B 4 Cosmological Argumenta Vertical Aquinas 2024 08 14

Cosmological Arguments: Vertical
kalam: William Lane Craig’s formulation/ video production:
St. Aquinas
1. It’s hard to do “a little Aquinas”
2. Tries to synthesize:
Prefatory Remarks About the 1st Way: Argument from Motion
First Argument: From Motion
Second Argument: From Causality
• (Brief Aside) Accidentally Ordered Causal Series and Essentially Ordered Causal Series
Third Argument: Contingency and Necessity
Principle of Sufficient Reason: (From William Rowe)
• A Thomistic Reading
• A Leibnizian (PSR) Reading
Fourth Argument
Fifth Argument
Objections to Cosmological Arguments in General and Aquinas’ Ways In Particular
Finally
Modern Versions (sort of): The “Fine Tuning Argument”

[@ElkoJohn]

Thank you very much for your excellent series on cosmology. The atoms, molecules, and material within our existing reality represent five percent of the known universe. Does the unknown 95% contain answers to some of the hard problems/questions found in our five percent? Is the extraordinary beauty, precise fine tuning, and vast complexity of our five percent just a statistical anomaly (materialism), or is our five percent something that exists because of an informed creativity and a transcendental source beyond our grasp?