The cosmological argument of God’s existence is a whole family of arguments designed to explain the reason for the universe’s existence. Thomas Aquinas argues that among the things whose existence should be analyzed, there are contingent entities whose existence depends on other entities. He claims that people need a causal explanation for things in motion, for things that are a cause themselves, and for contingent entities. The universe had a beginning. Therefore, it also had a cause. This cause outside the universe is God. Critics would say that some things are caused by other perceivable reasons, but that does not solve the main question of causation. The cosmological argument claims that these other reasons must also have their own cause, and this cannot go on indefinitely. Therefore, the ultimate cause of the world’s existence is God.
One of the counterarguments to the cosmological approach lies in the concept itself. If there is an ultimate cause, that is, God, who has existed forever, and it does not need a cause of its own, then why does not the same principle apply to the universe? An eternal entity can successfully be replaced by a sum of energy that is the universe and that exists in many different forms.
The matter has necessary existence because, although it is subject to changes, the amount of matter in the universe is conserved. As conserved, matter has no cause and does not need a cause – just like God. This is consistent with the physics law of conservation of mass and energy, according to which matter and energy never disappear but are transformed into each other. Thus, being indestructible, the matter is an ultimate cause that has existed forever and can successfully replace God in the cosmological argument.
In my opinion, the emergence of a perfect, omnipotent being who created the world seems much more absurd than the accidental, spontaneous emergence of the universe. By adding God to the chain of causes, we take a step back from the root cause without explaining why anything even arose. The cosmological argument simply states that it did due to the work of God, but why God would do it remains unexplained. Ultimately, even if we agree that the world should have a beginning, it is completely incomprehensible why this beginning should be recognized as an omnipotent and omniscient God, not the Big Bang or something else.
