Q. Explain Humes’ criticisms of the cosmological argument (25 marks)
The cosmological argument is based on the principle of causation. In particular, it is put forward that any existent thing must have a cause or reason for its existence and that there cannot be more in the effect than there is in the cause. Hume challenges these assumptions in his Dialogues.
There are three main critiques that Hume makes of the argument. Firstly, he has general concerns about the way it is structured, and believes that this structure is fallacious. Secondly, he has more specific concerns related to causation and finally he raises challenges to do with the concepts of contingency and necessity.
Hume’s challenges to the structure of the cosmological argument directly question the validity of the assumption that existent things need causes or reasons for their existence. Hume says that just because each of the elements of the ‘chain’ has a cause, it doesn’t follow that the chain itself needs a cause. He gives the example of a collection of twenty particles – if an explanation is found for each particle individually he says it would be wrong to then seek an explanation for the whole collection, because you have already explained it by explaining each particle. This is called the fallacy of composition, and was later simply put by Russell that just because every man has a mother, it doesn’t mean that there is a mother of the human race.
Hume also has some challenges to the notion of causation, which the cosmological argument relies heavily on. In his Dialogue, Hume puts forward an analogy of a house needing an architect – likewise the existence of an ordered universe requires a divine architect.
Finally Hume attacks the idea of a necessary being. These challenges relate specifically to Aquinas’ third way, as it relies on the notions of contingency and necessity. There is a deeper problem with the idea of a necessary being. Any being that exists can also not exist, and there is no contradiction implied in conceiving its non-existence, but this is exactly what would have to be the case, if its existence were necessary. So the term ‘necessary being’ makes no sense, any being claimed to exist may or may not exist. In Hume’s own words “All existential propositions are synthetic.”
Q. To what extent was Hume successful in his critique of the cosmological argument? (10 marks)
Hume makes some very important challenges to the Cosmological argument. One of the key areas he questions is the argument’s dependence upon what Leibniz named, the principle of sufficient reason. In this principle an adequate explanation must be a total explanation. The universe requires an explanation of itself as a whole but many would say, as Russell later told Copleston: “Then I can only say that you’re looking for something which can’t be got, and which one ought not to expect to get.”
Also if we are only entitled to talk about causes when we have had experience of them, then this argument would seem to be over-stretching itself in speculating upon what it cannot know.
On the other hand, there is of course a problem with stopping at a certain point and saying that we should seek no further explanation, in that it is a basic presupposition of all scientific work. However, even though a principle of rationality is that we can find an explanation for things, there is no guarantee that there will be one. So, I think Hume significantly weakens forms of the argument that depend on the principle of sufficient reason.
However, I think that Hume’s criticisms of a necessary being somewhat misunderstand what is meant by necessity. Some have said that this argument refers to a factually necessary being, not a logically necessary one, so that Hume’s point that any being may or may not exist is questionable because the argument seems to arrive a posteriori at a being that has to exist.
Hume has outlined some powerful problems with the argument, but they do not totally defeat it. I think we are at least entitled to ask the question of what caused the universe, as this is what modern physics does. The difficulty is in arriving at the Christian God as an answer to such a question. I think therefore that Hume was fairly but not completely successful in his criticisms of the argument.