the existence of a significant being (69). Furthermore, the cause of the universe is necessary because is important because without that development then there would be not existence of the contingent beings. Another claim by McCloskey is that the cosmological argument “does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause”; this statement is not necessarily true. Since the world around McCloskey does exist there must be an ultimate creator who created the universe and this creator is…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An infinite regression of causes ultimately has no initial cause, which means there is no cause of existence. Since the universe exists, it must have a cause.…

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The key idea in cosmological arguments is that the world, the universe, and everything in them are dependent on something other than themselves for their existence. In other words, cosmological arguments attempt to justify God's existence on the assumption that nothing can come from nothing, and that God must exist in order for anything to be here.…

    • 789 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The premises of the argument, can be restructured to say that premise one claimes that “There exists an order of causes. The second premise states that “This order of causes can not go in a circle”. The third premise asserts that “This order cannot go on forever” The fourth premise infers that if the first three premises are true, then that concludes that “There must be a first cause in the order of causes. This cause is what “everyone calls God”. Consequently “There is a first cause in the order of causes, which everyone calls God.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The most common and influential argument’s for the existence of God are design arguments. In the last fifty years design arguments have received the most attention philosophically. Design arguments are both empirical and inductive arguments. Design arguments identify properties of objects in nature and argue that the only way that they could have occurred or the best explanation for them is that there is some intelligent/higher being that created or conceived the object. William Paley was a Christian apologist in the eighteenth century who was known for his popular version of the teleological argument (“watchmaker analogy”). Paley stressed the idea that the world’s complexity and design is not based off luck or chance, but rather designed by…

    • 157 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are 3 main arguments that each seek to prove the existence of God; the Ontological, Cosmological, and Teleological Arguments. Each is different in its approach, but all arrive at the same conclusion. Ontological Argument argues God’s existence from the assumption of the existence a “Greatest Thing that can ever be conceived.” From there, it argues that in order for something to be “The Greatest Thing ever” it must exist physically (that is outside of the mind). The Cosmological Argument argues that since everything in the universe is contingent (or is dependent on other things for its existence), there must be a first cause that set the universe in motion.…

    • 1954 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Cosmological argument and the Experiential argument, I believe, are the most compelling evidence that God exists. The idea that something that begins must have a beginner or creator. That creator would have to be something that never begins. Saying that something that begins is not created from something is difficult to hold true. It may hold true if all the universe was just physical. Which would indicate that God would have to be physical and thus must have begun. But since God is spiritual then that would not work. The experiential argument is also a compelling argument because it shows people's experiences and the results are better people. Showing the causes is good because the end result is…

    • 120 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In The Cosmological Argument Premise 2 explains that everything cannot be a dependent living thing. William Rowe explains why the Principle of Sufficient reason is true, then premise 2 is also true. Rowe suggests that there has never been a self-existing living thing, but only an infinite series of dependent living things. In this case, every living thing has an explanation, because it is explained if a living thing that came before it then that caused its existence.…

    • 247 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    there has to be a creator because even with the big bang, someone or something had to have…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The cosmological argument proves the existence of God. It discusses contingent beings which exist, but could not have existed and necessary beings which exist and could not not exist. The cosmological says that there is a contingent being that exists. The existence of a contingent being must have a cause and the contingent being cannot be the cause of itself. The complete cause of a contingent being includes only other contingent beings or it includes a necessary being. Contingent beings alone cannot be the complete cause of a contingent being. The complete cause of a contingent being must include a necessary being. Therefore, a necessary being must exist. The cosmological argument shows that there must be a higher power, and that higher power is God. Everything that exists on earth is a contingent being. There is no person or animal that is not contingent. But what created everything to begin with if a contingent being cannot be the only cause of another contingent being? Everything on earth has a cause, but there must be a necessary being being that caused the Earth. There has to be something other than contingent beings. There has to be a necessary being that started everything. That necessary being is…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    This particular argument is also in favor if the idea that God does in fact exist, but Aquinas has a different explanation from Anselm. Thomas Aquinas presents the argument known as the “Cosmological” or “first cause”. In a few words, this means that Aquinas believes there must have been a first cause in the world. Aquinas argues that the proof of Gods existence is based on the basis of experiences. God must exist because every being that is dependent for existence was caused by something else that happened prior to it. He believes either there is a boundless chain of contingent beings that is extending backwards or there is a first cause, something that was not caused by something else but began everything else. But in reality, there cannot be a continuous chain extending backwards. Therefore; there is a first cause, something that was not caused by anything else but started everything else that currently exists. Aquinas claims the existence of God can be proven in five ways: Argument from motion, Nature of efficient cause, possibility and necessity, gradation, and Governance of the world. Aquinas gives us an argument that is not hard to interpret. There must have been one who created mankind, constructing the world one being at a time. It is very easy to go along with the idea that there is one person or thing that created everything else. While this argument is clear and…

    • 1416 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays