Cosmological Argument Research Articles

A new cosmological argument undone

There is an intriguing recent effort to develop a valid cosmological argument on the basis of quite minimal assumptions.1 Indeed, the basis of the new cosmological argument is so slight that it is likely to make even a conscientious theist suspicious – to say nothing of our vigilant atheists. In Section 1 we present the background assumptions and central premises of the new cosmological argument. We are sympathetic to the conclusion that there necessarily exists an intelligent and powerful creator of the actual universe, but we show in Section 2 that the new cosmological argument cannot establish this claim. Specifically, we show by reductio ad absurdum that the new argument is unsound, and that every plausibly modified version of the argument is also unsound.2 We close our discussion with a diagnosis of what went wrong in the new cosmological argument. Our conclusion is that this intriguing new argument promises considerably more than it can show.

Traversal of the Infinite, the “Big Bang,” and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Traversal of the Infinite, the “Big Bang,” and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

More Than a Flesh Wound

AbstractIn ‘The Kalam Cosmological Argument Neither Bloodied nor Bowed’ (Philosophia Christi 3, 193–6), David Oderberg provides four main criticisms of the line of argument which I developed in ‘Time, Successive Addition, and Kalam Cosmological Arguments’ (Philosophia Christi 3, 181–91). I argue here that none of these lines of criticism succeeds. Further I re-emphasise the point that those who maintain that the temporal series of past events is formed by ‘successive addition’ are indeed thereby committed to a highly contentious strict finitist metaphysics.

Insufficient reason in the ‘new cosmological argument’

In a recent article in this journal, Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss offer a new cosmological proof for the existence of God relying only on the Weak Principle of Sufficient Reason, W-PSR. We argue that their proof relies on applications of W-PSR that cannot be justified, and that our modal intuitions simply do not support W-PSR in the way Gale and Pruss take them to.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument Neither Bloodied nor Bowed

The Kalam Cosmological Argument Neither Bloodied nor Bowed

Van Inwagen on the Cosmological Argument

In his book Metaphysics, Peter van Inwagen constructs a version of the Cosmological Argument which does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He goes on to reject the argument. In this paper, I construct an alternative version of the Cosmological Argument that uses some of van Inwagen's insights and yet is immune to his criticisms. If we suppose that for each contingent truth, there is some at least partial explanation, then it follows that there is some necessary truth that explains the conjunction of all the contingent truths.

Time, Successive Addition, and Kalam Cosmological Arguments

Time, Successive Addition, and Kalam Cosmological Arguments

Dark matter in the universe

Cosmological arguments proving that the universe is dominated by invisible non-baryonic matter are reviewed. Possible physical candidates for dark matter particles are discussed. A particular attention is paid to non-compensated remnants of vacuum energy, to the question of stability of super-heavy relics, cosmological mass bounds for very heavy neutral lepton, and some other more exotic possibilities.

Three Cosmological Arguments

I set out three (modal) cosmological arguments – one for the existence of a necessary fact, one for the existence of a necessary event, and one for the existence of a necessary individual. Although the arguments do not have the same premisses or conclusions, they have the same structure. Moreover, I argue, given some plausible ancillary assumptions, any one of the arguments can be made to do the work of any of the others. I then suggest that the arguments are inconclusive, because they depend on a doubtful principle linking contingency and explicability.

Theodicy and approximation: Avicenna THÉODICÉE ET APPROXIMATION: AVICENNE

Our aim here is to show that an enigmatic text of Avicenna's Glosses, devoted to the problem of evil, takes on its full meaning in the light of the last chapter of the šifā' on De generatione et corruptione. We will see how Avicenna, deepening and developing a cosmological argument already present in the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias on the De generatione, ends up building most of his theodicy on the relative incommensurability of the different celestial periods. All the problem of divine Justice is thus reinterpreted in terms of opposition between discrete and continuous. Finally we will show the importance that this development of Avicenna had in Western Christendom in the 14th century, and the complex relationship which Leibniz has with it in his recently edited reflections on the Great Year.

On ‘A new cosmological argument’

Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss contend that their ‘new cosmological argument’ is an improvement over familiar cosmological arguments because it relies upon a weaker version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason than that used in those more familiar arguments. However, I note that their ‘weaker’ version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason entails the ‘stronger’ version of that principle which is used in more familiar arguments, so that the alleged advantage of their proof turns out to be illusory. Moreover, I contend that, even if their argument did rely on a weaker version of the Principle of Sufficient reason, nontheists would still be perfectly within their rights to refuse to accept the conclusion of the argument.

Astrophysics probes of particle physics

Astrophysical arguments constrain the properties of various elementary particles in ways which are often complementary to cosmological arguments and to laboratory experiments. This pertains, in particular, to neutrinos, axions, other Nambu–Goldstone bosons, and gravitons, which are light so that their production in the hot and dense interior of stars is not impeded by threshold effects. This review provides an update to the most important stellar-evolution limits and discusses them in the context of other information from cosmology and laboratory experiments.

Prospects for a sound stage 3 of cosmological arguments

Recently, Religious Studies published an article by Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss, arguing that there exists a necessary being who is a creator of the world. Building on their argument, I argue that, assuming that there is exactly one creator, that creator is essentially omnipotent.

Does the Cosmological Argument Depend on the Ontological?

Does the Cosmological Argument Depend on the Ontological?

A new cosmological argument

We present a valid deductive cosmological argument for the necessary existence of a powerful and intelligent creator of the actual universe. Whereas traditional cosmological arguments had to employ a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason that held that every fact actually has an explanation, our argument can make do with the weak version of Duns Scotus according to which every fact possibly has an explanation. As a result, our argument is less vulnerable to the charge of begging the question than are these traditional cosmological arguments.

PARTICLEPHYSICS FROMSTARS

▪ Abstract Low-mass particles, such as neutrinos, axions, other Nambu-Goldstone bosons, and gravitons, are produced in the hot and dense interior of stars. Therefore, astrophysical arguments constrain the properties of these particles in ways that are often complementary to cosmological arguments and to laboratory experiments. This review provides an update on the most important stellar-evolution limits and discusses them in the context of other information from cosmology and laboratory experiments.

Philosophy then and now

Editors and Contributors. Acknowledgments. Introduction. 1. Mind, Body, and Introductory text: Socrates and the Soul of Death: George Graham.Selected Readings: Plato, Phaedo (selections). Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Correspondence, Passions of the Soul. Thomas Nagel, Death. Gareth Matthews, Life and Death as the Arrival and Departure of Psyche. Jerry Fodor, Mind-Body Problem. 2. Freedom and Determinism. Introductory Text: Sartre on Being Free: George Graham and Harold Kincaid.Selected Readings: Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (selections). Pierre Simone de Laplace, Philosophical Essays on Determinism (selections). Daniel Dennett, Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want. Robert Kane, Free Will: The Elusive Ideal. 3. Philosophical Theology. Introductory Text: Aquinas and the Rationality of Belief in God: Gregory Pence. Selected Readings: Thomas Aquinas, Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God, from Summa Theologica. William Paley, Evidence of Design. John L. Mackie, for Design. William L. Rowe, Cosmological Argument. R. M. Adams, Kierkegaard's Arguments Against Objective Reasoning.... Fydor Dostoevsky, Why Does God Permit Evil? from The Brothers Karamazov. 4. Knowledge and Scepticism. Introductory Text: Descartes and Our Knowledge of the External World: G. Lynn Stephens. Selected Readings: Descartes, Meditations on First (selections). Bertrand Russell, The Problems of (selections). W. V. O. Quine, Posits and Reality. Bruce Aune, Knowledge, Mind and Nature (selections). 5. The Scientific Method. Introductory Text: Mill and the Nature of Harold Kincaid. Selected Readings: John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (selections). Carl Hempel, of Natural Science (selections). Karl Popper, Philosophy of Science: Personal Report. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (selections). J. J. C. Smart, Physics and Reality. 6. The Nature of Morality. Introductory Text: Nietzsche and the Objectivity of Morals: James Rachels. Selected Readings: Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (selections) Genology of Morals (selections). David Hume, Morality, Sentiment, and Reason (selections from the Treatise ). A. J. Ayer, A Defence of Emotivism. Renford Bambrough, A Proof of the Objectivity of Morals. Ronald Dworkin, Concept of a Moral Position. 7. Government. Introductory Text: Locke: The Individual, the Public, the State (selections). Selected Readings: Plato, The Republic (selections). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (selections). John Locke, 2nd Treatise (selections). John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (selections). George Dargo, Private and Legal Takings (selections). Charles A. Reich, New Property (selections). Michael Sandel, Morality and the Liberal Ideal. Iris Marion Young, Impartiality and the Civic Public (selections). 8. Distributive Justice. Introductory Text: Marx and the Problem of Justice: N. Scott Arnold. Selected Readings: Karl Marx, Preface to Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (selections). Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (selections). Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program (selections). John Rawls, Theory of Justice (selections). Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (selections). Index.

The Cosmological Argument and the Epistemic Status of Belief in God

The Cosmological Argument and the Epistemic Status of Belief in God

The Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Possibility of an Actually Infinite Future

The Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Possibility of an Actually Infinite Future

The Hume-Edwards Principle and the Cosmological Argument

The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God claims that the universe is as a whole contingent and the only possible explanation for its existence is that it has been created by a necessary entity or entities, where a necessary being (or, alternatively, a self-explainer) would be one for which a sound ontological argument holds, even though finite humans might not be smart enough to find this ontological argument or to verify its premises. This paper will follow the tradition of Samuel Clarke's version of the Cosmological Argument.1 One famous attack against the Cosmological Argument has been to the effect that an infinite chain of contingent causes could also provide a sufficient explanation for the existence of the universe even if the chain had no first element. Were the universe such a chain, then every entity would be explained through the causal efficacy of some entity further down in the chain, and Hume has argued that this would provide a sufficient explanation of the universe as a whole (or of the universe considered as an individual). Hume's argument is based on the principle that if each element of a collection is given a causal explanation, then the aggregate of all the elements has likewise been explained. Reacting doubtless to Clarke's argument, Hume wrote: Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should