Religion: Cosmological argument part 1

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Religion: Cosmological argument part 1발음듣기

(intro music) Hello, I'm Dr. Timothy Yenter, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Mississippi.발음듣기

I'll be talking about the cosmological argument, which we'll be breaking down into a couple of parts.발음듣기

Now, the cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of God, and like most arguments for the existence of God, it gets its name from its starting point.발음듣기

The cosmological argument starts from the existence of the cosmos, which is the collection of everything that exists.발음듣기

The basic idea at the heart of the various versions of the cosmological argument is that the existence of something, this rock, that bird flying, this universe, requires an explanation.발음듣기

This is often phrased in the following way: the existence of this object, or the whole universe, demands that there be a cause, and this cause must be God.발음듣기

Notice that this is really a two-stage argument.발음듣기

The first stage is to establish that there must be a cause.발음듣기

The second stage is to explain what this cause is like.발음듣기

In these talks, I will be focusing on the first stage, but at the end I'll have a little bit to say about what we could know about the cause of the universe from these arguments.발음듣기

The cosmological argument has two versions.발음듣기

It actually has many versions, but I'll be talking about two of them.발음듣기

The first one, I'll call "the beginnings argument."발음듣기

It's sometimes also called "the Kalam argument."발음듣기

Then the second one is the modal argument.발음듣기

And I'll explain what those terms mean.발음듣기

You don't need to know what they are yet.발음듣기

The beginnings argument is that whatever begins to exist must have a cause.발음듣기

The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.발음듣기

Two premises and a conclusion. A very simple, direct argument, but one with potentially profound implications.발음듣기

We'll begin by examining the second premise.발음듣기

There are two kinds of arguments that attempt to show that the second premise is true: philosophical arguments and scientific arguments.발음듣기

The philosophical arguments attempt to rule out the possibility that the universe exists, but has no beginning.발음듣기

So let's think about this first.발음듣기

Chances are, you're watching this on a computer.발음듣기

Where did your computer come from?발음듣기

Well, it was probably assembled in a factory from a variety of metals and plastics, which were, in turn, formed or refined in factories from materials present in the earth.발음듣기

These elements in the earth were formed through various natural processes over long periods of time.발음듣기

Each step of the way, there was some combination of matter and energy.발음듣기

And at each of these steps, we could talk about where that matter and energy came from, by describing some previous state of the world that contained matter and energy.발음듣기

And we could explain that by going back to an earlier stage, and so on.발음듣기

At each step, there is a cause that explains why things are the way the are.발음듣기

In theory, this kind of explanation could go on forever.발음듣기

Or could it? Does it make sense to talk about an infinite series of causes?발음듣기

Well, we seem to deal with infinite series all the time.발음듣기

For instance, there is an infinite series of whole numbers, that is, one, two, three, four, and so on.발음듣기

And we have an OK grasp of what that means in some obscure way.발음듣기

But does it make sense to say that there is an infinite series that has actually passed by now?발음듣기

This would be more like someone counting off the whole numbers, one per second.발음듣기

If someone were to say "one" at the first second, and "two" at the next second, and so on, could they have gone through an infinite number of seconds by now?발음듣기

Now, that's tough. A lot of ink has been spilled over whether there are real or only imagined paradoxes involving infinite series.발음듣기

Some have claimed that there is no problem at all with infinite series already passed.발음듣기

For instance, just to mention one.발음듣기

Imagine a super counter. A super counter is someone who counts like this: In the first second, they say "one."발음듣기

In the next half second, they say "two."발음듣기

In the next quarter second, they say "three."발음듣기

In the next eighth second, they say "four."발음듣기

Super counting this way, they could count an infinite number of times before the next second passes.발음듣기

As long as at least two seconds have passed in the universe, and we could all agree to that, then an infinite series has passed.발음듣기

Now some philosophers have argued that this is the wrong sort of infinite series.발음듣기

Something to think about is whether causes could work in this super counting way.발음듣기

But we will set this aside, because there's another way to defend the second premise of this version of the cosmological argument.발음듣기

The second kind of support for the claim that the universe had a beginning is that this is what our best science has shown.발음듣기

Isn't the big bang just a claim that the universe had a beginning of a particular, interesting sort?발음듣기

We have considered objections to the second premise.발음듣기

What about objections to the first premise?발음듣기

An important objection to the first premise is that the principle is a good one, but it's a good principle within the universe.발음듣기

It's not a principle that can be applied to the universe as a whole.발음듣기

This objection could be stated in various ways.발음듣기

A specific version of this response is that the big bang is not a beginning as we usually think of beginnings.발음듣기

It is not a beginning of something in time, but the beginning of time itself.발음듣기

So the usual rules do not apply.발음듣기

A second way to put this objection: by saying that there is a fallacy of composition going on.발음듣기

A fallacy of composition is saying that because the parts of an object all have a property, then so must the whole.발음듣기

It's a fallacy because, while it seems attractive, it's not a reliable argument.발음듣기

Consider this argument. All the atoms of your body are invisible to the naked eye.발음듣기

Your body is just these atoms.발음듣기

Therefore, your body is invisible to the naked eye.발음듣기

But this conclusion is obviously false, even though both the premises are true.발음듣기

Is the same mistake happening in the case of the universe having a cause because it has a beginning, in the same way that things within the universe must have a cause because they have a beginning?발음듣기

Is there some mistake going on from the move from the part to the whole?발음듣기

Perhaps to answer this question will turn on whether or not we can establish that the principle stated in the first premise is only true in our universe, or is a metaphysical principle that applies to the universe itself.발음듣기

We will consider this issue more as we work through the other version of the cosmological argument in the next video.발음듣기

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