Can Causal Chains Extend Back Infinitely? Entailment, Determinism, and a Cosmological Argument

• Authors: Dumsday Travis
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

I develop a new argument to the effect that past causal chains cannot extend back infinitely, but must instead terminate in a first uncaused cause (or causes). It has the advantage of sidestepping a historically prominent objection to cosmological arguments of this general type, one leveled by Aquinas and various other Scholastics.

Keywords

EN

causation; cosmological argument; determinism; God; infinite regress; theism

• Publisher: Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie
• Journal: Forum Philosophicum
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 193–208

Dates

delivered

2014-08-17

accepted

2015-04-17

Contributors

author

Dumsday Travis

• Concordia University of Edmonton

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.5840/forphil20141922

URI

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=103358929&lang=pl&site=ehost-live

URI

http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2014_0019_0002_0193_0208