TY - JOUR AB - 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. AD - Concordia University of Edmonton, 7128 Ada Blvd., Edmonton, Alberta T5B 4E4, Canada travis.dumsday@concordia.ab.ca AU - Dumsday, Travis DO - 10.5840/forphil20141922 KW - causation; cosmological argument; determinism; God; infinite regress; theism LA - en M1 - 2 M3 - Article PY - 2014 RN - Bonnette, Dennis. Aquinas’ Proofs for God’s Existence: St. Thomas Aquinas on “The Per Accidens Necessarily Implies the Per Se.” The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972. Brown, Patterson. “Infinite Causal Regression.” Philosophical Review 75 (1966): 510–525. Clarke, W. Norris. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. Craig, William Lane. “The Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Hypothesis of a Quiescent Universe.” Faith and Philosophy 8 (1991): 104–108. Dumsday, Travis. “Why Thomistic Hylomorphism Implies (Something Like) Big-Bang Cosmology.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 85 (2012): 69–78. doi:10.5840/acpaproc2011857. Fox, John. “Truthmaker.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (1987): 188–207. Feser, Edward. “Existential Inertia and the Five Ways.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85 (2011): 237–67. doi:10.5840/acpq201185214. Koons, Robert. “A New Look at the Cosmological Argument.” American Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1997): 193–211. Leftow, Brian. “A Modal Cosmological Argument.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 24 (1988): 159–188. Mackie, J. L. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Meynell, Hugo. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. O’Connor, Timothy. Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Rasmussen, Joshua. “From States of Affairs to a Necessary Being.” Philosophical Studies 148 (2010): 183–200. doi:10.1007/s11098-008-9293-2. Rota, Michael. “Infinite Causal Chains and Explanation.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 81 (2007): 109–122. doi:10.5840/acpaproc2007818. Sadowsky, James. “The Cosmological Argument and the Endless Regress.” International Philosophical Quarterly 4 (1980): 465–467. Yandell, Keith E. Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Religion. Boston: Ally & Bacon, 1971. SN - 1426-1898 (paper) 2353-7043 (online) SP - 193–208 ST - Can Causal Chains Extend Back Infinitely? Entailment, Determinism, and a Cosmological Argument T2 - Forum Philosophicum TI - Can Causal Chains Extend Back Infinitely? Entailment, Determinism, and a Cosmological Argument UR - http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=103358929&lang=pl&site=ehost-live http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2014_0019_0002_0193_0208 VL - 19 Y2 - Subm. 17 September 2014 Acc. 17 April 2015 ID - 7 ER -