What Philosophy Is

The Cosmological Proof of God’s Existence

As you read the material for the next class, keep the questions below in mind. To answer these questions you will have to reflect critically on what you have read and possibly re-read important passages. Keep in mind that there are two basic kinds of information that you need to look for in the readings.

  1. What are the main points or conclusions that an author accepts with respect to a particular issue?
  2. What are the reasons or important considerations that lead the author to accept that conclusion?

For our purposes, it is information of the latter sort (2) that will be our primary concern since our most basic task is to evaluate the reasons that are offered to support accepting one possible conclusion about an issue, rather than another.

Although I strongly suggest that you write out brief answers to these questions, you do not have to turn in written responses. You do, however, need to be prepared to speak intelligently to these issues in the next class meeting. Also, it is reasonable to assume that the final exam’s questions will be drawn from these questions—particularly those in bold.

Readings:

  • Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God” from Stephen M. Cahn (ed.), Philosophy for the 21st Century, pp. 35-36.
  • Michael Martin, “The Cosmological Argument” from Stephen M. Cahn (ed.), Philosophy for the 21st Century, pp. 37-39.

Questions:

  1. What are the first four ways that Saint Thomas Aquinas claims that God can be proven (we’ll see the fifth one next time)? For each, what assumptions does Aquinas make and how do they entail the existence of God?
  2. What two general problems does Michael Martin see with Cosmological Proofs of God’s existence? How does he see these occurring in Aquinas’ proofs? What other problems does Martin suggest?
  3. Given that they reach different conclusions, Aquinas and Martin cannot both be right. Where exactly in their respective arguments do they disagree? Which position is supported by the strongest and most compelling argument?

 

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