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Cosmological Arguments for Existence of God
Writing, Research, Analytic, Introspection Skills
Term Essay for Problems in Philosophy
Completed on March 2000
The complete essay is available in this web site at: Cosmological...

Introduction:

The existence of God has not been proven undoubtedly. Arguments from entrusting "holy" and historical documents, design arguments, the "ontological argument" and cosmological arguments seek to prove the existence of God from distinct point of views. The cosmological arguments raise the question of "how things are here?". In attempt to answer the question they assert the existence of God. The purpose of this essay is to show how cosmological arguments try to answer "how things are here?", and why they are inadequate in answering the question and in proving the existence of God. First, the two main versions of the cosmological arguments will be outlined. Then, the assumptions about causality and knowledge upon which they are based will be evaluated. Finally, a personal assessment is forwarded in regard to which arguments holds the strongest and why they ultimately fail to prove the existence of God. Also, the relevance of the "big Bang" theory in relation to causality and the issue of "beginnings" will be discussed.

Primary Conclusion:

To summarize, in the past the cosmological arguments have been a valuable way of asserting the existence of a Supreme Being. However, the development of science and quantum physics has shown many of its premises and assumptions to be false. Including the premise that everything must have cause, and that "everything possible not to be"(Aquinas, 5) have been proven false. Moreover, the assumption of God being an exception to the nature of the universe paralyses the argument capability to ever prove the existence God rationally. The issue of the "beginnings" and the Big Bang theory become important in revising cosmological arguments. Even so, whatever the cosmological argument reduce need not be "the God". Therefore, cosmological arguments fail to show us "the God".