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A* 35/40 Aquinas cosmological argument essay - Philosophy Religious studies

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Module
G571 - AS Philosophy of Religion

Institution
OCR

This essay follows the question "How convincing is Aquinas' cosmological argument as a demonstration of the existence of God? " This essay had received an A* at 35/40 mark and was written in timed conditions. Also, it is a good guide to essays as it covers key and wider information.

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Uploaded on March 3, 2024
Number of pages 3
Written in 2021/2022
Type Essay
Professor(s) Unknown
Grade A+

How convincing is Aquinas' cosmological argument as a demonstration of the
existence of God? (40 marks)

Aquinas, a Christian philosopher, proposed the Cosmological Argument in an attempt
to show God's existence which in this essay I will discuss on why the cosmological
argument is mainly not a good demonstration to prove God's existence but rather
could be used to describe there being a uncaused causer and mover that doesn’t
necessarily mean a God as Aquinas relies and assumes too much of the idea of there
being a God. I will be using Aquinas’s three ways of motion, causation and
contingency as well as the arguments of Hume, Russell, Augustine and science to
show this viewpoint.
Aquinas uses an a posteriori approach within his cosmological argument as he uses
observation for his findings. Aquinas’ first concept of motion is taken from the
Aristotelian concept of movement as Aristotle wrote that “all things that are in
motion must be moved by something.” Aquinas suggests that everything in this world
is in motion, which we can clearly see, so there must be a first, unmoved mover that
causes the motion of all things which that unmoved mover is what we call God.
A strength of this us that it is a good and simple argument for Humans to
understand. This is because humans use a posteriori logic daily which we can observe
that the world is in motion ourselves and it is in our understanding that everything
does have a cause which exists outside its own essence or self. It is also appeals
strongly to empiricists as well as human reason and logic. For example, We as
humans were caused by our parents and the universe was caused by the big bang.
The big bang requires matter to take place which logically speaking that would have
to be caused by something which Aquinas would argue that this cause of something
would have been God. This also means that the cosmological argument uses science
for the theory as the big bang theory supports it making it even easier for humans to
understand today as due to using science to back the theory up. However, a problem
with it being an a posteriori approach it causes a problem as Augustine says that
human logic is flawed as they are imperfect which Plato also says as empirical
knowledge is flawed as those who use empirical knowledge is trapped from seeing
the truth which is shown through the allegory of the cave. Due to all of this Aquinas’s
motion is a persuasive way to show the proof of God because whilst it uses science
to back it up it uses a posteriori and empirical knowledge which isn’t always reliable
as humans make mistakes on what is the truth. So by using a posteriori it for the
existence of God it must be unreliable. However the big bang theory supports there
being an uncaused cause which doesn’t necessarily mean it is God.

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