Cosmological Logic

Logic Level 1

$\text{A)}$ $\text{Everything that has a beginning had a cause.}$

$\text{B})$ $\text{The universe had a beginning.}$

Therefore:

$\text{C) ?}$

The universe did not have a cause The universe caused itself The universe has always existed The universe had a cause

1 solution

David Stiff
Feb 4, 2019

This is a paraphrase of the Kalam cosmological argument , which is in the form of a syllogism .

A syllogism makes a statement about a category , shows a specific thing to be in that category , and then applies the initial statement to the specific thing . (It's like saying if A = B and B = C, then A = C)

In our case, the argument says that there is a cause (the statement ) to all things with a beginning (the category ).

The universe (the specific thing ) has a beginning (the category ).

Therefore, there is a cause (the statement ) to the universe (the specific thing ).

For similar syllogisms, see this article .

Lol the website you mentioned has very very bad usages of formal logics. This is the type of logic that rhetorics used in Ancient Greece. These type of arguments have initial assumptions so that the arguments they are forming is correct. Let's look at the moral argument.

If God does not exist, objective morals do not exist.
Objective morals exist.
Therefore, God exists.

This is the type of arguments that are usually used by religionists. So what is the initial assumption? They mentioned that morals cannot exist without god. This is a very problematic assumption that you neither can verify nor falsify it. Many people do not care about hidden assumptions and religious fanatics generally use them to manipulate their logic.

Yetkin Pulcu - 1 year, 9 months ago

Hi Yetkin. It is certainly true that arguments such as the one you quoted are themselves based on initial assumptions. In fact, all arguments of this and similar forms must of necessity be based on initial assumptions. It's sort of like how we can prove things in geometry using formal proofs, and yet these proofs are in turn based upon other assumed truths, usually truths such as Euclid's postulates. Euclid's postulates are impossible to prove, yet they are assumed to be true by mathematicians the world over!

In the article you referred to, the authors made a reasonable assumption: Objective morals come from God. They said objective because human morals will always be subjective, that is, varying from person to person. Thus, objective morals could only come from a non-human, uncreated source. This source must therefore be God. And further, this is not a man-made god either. For if the god is man-made, it could not define objective morals, being created. This God is the God even mathematicians refer to and speak of, the God who has always existed, and is the creator and origin of everything.

And so you see, while there does exist an inherent assumption, one can make a very good case for the validity of this assumption.

David Stiff - 1 year, 9 months ago

Cosmological Logic

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