The Words We Use

When Jennifer was about to graduate from high school, I took her to Pittsburg, Kansas to check out the college.  As the graduate assistant took us on a tour of the campus, she pointed to a building and said:  This is the building that houses our astrology department.  I suggested that she ask her supervisor about her choice of words and said it was most likely the astronomy department.  She remarked:  Oh, is there a difference?

Words that sound the same and look a bit similar, often have totally different meanings.  Think about cosemtologist and cosmology.  It can be said that both words deal with some aspect of beauty.  Both words have cosmos (an orderly or harmonious system) as a prefix.  Cosmetologist comes from a Greek word that means skilled in adornment.  Cosmology is a discipline of philosophy that focuses on the origin and general structure of the universe.

People use different words to express truth as they understand it.  When it comes to cosmology, the aborgine in the picture below will express his view of the world system in a different manner than would a scientist or a theologian.

Matt Slick explains the cosmological argument:

1. Things exist.
2. It is possible for those things to not exist.
3. Whatever has the possibility of non existence, yet exists, has been caused to exist.
   1. Something cannot bring itself into existence, since it must exist to bring itself into existence, which is illogical.
4. There cannot be an infinite number of causes to bring something into existence.
   1. An infinite regression of causes ultimately has no initial cause, which means there is no cause of existence.
   2. Since the universe exists, it must have a cause.
5. Therefore, there must be an uncaused cause of all things.
6. The uncaused cause must be God.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) had a version of the Cosmological Argument called the Argument from Motion. He stated that things in motion could not have brought themselves into motion but must be caused to move. There cannot be an infinite regression of movers. Therefore, there must be an Unmoved Mover. This Unmoved Mover is God.

By the way, alot of time has passed since Jennifer was a high school senior.