The History of the Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God Essay

Early elements of the Cosmological Argument were developed by the world renowned philosophers Plato and Aristotle between the years 400 and 200 BC (Boeree). Medieval philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas expanded upon their ideas in the late 13th Century when he wrote, â€Å"The Five Ways.† Since then the Cosmological Argument has become one of the most widely accepted and criticized arguments for the existence of God. My objective in this paper is to explain why the Cosmological Argument is a reasonable argument for the existence of God, the importance of understanding that it is an inductive a posteriori argument, and defend my position against common opposing arguments. To begin, as living human beings on the planet earth we can safely conclude that most everything in existence has a cause. We observe that there is a cause behind the flat tire we receive while driving to school. There is a cause behind why we earned a failing grade in Philosophy. There is a cause behind why our bodies feel pain. And there is even a cause for why moss grows heaviest on the North side of trees. Saint Thomas Aquinas argues that everything in existence has a cause and therefore all things are contingent and finite. That is to say, â€Å"Everything in nature can both exist and not exist, given that we find things in nature to come into and pass out of existence† (Ruckaber, 2009). Modern philosophers understand this assertion by Saint Thomas to mean that all things in nature are contingent on a first cause in order to exist. Saint Thomas argues that this first cause must be God because before the Universe came into existence there had to have been a necess ary or non-contingent being to serve as first cause. To help clarify the relationship b... ...things finite and contingent must have a cause; next, I argued that no contingent thing can be the cause of itself; and finally I added that a chain of causes cannot be infinite. In conclusion, there must have been a necessary being which served as the first cause of the Universe. This necessary being can be referred to as God. I make this conclusion due to my understanding of the evidence given above and the fact that there are no reasonable arguments that beyond reasonable doubt can prove otherwise. In addition, it is my finding that the roots of the Cosmological Argument are firmly cemented in a posteriori observation (induction), as opposed to purely rational thought which is deductive. Knowing how this argument is classified is imperative because it is essential to understanding the structure of the argument and how it arrives at its conclusion.