I’m writing a thesis on new philosophical arguments for God and one of the arguments that I intend to include in my thesis is a cosmological argument of my supervisor, the Dutch philosopher Emanuel Rutten, found in his Towards a Renewed Case for Theism (2012), which seemingly has not received very much attention yet. This cosmological argument is an argument for a first cause, in the sense of “an uncaused cause whose effect is ontologically prior to every other caused object” (p.124). The argument draws on atomism, the view on which each composite object is in the end composed of simple objects, and causalism, the view that every object is caused by or is the cause of another object. If an object, A, is ontologically prior to another object, B, A’s existence is required for B’s existence, but B’s existence is not required for A’s existence. Rutten’s argument is as follows (see p.126-127):

1. There are objects,
2. Every composite object is ultimately composed of simple objects (atomism),
3. Every object is caused by or is the cause of another object (causalism),
4. The sum of all caused simple objects, if not empty, is an object,
5. The cause of an object is disjoint with that object,
6. Every caused composite object contains a caused proper part,
7. There is a first cause (conclusion).

In addition to a defense of the premises, Rutten provides a five-step derivation of the conclusion from the premises: (1) showing that every caused composite contains a caused simple, (2) showing that the sum of all caused simples, M, is an object, (3) showing that M is not a cause, (4) showing that A, the cause of M, is uncaused, and (5) showing that A is a first cause (see p.127-128). Moreover, Rutten devotes a chapter to possible objections to his argument. As of yet, however, the argument does not seem to have faced very much scrutiny from other professional philosophers. I am still in the process of reflecting on the argument, and I hope this blog post will help me with that. I’m skeptical about the argument, but mere skepticism is somewhat cheap. Having a good objection to the argument is arguably more significant. Now, there are different sorts of objections we could have against this argument. I don’t see much promise in arguing against its validity (the argument is plausibly valid) and I don’t know a good parody or parity objection to the argument. That pretty much leaves de jure objections and de facto objections.

When it comes to these sorts of objections I see some possibilities, especially when it comes to premises 3 and 4. Rutten’s defense of premise 4 arguably depends largely on it being the case that a sum of objects is an object if it is a demarcated natural kind (see p.132-134). It seems to me that this is a vulnerability which might be targeted by various sorts of objections. One might try to argue, for instance, that connectedness is necessary for objecthood (if a lump of clay is split in two it seems there are now two objects), or that this view leads to absurd or unacceptable conclusions (e.g. God is (partially) part of an object, namely the sum of all simples). More promising is perhaps an objection against premise 3. It seems that Rutten may need the cause of the sum of all caused simples to be an object to get to a (unified) first cause (see p.156-157). For, arguably, if M was caused by the mere sum of two different uncaused objects, A and B, which are not two parts of a single object, and each of them caused 1/2 of the caused simples part of M, then there is not necessarily a first cause. For that to be the case there has to be a cause with an effect that is ontologically prior to every other caused object. But the effect of A or B arguably need not be ontologically prior to the effect of the other, and the sum of A and B is not necessarily an object, and, more importantly, A and B are not part of a single object. Of course, because of premise 3 this problem is avoided; on premise 3, if M is an object and is not the cause of another object, M is caused by another object (cf. p.125n175). But against this premise we may offer an objection along the following lines: ‘If premise 3 is true, there is no object which is caused by multiple objects and is not caused by only one object. There is an object which is caused by multiple objects and is not caused by only one object. Therefore, premise 3 is false.’ That being said, it may not be an easy task to show or make plausible that there is such a multi-caused object. In any case, these are some thoughts on Rutten’s cosmological argument.

A better objection to the third premise, and I write this as a later addition to the thoughts above, is a de jure objection which argues that the third premise is just as likely true as the causal thesis that every object causes or co-causes another object or is caused by an object or a mere sum of objects. The problem with is that this causal thesis cannot, within the present argument, take the place of the third premise, because then the conclusion no longer follows from the premises.