| | In Defense of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God This fairly simple argument used by philosophers, theologians, and scientists, from Plato to Aquinas to William Lane Craig appears as follows in the form of a syllogism (according to that falicious site): 1. For every effect there is a cause. 2. Nothing can cause itself. 3. A casual chain cannot go on infinitely. =>Therefore, there must be a first cause. This would be the point where I’d explain the argument in my own words, but why do that when a greater man has already done it? Curiostity, or love of the knowledge of causes, draws a man from the consideration of the effect, to seek the cause; and again, the cause of that cause; till of necessity he must come to this thought at last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause, but is eternal; which is it men call God. So that it impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes, without being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal;… For he that from any effect he seeth come to pass, should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause of that cause, and plunge himself profoundly in the pursuit of causes; shall at last come to this, that there must be (as even the heathen philosophers confessed) one first mover; that is, a first, and an eternal cause of all things, which men mean by the name of God:… ~Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, I.XI.25 and I.XII.6. 
This first-cause argument has been apparent to even the “heathen philosophers” such as Plato and Aristotle and no doubt countless others, yet most atheists dismiss the argument as trite and without any serious weight. There are in my knowledge, three main atheist objections to the argument, each of which I will attempt to refute: 1. The Big Bang theory satifies the cosmological argument, replacing God with the Big Bang as the first cause. The obvious reply to this is, what caused the Big Bang? The theory of the Big Bang, advocated by William Lane Craig (Scientists invent these awesome ideas and come up with a lame name like “The Big Bang.” I agree with Calvin. They should rename it the Horrendous Space Kablooie.), can not be a first cause because even it demands another cause, being subject to the laws of the tangible world, in which for every effect there is a cause. The cause of the Big Bang would have to be God. 2. A chain of causes can go on infinitely, and thus, there is not need of a first-cause. Imagine a chain of causes infinitely receding into the past with no beginning and infinitely progressing into the future with no end. Don’t just state the idea to yourself; Instead, tediously imagine cause after cause after cause after cause extending eternally in both directions of time. You cannot. The human mind cannot compredend such an idea. The reason that man lacks the ability to comprehend infinite time (In this case I am not refering to infinity as outside time, but as time that has no beginning or end) is that either that, (a) men cannot comprehend the laws of their own habitat, or (b) infinite time cannot exist in the physical universe because it runs against its laws. It is an impossibility for (a) to be true when everthing in the physical world has a beginning and end. Yet, though the previous sentence seems an obvious aphorism to me, the atheist will not be so easily convinced. Simply, the reason that I believe infinite time in this world is impossible is because I have not witnessed anything infinite and I cannot comprehend infinity. The idea that anything in this universe, such as time and matter, has no beginning or end runs against reason. Every thing in the world has a clear undeniable starting and finishing point. But even if infinite time were a possibility, how is it that men cannot comprehend their own evironment? If infinite time were a characteristic of the universe that produced men, why would they not understand it? Even the beasts of the earth can understand the basic natural laws of their habitation, such as the law of gravity. The elephant understands that if it walks off a precipice it will fall and die. The spider understands that if it falls into the river, it will be swept away by the waters and drown. Animals can understand the natural laws of their habitat. Why is it men can’t understand theirs? As C.S. Lewis once asked, If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? The remaining and correct choice is (b), that infinite time cannot exist in the physical universe. Since that is the case, a first cause is necessary, and God, the first-cause, must exist. 3. The universe may require a first cause, but God requires a cause as well. This objection is perfectly embodied by the words of Bertrand Russell in his lecture, Why I am not a Christian: I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question 'Who made me?' cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made god?'" That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that. Originally, I thought that this specious objection was just, and it is just when we anthropomorphize God. If God is tangible, and/or bound to the natural laws of this universe, which state that for every cause there is an effect, then God, being an effect, does require a cause. But the fallacy of this objection is that God is not an effect, as men are. God is the ultimate eternal ideal of everything good and requires no cause, because He is the ultimate cause. There is nothing before him because He is. I am that I am. On top of this, God neither exists in physical form, nor is not subject to the natural laws of the universe because he created them. If we assume God requires a cause, we must also assume he feels the force of gravity, both being laws of nature. That notion is absurd; likewise the notion that God requires a cause is an absurdity. Make sense? |
