God’s Existence: The Cosmological Argument

Does our study of the universe point to a creator? The Cosmological argument answers that modern astronomy, which posits the Big Bang Theory as the explanation of the beginning of the universe, does indeed point to a creator. Astrophysics at the highest level has long since accepted that the universe is expanding, and this expansion points to an initial time at which the universe began. The cosmological argument takes this information and applies it to classical philosophical arguments dating back to Plato. The history of this argument and the ways it has changed throughout the history of philosophy will aid in understanding its importance today.

Plato first presented this argument in relation to movement in the third century BC. Plato held that because there is change and movement in the world, there had to be a point in time where something caused the motion to start. Aristotle titled the initiator of movement as “the unmoved mover.” They both held that anytime something in the world moved, one could trace the source of this movement to a cause, therefore the movement and change that our universe displayed must have been started by something greater that was itself, unmoved.

The Idea of the unmoved mover was later picked up by a Muslim philosopher named Avicenna who lived from 982-1037 AD. Late in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas relied heavily upon Avicenna as he focused on the issue of causality in his famous work Summa Theologia. Thomas actually developed five methods of proving the existence of God through reason and dubbed these as The Five Ways. One of these was called the argument from First Cause. Like the previous forms of this argument, the argument from first cause refers to the beginning of our universe, the point at which the chain of cause and effect first began. This is important because Thomas, like many men before him, began this argument with the assumption that all things which exist in our universe must have a beginning.

It was not until the twentieth century that astronomers began to make giant leaps in their field, and through the use of higher mathematics in both physics and astronomy, it was proven that the universe is in fact uniformly expanding. This led to the development of the Big Bang Theory, which was initially presented by a Belgian physicist and Roman Catholic priest named Georges Lamaitre. In time, the Big Bang has been accepted as the most likely scenario for the formulation of the universe.

There were a few other ideas present at the time, but each of them centered around the idea that the universe was eternal. Scientists wishing to avoid the possible religious effect that would follow from Big Bang cosmology presented various ideas to explain the movement of the universe. One of the most popular alternative theories states that the universe is eternally expanding and retracting. The problem here is that an actual infinite in our reality is not possible. This is best explained through the work of German mathematician David Hilbert in The Paradox of the Grand Hotel. He proves that the idea of an infinite anything in reality is nonsensical. This includes an infinite number of causes into the past.

Therefore, based upon the impossibility of an infinite regression into the past, there must be a first cause and beginning for everything in existence within the parameters of the space and time which we know as our universe. Theism is the only possible explanation for how the universe came into existence, because God is outside of time and space, as a metaphysical, transcendent being. This leads us to the modern expression of the Cosmological argument.

William Lane Craig, a research professor at Talbot School of Theology, has crafted his version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Craig has risen to become one of the most accomplished apologists of the twentieth century and his work in this specific area is one of the reasons why. His argument can be stated in these propositions:

1.)    Anything that begins to exists, has a cause for its existence.

2.)    The universe began to exist (based upon the impossibility of an infinite number of past causes).

3.)    Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

4.)    If there is a cause of the universe, it must be outside of the time space relationship relative to the universe, and could not be scientific (meaning it could not happen according to laws of nature).

5.)    Therefore, the cause of the universe must be personal (acting according to rational direction).