The First Cause Argument (AQA GCSE Religious Studies A): Revision Note

What is the first cause argument?

• The first cause or cosmological argument is an important argument for the existence of God:

  • It focuses on the idea that everything in the universe has a cause, and because the universe itself exists, there must be a first cause, and this first cause is believed to be God

• The logic behind why Christians believe this argument to support the existence of a God is that:

  • Christians believe that everything that exists in the universe has been caused by something else:

    • For example, if a tree grows, it’s because of seeds, sunlight, water, etc. If you trace everything back, it seems that each thing is caused by something else

  • If everything has a cause, then the universe must have a cause, too

  • There must have been something that started everything, something that wasn’t caused by anything else:

    • Christians believe that this first cause is God

  • God is thought to be the uncaused cause, meaning He has no beginning and doesn’t depend on anything else for existence

  • This means He must have started everything in the universe

• The cosmological argument is a strong argument for Christians because it provides a logical explanation for why the universe exists and points to God as the source of everything:

  • The argument is consistent with their faith

  • The idea that everything has a cause makes sense to many people

• In summary, the cosmological argument suggests that everything we see around us must have come from something, and because the universe exists, it must have had a starting point, and Christians believe that point is God, the first cause

Thomas Aquinas and the first cause argument

• Thomas Aquinas was a 13th-century Christian philosopher and theologian:

  • He is one of the most important thinkers in the Catholic tradition

  • He developed arguments for the existence of God, especially in his book Summa Theologica 

  • Aquinas is famous for presenting the cosmological argument

  • He argued that because everything in the world is caused by something else, there must be a first cause that set everything in motion, and that first cause is God

• Aquinas proposed five ways to prove the existence of God, and the first three relate to the cosmological argument

The first argument: motion

• The first argument is motion and states that God is the prime mover. It argues that:

  • Everything in motion was put in motion by something else

  • Nothing can move itself

  • There cannot be an infinite chain of movers

  • Therefore, there must be a first mover that started the chain, and this is God

  • An example could be that a ball moves because someone kicks it, and that person was also moved (by nerves, energy), but something started it all

The second argument: cause

• The second argument is cause and states that God is the first cause. It argues that:

  • Everything that exists has a cause

  • Nothing can cause itself, as that would be illogical

  • There cannot be an infinite chain of causes

  • Therefore, there must be a first cause that caused everything, which is God

The third argument: contingency

• The third argument is contingency, which states that God is a necessary being:

  • Everything in the universe is contingent, meaning that it depends on something else to exist and could cease to exist

  • If everything were contingent, there could have been a time when nothing existed

  • But something must exist to bring everything else into being

  • That necessary being is God

What are the objections to the first cause argument?

• Some people believe that the first cause argument is flawed

• One objection to the argument states that if everything has a cause, then what caused God?

  • The objection argues that God should not be an exception to this logic, which seems to contradict itself

• Another objection questions why the universe itself cannot be eternal:

  • Some philosophers (such as Bertrand Russell) argue that the universe has no beginning; it just exists

  • This means that there is no need for a first cause (God)

• Some scientists would argue that the Big Bang Theory explains how the universe began through natural causes, meaning there is no need for God:

  • Many scientists believe that the universe came from a quantum fluctuation, not a divine being

• David Hume argues that just because everything within the universe has a cause doesn’t mean the universe itself needs one:

  • Hume said it is not possible to apply the rules of logic inside the universe to the universe as a whole

• While the first cause argument might prove to some that there needs to be a first cause, the argument doesn’t prove that the first cause is the Christian, Muslim or any personal God:

The cause might not be conscious, loving or even still existing