Platonic View of God, Cosmological Argument, Part Two
The arguments traditionally used to prove God's existence are the
cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument and
the ontological argument. Respectively, these are the arguments from
the cosmos, from design, from moral law and from the idea of an absolute
perfect being.
A survey of Cosmological Arguments. The basic idea of this argument is that, since there is a universe rather than none at all, it must have been caused by something beyond itself. This reasoning is based on the law of causality, which says that every finite or contingent thing is caused right now by something other than itself.
Aristotle: Unmoved Mover. Plato's (428-348 B.C.) student Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) gave further sophistication to his teacher's argument for God. In its strongest form, Aristotle's cosmological argument is unfolded in the article on Aristotle. Aristotle's argument presupposed a polytheistic universe. He moved from the fact of change and its movement to the existence of pure actualities or unmoved movers. These necessary beings can act upon contingent beings. They move potential change so that it becomes actualized change. Aristotle's cosmology postulated dozens of unmoved movers, but ultimately one heaven and one God. For only material things can be numerically differentiated.
Noteworthy about Aristotle's argument is that it introduces the question of an infinite regress of causes. Aristotle struggles with a view that there must have been a plurality of first causes, but unlike Plato's "Demiurgos," Aristotle's First Cause is a final cause.
This purposing cause should not, however, be confused with the efficient or producing cause of later Christian thinkers. Neither Plato's World Soul, Former or Demiurgos, nor Aristotle's unmoved Mover is identical with the absolutely perfect Being of Christian theism. Aristotle's unmoved Mover was not a personal God and had not a personal God and had no religious significance no worship was due this pantheon. The First Cause was not infinite. Only what is formless or indefinite could be considered infinite to that Greeks.
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