Explain Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument
The basis of the cosmological argument is that the universe cannot account for its own existence. There must be a reason, the argument says, for the existence of the universe and the reason has to be something which is not part of the physical world of time and space. The cosmological argument was used by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) in his five ways, which were ways of demonstrating the existence of God through inductive argument based on observation and evidence.
In Aquinas’ view, knowledge of God could be reached in two ways; one through revelation for example, through the words of the Bible and the other is through our own human reason. Aquinas thought that if we applied reason to the evidence that we see around us then we would be able to reach valuable truths.
To show that God exists, Aquinas had presented it through five ways because he was convinced that although the existence of God was not self-evident, it could be demonstrated with logical thought. He wrote about the five ways in his book Summa Theologica. Of Aquinas’ five ways, the first three are different alternatives of the cosmological argument. His version of the argument was based on two assumptions: the universe exists and there must be a reason why. This was used as a starting point to explain the fact that there must be an explanation of why anything exists.
In his first way, Aquinas concentrated on the existence of change or motion in the world. He considered the ways in which objects change in its state. His argument, which is similar to Aristotle, was that everything which is in motion has to be put in motion by something else. Therefore, things stay the same unless some force acts upon them to make them change. As things are, according to our observation, changing, then they must have been in motion by something else. Aquinas thought that this sequence of one thing affecting another could not be infinite but there must be an Unmoved Mover to start it all. He has also argued that if a change is brought about in Thing A by Thing B then Thing B must have the characteristics of the change it brings about. For example, if Thing B makes Thing A hotter, then Thing B must already be hot.
The emphasis of Aquinas’ argument was on dependency; he was using the idea that God sustains the universe and was trying to show that this world could not have change without an unmoved mover. The continued changes and movements are because of the continued existence of a mover which we call God.
Following up, the second way focuses on the concept of cause. Every effect has a cause and Aquinas argued that infinite regress is impossible; therefore there must be a first cause in which we call God. Here, he concentrates on the idea of an efficient cause. Aquinas used Aristotle’s ideas about efficient cause where Aristotle has said that for every cause, there is an agent which brings it about. This could be seen through the effiecient cause of violin music would be the violinist. From this, he concluded that there must be a first efficient cause and this would be God.
In his third way, Aquinas argued that the world consists of contingent beings, which are beings that begin and end and are dependent on something else for their existence. It can be seen that everything in the physical world is contingent as they depend upon external factors. Due to contingency, nothing would have ever started unless there is some other being which is capable of bringing other things into existence but being independent of everything else. Thus, being necessary. It would have to be a being which is not cause and which depends on nothing else to continue to exist and this would be God.