Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:18:50.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The modal symmetry first cause argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2018

SOUFIANE HAMRI*
Affiliation:
Nyon, Switzerland

Abstract

I present a new First Cause argument that builds on modal notions to derive causal finitism, the thesis that all causal chains are of finite length. An independent uniqueness argument is then supplemented to establish the existence of a unique First Cause.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Ghazali (11th c.) Kitāb al lqtisād.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas (13th c.) Summa Theologica.Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas (13th c.) On Being and Essence.Google Scholar
Avicenna (10th c.) Najāt, Ilāhīyāt.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Thomas (1996) ‘There might be nothing’, Analysis, 56, 231238.Google Scholar
Duns Scotus, John (14th c.) Tractatus De Primo Principio.Google Scholar
Hamri, Soufiane (forthcoming) ‘On the ultimate ground of being’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.Google Scholar
Koons, Robert C. (2000) Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology, and the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Maydole, Robert E. (2000) ‘The modal third way’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 47, 128.Google Scholar
Meyer, Robert K. (1987) ‘God exists!’, Noûs, 21, 345361.Google Scholar
Pruss, Alexander R. (2001) ‘Possible worlds: what they are good for and what they are’, Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Pruss, Alexander R. (2009) ‘The Leibnizian cosmological argument’, in Craig, W. L. & Moreland, J. P. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Oxford: Blackwell), 24100.Google Scholar
Rutten, Emanuel (2014) ‘A modal-epistemic argument for the existence of god’, Faith and Philosophy, 31, 386400.Google Scholar