(October 12, 2014 at 3:14 am)HopOnPop Wrote: The failure I saw was based upon this guys really poor understanding of basic Newtonian physics...Aristotelian proofs are merely a Philopher's of Religion homage to "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" -- “Evidence? To god-damned hell with evidence!
First, the validity of the cosmological argument does not depend on any particular empirical, i.e. evidence -based, physical theory (Newtonian or otherwise) because any rational deduction about the very nature of reality is a more fundamental claim.
Second, refuting the analogy does not invalidate Feser's main point. The analogy he uses conveys the idea of contingency. The idea of the cosmological argument is that the existence of whatever is contingent and subject to change is causally dependent on something else whose existence is neither contingent nor subject to change, a first cause.
