Kosmologische argumenten

In mijn proefschrift, en in een aantal artikelen en lezingen behandel ik verschillende typen kosmologische argumenten. Deze argumenten heb ik hier voor het eerst in één doorlopend betoog samengebracht, zodat een geïntegreerde cumulatieve casus van kosmologische argumenten voor het bestaan van God ontstaat.

A First Cause Argument by Duns Scotus

In his book The Cosmological Argument William L. Rowe considers a notable first cause argument developed by the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologican Duns Scotus. As Rowe notices, Scotus' argument is entirely a priori. It does not appeal to empirically observable features of the world. The first cause argument of Duns Scotus is thus quite different from the famous a posteriori first cause arguments presented by Thomas Aquinas as part of his 'Five Ways'. Duns Scotus' argument for the existence of a first cause consists of the following three modal premises:

1. It is possible that there exists a first cause,
2. It is not possible that a first cause be produced by something else,
3. If it is possible for x to exist, then if x does not actually exist it is possible for x to be produced by something else.

The conclusion that there is a first cause can be derived by reductio. Suppose that a first cause does not actually exist. According to (1) it is possible that there exists a first cause. From (3) it follows that it is possible for a first cause to be produced by something else. This contradicts premise (2). The assumption that there is no first cause must therefore be rejected. It follows that there actually exists a first cause.

The argument of Duns Scotus seems unproblematic. The premises appear intuitively sufficiently justified. Each of them looks plausible enough to be accepted as a premise for metaphysical reasoning. So, does Scotus' argument indeed warrant us to think that there actually is a first cause?