Q&A: The Cosmological Argument
The Cosmological Argument
Question
1. An a priori assumption that everything has a cause.
2. The world exists.
Therefore the world has a cause — God.
According to the first assumption, one should ask what the cause of God is, but that would leave us without an explanation, so we have to stop at an entity that is first.
And that cannot be matter, because from experience it needs a cause.
So based on what I understood from the Rabbi, and what I did not understand, how can one use experience here? After all, experience teaches that a cause is needed to make things move or change, but we have no experience that a cause is needed for the existence of matter, so one should assume that matter is the initial cause.
(The a priori principle of causality does not prefer making God the exception any more than making the existence of matter the exception.)
If so, then the argument from laws also falls, because no cause is needed for the existence of matter, and the laws according to which matter operates are not separate from it.
Thank you.
Answer
You are assuming something I do not agree with. A cause is definitely required for everything, including the existence of things and their nature as well (at least if that nature is unique — the principle of sufficient reason). Besides, you yourself wrote that causality is an a priori assumption and not something learned from experience, so I do not understand why you go back to making it depend on experience, which exists only with regard to events and not with regard to coming-into-being.
Discussion on Answer
Leibniz and I think it is. But you do not actually have to rely דווקא on that. The principle of causality is enough here.
The principle of causality does not prefer making God the exception any more than making matter the exception
Amen to that.
Hello Rabbi,
I read what you answered him and I could not understand it, and since in my opinion Moshe’s claim is a good one, I would be happy to get more detail if possible. Why does matter itself need a cause if causality applies only to processes and not to the existence of matter itself? Why conclude that matter has a cause? What is the principle of sufficient reason?
I do not recognize the claims you put in my mouth. I very much hope I did not miss something, because what you are quoting in my name is a contradiction.
As for the principle of sufficient reason, you can search for it online or here on the site.
I will read, and if I still have another question I will open a new question
The principle of sufficient reason is not intuitive