St. Thomas Aquinas's Cosmological Argument

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1. I'm confused. What was the actual objection to Aquinas' argument? Was this just an intro video into your objections?
2. Thank you for this neat summary of St. Thomas Aquinas's argument! Very convenient
3. The voice you put on is a little annoying and distracting. There's a difference between lively and interesting and annoying and distracting. Your voice jumps around to much up and down like a vocal yo yo.
4. Is there any contingent being?
5. +Carneades.org What do you think of this argument?
   Premise 1: Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external explanation [A Version of PSR].
   Premise 2: The Universe has an explanation for its existence, and that explanation is grounded in a necessary being.
   Premise 3: The Universe exists.
   Premise 4: Therefore, the Universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
   Premise 5: Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the Universe is grounded in a necessary being (from 2, 4).
   Conclusion: Therefore, God (a necessary being) exists.
6. 1. Everything that exists was created.
   2. God wasn't created.
   3. Therefore God does not exist.
7. From a Guy who blamed lightning on demons ! lol
8. Hi Carneades, interesting video. I'm a bit confused though: is this a presentation of Aquinas's Third Way? The focus seems to be on contingency and necessity rather than motion or causation.
9. My own version of the Kalam:
   
   1. If a thing is limited in power, then its behaviour is being controlled or forced by something outside itself.
   
   2. Therefore a thing is unlimited in power if its behaviour is not forced or affected by anything outside itself.
   
   3. The whole of existence is not forced or affected by anything outside itself (since there is nothing outside it).
   
   4. Therefore the whole of existence is unlimited in power.
   
   5. Therefore something is unlimited in power.
   
   6. Therefore, God exists.
   
   (Note that step 3 does not necessarily entail that all parts of the universe are unlimited in power. For example, a team composed of you and Obama is able to declare war, but that doesn't mean that a team composed only of you is able to declare war.)
10. The cosmological fallacy is just so weak. You rarely hear it any more from academic apologists. No one can demonstrate the first premise. It's just asserted with nothing to back it up.
11. people really speak this way?
12. Jesssusssss his voice >.< :(
13. +Йордан Панталеев
    I agree. That's the next video in the series Russell's Objection to the Cosmological Argument
14. The rules applying within something do not necessarily apply to the whole thing. I.e. the set of natural numbers is a set and not a number even if everything within it is a number. So my computer, which is part of the universe, is no example that the universe must have creator. Simply, we don't know the rules applying to the universe, we only know some of those applying within it.
15. The cosmological argument is very weak. It starts with an assumption that there had to be a cause. It's simply not science.
16. Apart from the usual objection, I'd add that the opposite of contingent is 'not contingent', rather than 'necessary' (if something is necessary it ironically does imply it's contingent upon something that necessitates it..).
    
    What are your thoughts on that?
17. This argument is essentially philosophically and scientifically dead and has been for centuries.
    
    The mere fact that contingent beings such as virtual particles appear without any specific cause for their existence is proof that you don't need a "necessary being" to start the causal chain. Something that itself has no cause and yet is contingent since it also possible that it didn't exist is never considered an option by this argument but is in fact what we observe in nature and the fact that such things exists just kills this argument flat out.
    
    Of course, you cannot blame Thomas Aquinas for this, back when he lived the hottest mechanics to explain the world was Aristotelian mechanics and quantum mechanics was something they didn't even contemplate. However, we have every reason to ridicule those who want to propagate his argument in the 21st century.
    
    You might as well argue that demons and witches exists because people back then believed in those things.
    
    This argument is simply flat out wrong, it is based on a faulty understanding of how nature works. In fact all 5 of Thomas' proofs of god suffer from this problem and can therefore all be dismissed for the same reason. They rely on an understanding of the world we live in that is simply wrong.
18. The way that you are presenting this feels clumsy and un-rehearsed. You might try preparing an outline or script, and try to refrain from emphasizing every other syllable.
    
    It doesn't make sense for there to be a necessary being if there is another world in which your computer doesn't exist. Even if we knew for certain that no necessary beings existed, if there are an infinite number of completely random worlds, there is a 100% chance of this world existing exactly as it exists.
    
    We cant know whether the world where my computer doesn't exist is or is not actualized, because we don't live in that world. Assuming it isn't actualized is a philosophical reach-around meant to fabricate some kind of "intent" for the universe.
    
    Also, the infinite regress of "why" doesn't stop when you invent a necessary being to grant intent to the universe, it still applies to the necessary being, and invoking the necessary being only serves to create a circular argument for the existence of the universe. Why does the universe exist? Because the necessary being caused it to exist. Why does a necessary being exist? To create the universe... 
    
    Not to mention that we have evidence of things spontaneously coming into existence (virtual particles for example) and ceasing to exist just as spontaneously, yet are expected to believe such a thing is impossible without a causal agent behind it.
    
    All that said, I find the entire basis of the cosmological argument flawed in the sense that it allows for the possibility of never observed phenomenon, but only when it supports the intention of its own argument. I.E. God can create the universe ex nihilo, but the universe cant come to exist ex nihilo any other way.  Or that God exists timelessly, yet does temporally contingent things such as "cause" the universe to begin existing. 
19. What's with the retarded voice?
20. Aquinas didn't think we could go back in time to find a first cause that, say, brought the computer into existence.  Rather, he is arguing that, given that all these contingent beings exist, there must be a first cause of their motion.  Aquinas would have rejected the temporal cosmological argument (like the Kalam) because, following the Greeks, he thought whether the universe was eternal or had a beginning was antinomic (equally good arguments on both sides).  Aquinas believed the universe had a beginning, but he attributed this to his faith, not his arguments.