Exploring the Possibility of Updating the Cosmological...

Exploring the Possibility of Updating the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God The term cosmological comes from the Greek language, meaning ‘world’ or ‘universe.’ The argument is based on facts about the world. The topic of cosmology refers to the study of the universe. The cosmological argument begins with a general claim about the physical universe e.g. that some events have causes and that there must be a supernatural agent to somehow explain this fact. The argument seems to say that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, they have to stop somewhere. One scholar who supports this idea is St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas invented the ‘five ways’ by which he tried to demonstrate†¦show more content†¦Although, we also have no reason to believe that they are false. The five ways also asks how can the cosmological argument avoid contradicting itself. For example, if nothing causes itself how can there be a first cause, which does not require a cause other than itself. The cosmological argument can work on the assumption that the cause of existing things is not a thing, in which case the above contradiction would disappear. Leibniz put forward the cosmological argument. He argues that the ‘great principle’ of this argument is that â€Å"nothing takes place without a sufficient reason.†[2] Leibniz went onto formulate a version of the cosmological argument similar to, but also different from that of Aquinas. In place of Aquinas’ idea that every event has a cause, Leibniz observed that every event must have a sufficient reason for its existence, since nothing happens without a reason. But everything can also be explained with reference to something else within the world. Therefore the reason why there is something at all rather than nothing must come from outside the world. For a sufficient reason to account for such things there must be a being, which is able to create existence. Such a being must exist of itself because there is something rather than nothing. Therefore a necessary being exists, which we call god. Copleston formulated three