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    Perspectives
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    The universe has a cause of its existence. — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The universe has a cause of its existence.

    Natural Theology
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.If something has a finite past, its existence has a cause.
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    • 2.The universe has a finite past.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
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    • 2.The universe began to exist.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The causal principle 'everything that begins to exist has a cause' is an empirical generalization derived solely from experience of intra-universal events.
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    • 2.Empirical generalizations derived exclusively from experience within a domain cannot be reliably extrapolated to the origin of that domain itself.
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    • 3.Therefore the causal premise lacks the warrant needed to apply it to the universe's own coming-into-existence.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Quantum field theory permits vacuum fluctuations producing particle pairs without any prior efficient cause, suggesting uncaused beginnings are physically coherent.
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    • 2.If uncaused physical beginnings are coherent at the quantum level, the claim that all beginnings require causes is not a necessary metaphysical truth but at best a contingent regularity.
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    • 3.A merely contingent regularity is insufficient to ground the universal causal premise required by the kalām argument.
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    Topics

    Natural Theology

    Related

    A merely contingent regularity is insufficient to ground the universal causal pr...Empirical generalizations derived exclusively from experience within a domain ca...Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.If something has a finite past, its existence has a cause.
    +6 moreShow less
    If uncaused physical beginnings are coherent at the quantum level, the claim tha...Quantum field theory permits vacuum fluctuations producing particle pairs withou...The causal principle 'everything that begins to exist has a cause' is an empiric...The universe began to exist.The universe has a finite past.Therefore the causal premise lacks the warrant needed to apply it to the univers...

    Similar

    The universe has a cause of its becoming93%The universe must have arisen from a necessarily existent Being who ca...86%The universe began to exist.85%The universe exists necessarily.84%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: cosmological-argument
    Reconceived kalām argument, premises 1-2
    View source passageHide passage
    (Grünbaum 1994; Rundle 2004: 168, writes, “[T]here is no event—the beginning of the universe—to be explained, events being possible only in time”) One response to Grünbaum’s objection is to opt for broader notions of “event” and “cause”. We might broaden the notion of “event” by removing the requirement that it must be relational, taking place in a space-time context. In the Big Bang the space-time universe commences and then continues to exist in measurable time subsequent to the initiating singularity (Silk 2001: 456). Thus, one might consider the Big Bang as either the event of the commen...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The argument is explicitly stated in the source passage as a reformulation of the kalām argument, and the conclusion follows logically from the two premises via modus ponens.

    Confidence: Explicitly stated reformulated argument

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    4 (2 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit