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Cosmological argument: Difference between revisions
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{{cquote|This is a classic straw-man fallacy. No cosmological argument claims that "everything must have a cause." Rather, these arguments (in their varied forms) have claimed that there is something about the universe itself--either its contingency and need for explanation or its finitude in time--that requires a cause beyond itself, a cause that is self-existent and without need of a cause.<ref>Douglass Groothuis, ''Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith'' (IVP Academic 2011), pg. 209</ref>|}} | {{cquote|This is a classic straw-man fallacy. No cosmological argument claims that "everything must have a cause." Rather, these arguments (in their varied forms) have claimed that there is something about the universe itself--either its contingency and need for explanation or its finitude in time--that requires a cause beyond itself, a cause that is self-existent and without need of a cause.<ref>Douglass Groothuis, ''Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith'' (IVP Academic 2011), pg. 209</ref>|}} | ||
Robin Le Poidevin is another philosopher who is guilty of attempting to eschew the classical cosmological argument. Both he and Daniel Dennett have articulated within their writings attempts against the cosmological argument. Edward Feser, another philosopher, is especially taken aback by the popular level works of Le Poidevin and Dennett, among others, and ends up calling them "intellectually dishonest" and what Feser has coined as "meta-sophistry".<ref>[http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/09/meta-sophistry.html Meta-sophistry] Edward Feser blog</ref> Feser states that the reason why approaches of misrepresentation are futile is because; | |||
{{cquote|... none of the best-known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this stupid argument. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not al-Ghazali, not Maimonides, not Aquinas, not Duns Scotus, not Leibniz, not Samuel Clarke, not Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, not Mortimer Adler, not William Lane Craig, not Richard Swinburne. | {{cquote|... none of the best-known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this stupid argument. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not al-Ghazali, not Maimonides, not Aquinas, not Duns Scotus, not Leibniz, not Samuel Clarke, not Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, not Mortimer Adler, not William Lane Craig, not Richard Swinburne. | ||
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