Cosmological Argument

Warburton points out that the design arguments are empirical; that they are based on direct observation of the universe. The First Cause or Cosmological Argument is instead based merely on the fact that the universe exists. This is important for understanding the Argument, its objections, and the responses to those objections.

The Argument states:

1. Whatever exists has a cause.
2. The universe exists.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Notice God is not attributed to being this universal "cause". If he was, we would have the objection Warburton raises first. The Argument is self-contradictory because it shows that nothing exists that is uncaused and yet doesn't apply this premise to God. He is the uncaused cause. By the logic of the Argument, wouldn't we be justified in asking, "what caused God?"

The atheist conversely promotes the view that the universe is eternal, an infinite regression of causes. But that would violate premise (1) because the infinite string of causes, namely, the always-existing universe, is causeless. It is the one exception. Just like God in the alternative.

This is why I prefer the Argument as structured above for its simplicity and its invitation to investigate the nature of the concluded-upon cause. Inevitably we are forced to "empiricize" the Argument further than simply that the universe exists in order to improve its force in proving God's existence.

Let's return to the idea of an infinite regression of causes. This is preferred by atheists to the standard Big Bang model because it escapes the need to explain the original cause, the "big banger". An eternal universe is not a new idea, the Greeks assumed it, and the modern cosmologist seeking to avoid the implications of the Big Bang devises clever alternate theories all based on an infinite universal past. (Multiverses, for example)

But can an actually infinite number of real things actually exist? A potentially infinite number of things can surely exist: a given distance can be divided in half, those halves into fourths, those fourths into eighths, on and on into infinity. But can an actual infinite number of things exist?

Contemporary mathematics says no, simply because real, actually infinite progressions produce self-contradictions. For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Zero, you might respond, but consider this: if you had an actually infinite progression and subtracted every odd item, 1, 3, 5, etc. on into infinity, your math problem's solution, infinity minus infinity, now equals infinity (every even item), not zero! So an actually infinite series cannot exist, they are just ideas.

Now, accepting that the universe has a cause, and since time and space itself came about as a result of the Big Bang, we can deduce that that cause is transcendent, that is, outside space and time. Since the idea of casuality is bound to time-space, we have ample reason to conclude the universe's ultimate cause is an un-caused cause, so as to avoid Warburton's objection of self-contradiction.

His final objection is the same as with the design arguments: that the Argument is limited in what it proves of the theists' traditional definition of God. I concede this, with some modifications to what Warburton says the Argument does show about God. We agree the Argument shows an all-powerful God able to create everything within time and space. Warburton however denies that the Argument proves omniscience. I contend it does, since an effect cannot be greater than its cause (the so-called Principle of Causality). It would be absurd to claim that God created a universe that contains more knowledge than he as Creator possesses. He would have to possess at least as much knowledge as is in his "effect," or Creation, and since the idea of knowledge existing outside our universe is pure speculation, we may at this time conclude God to be omniscient from the Cosmological Argument.

Theist philosophers also contend the Argument shows a personal, rather than mechanical, first-cause, because for a transcendent cause to make a temporal effect, it has to be a personal agent freely choosing to cause an effect in the temporal realm. If the transcendent cause were mechanical, its effect would be, logically, likewise transcendent, not temporal.

The Cosmological Argument is mute on God's all-goodness, due to the fact of the existence of evil and suffering in the universe he caused to exist. This will be addressed in a later argument.

Design Arguments

The basic design or teleological argument goes as follows:

1. Every design must have a designer.
2. There is evidence of design throughout the universe.
3. Therefore, this universal design must have a universal designer.
4. This universal designer is "God".

Inherent to this argument is an analogy: what we define as design as it is embodied in what we know are designed objects, pocketwatches for example, and natural elements of the universe. Warburton calls this a weak analogy because the similarities between a pocketwatch and say, the human eye, are very general. Both are complex "machines" that fulfill their intended purpose. Compare this to a stronger analogy: a cat is like a kitten, where similarities are much more precise. Being a weak analogy doesn't nullify the logic of the argument, but it does reduce its force, since conclusions drawn from vague analogies will be correspondingly vague. I agree with Warburton on this, which is why I prefer other versions of the design argument.

However, there are other objections to the basic argument I'd like to respond to before going on. First is the explanatory power of Darwinian evolution in relation to design. Granted that design appears in nature, evolution by natural selection (or survival of the fittest) explains this without God. Organisms appear "designed" because genes advantageous for the organism to flourish in its natural environment are passed on from previous generations via the mechanisms of natural selection.

Evolution has great significance for biological design, but what about cosmological design? What bearing does evolution have on the physical laws and constants in place since the beginning of the universe that allow natural selection on Earth to even take place? None. Thus the explanatory scope is limited and therefore has limited efficacy in reducing the force of the design argument in general.

Warburton's next objection is that God's omnipotence can not be discerned from universal design because of certain "design-flaws" observed in nature, such as the human eye's tendency toward short-sightedness or cataracts. This objection is deeply flawed for its unstated assumption: that we know what God would or wouldn't design the universe to be. Warburton assumes efficiency and neatness, or comfort and happiness would be God's only purposes in design. He imposes a very human presupposition on God. Warburton would first have to prove that God's purpose in design can even be known, then that that purpose is one of efficiency and neatness, or happiness and comfort. But he does not.

His last objection I agree with: that God's all-goodness and omniscience cannot be discerned by the design argument. Warburton cites the long-dicussed philosophical conundrum: the Problem of Evil, which makes reconciling God's goodness with the reality of human suffering difficult. I want to address this later but for now let it be that I agree the design argument is mute on the all-good and all-knowing attributes of God.

So what does the argument show? I'll return to this question after we examine what I think to be more favorable versions of the design argument I alluded to earlier.

The first is the Anthropic Principle, which states that the probability that the universe turned out to be conducive to human survival is so tiny, that we must conclude a divine designer. Indeed, science has shown us that initial conditions at key moments in the development of our universe (namely, the Big Bang and the origin of life) to be so narrowly and arbitrarily defined as to suggest a Designer who set all the "dials" to their appropriate numbers in order that we humans might be here today.

Warburton's only objection is a lottery analogy. If you won the lottery, and the initial probability that you'd win was extremelly tiny, but you played and won anyway, you wouldn't be justified in thinking something other than random chance was going on, since statistical improbabilities can still happen.

Granting improbabilities can happen by random chance, Warburton is however guilty here of his initial objection to the design argument: the weak analogy. As previously explained, science has shown numerous, independent factors that had to be just right in order to permit life (entropy and the gravitational constant for example). If you won the lottery, you might not be justified in suspecting anything other than chance, but what if you won three lotteries in one day, all equally improbable? You would begin to suspect a conspiracy. This would be a better analogy to the Anthropic Principle but Warburton does not use it because of its implications, namely that suspecting a Designer becomes more reasonable.

A variant of the Anthropic Principle is the argument from fine-tuning, which simply expands the scope of the Principle from the universe designed for human life to the universe designed first to be stable, then to permit any life (although in some versions of the Principle, these extentions are implicit). Fine-tuning is not design, but a dozen or so constants or parameters seemingly set arbitrarily so as to permit a stable and life-permiting universe. If you come across a stereo that is set to certain levels of volume, bass and treble so as to produce the best sound, you would be within reason to assume someone set them that way.

Two objections to this: chance and physical necessity. Some would say that the universe had to turn out stable and life-permitting, but this would require one to prove that it's impossible for a universe hostile to life to exist. Contemporary science cannot do that, and in fact, most research is proving the opposite: that it was more likely that the universe have collapsed after the Big Bang than otherwise. Scientists that ascribe blind chance to the fine-tuning of the universe are forced to concoct Multiverse theories so that if one had an infinite progression of universes with different values for those constants and parameters, we would eventually see a universe with life-permitting values... and lucky us! We just happen to be in one! There are a lot of problems with positing multiple universes, not the least of which is the complete lack of empirical evidence for such a claim. I'll discuss this subject more later but for now let it suffice to say science has repeatedly confirmed the standard model of the universe: that of the Big Bang, in which the universe had a beginning in the finite past, which will lead me into the next set of arguments.

So again, what do the design arguments prove? Not all of what theists believe God to be, but a good chunk. If we accept the Anthropic Principle and fine-tuning argument, we have an entity great and intelligent enough to set up a life-permitting universe with special attention to human beings. If we accept the broader design argument we have an intelligent designer great enough to account for all design in the universe.