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Question: Criticisms Of Various Cosmological Arguments!?
Does anyone know the criticisms for the following cosmological arguments!. I would be very gratefull:

Plato's Way Of Motion
Aquinas' 5 Way
The Kalam Argument
William Lane Craig's Version Of The Kalam Argument
Edward Miller's Version Of The Kalam Argument
Gottfried Leibniz's Principle Of Sufficient Reason Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
EDIT: Lots of arguments = Long post!.

I'm not familiar with Plato's Way of Motion!.!.!.perhaps I know it by another name, it just doesn't come to mind as a Cosmological Argument that I recognize!. Maybe similar to Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover!?" If so, it'll be covered under thoughts on the other arguments!.

I think true power of all cosmological arguments is that, intuitively, they seem true!. They're always powerful until really subjected to analysis!.

Aquinas' Ways implied that there must have been a first cause in time!. This set off the chain of events: for instance, causes and effects (Second Way), or motion (First Way)!. In all three ways, Aquinas rejects infinite regress of motion, or causes etc!. more or less out of hand without actually demonstrating why this is so!. Thus, he concludes that there must have been a first cause!. A "first mover" which he and all people call "God!."

In the Third Way, Aquinas says that all matter in the universe is contingent, or depends on something else, and can "not-be!." Thus, there must have been a time when nothing existed!. Later, all material things must have been brought into existence by a being external to the universe!. This relies on the universe as simply being the totality of all matter!.

Aquinas is confident that there can't be an infinite regress!. I admit that we find it very hard to comprehend the notion of actual infinity, and it is possible to come up with all sorts of paradoxes which make infinity look like an impossible number!. Edward Miller and William Lane Craig, as well as a couple of Islamic scholars before Aquinas' time, have written about many of these extensively, so I won't go into them!.

The idea seems to be to show that you can't fit the concept of indivisible infinity into our universe of finite things, so it isn't a valid concept inside our universe!. Unforunately, all the argument really says is that we have intuitive difficulties imagining infinity!. It's an argument from personal incredulity: "I can't imagine it, so it must not be true!."

The key flaw in this line of reasoning is that our imaginations are a poor guide as to what properties the universe can have!. The Kalam argument effectively requires this!.

The universe as a whole is not an ordinary finite 'object', it is what finite objects constitute parts of it!. We have no reason to assume that the same principles must apply!. This can be said of both contingency of material objects and their obeying of the laws of cause and effect!. We have only ever witnessed these properties and objects within the universe!. It would be going beyond what we know to conclude that the universe itself has a cause or is contingent!. In short, considering the universe as "just another thing" is an assumption that's never supported!. Intuitively, it seems true!.

This intuitive power is in Leibniz's "Principle of Sufficient Reason," which runs that there must be some fact which completely explains existence (I'll ignore that there's no reason for it to be "one fact" for now)!. There's an intuitive appeal of thinking that if there were no such sufficient reason(s) for everything to depend on, there would be nothing!. However, even this cause/reason must exist, so it can't really be the cause of all existence!. Leibniz alos said that God must have created everything for a reason, so cannot be used to argue for God's existence without going into the realm circularity thinking unless we can find another reason to accept it besides intuition!.

A more powerful case against just about all versions is that cosmological arguments depends on the difficulty of seeing God as "a necessary being," or the cause of Himself!. We don't know that necessary existence is a realistic concept!. And even if it is, why not think that the Universe itself be considered the first, necessary cause!? Since we cannot begin to comprehend the notion of necessity, we have no reason to assume it can belong to Gods, but not to universes!.

Occam's Razor reminds us not to multiply entities unless they really help us explain our experience!. At first sight, it might seem like positing a Creator does this!. But unless we can explain why He created the universe, and why He is necessary, God helps explain nothing!. It is best to follow Occam's Razor and not posit such a mysterious being dwelling outside the universe without a good reason!.

Putting God forward as the first cause, and then claiming he was always there, is just to treat him as a mere "fact of existence!." It shifts the problem to why he, rather than the universe, has no cause!. It's never very satisfactory to call something a mere fact, but we don't have an alternative for now!. We had best make it the universe, which we at least know exists!.

Now, we can suppose someday that somebody finds a new form that really puts more than intuitive force into a cosmological argument, and it succeeds completely and shows the existence of some first cause of the universe, outside the universe!. This person has one more hurdle: it doeWww@QuestionHome@Com

It might be easier if you explained what you understood by each of those terms!.Www@QuestionHome@Com