George Pell on The cosmological argument

George Pell drew on the Thomistic tradition in affirming the cosmological argument. He held that the existence of the universe — and of contingent beings within it — requires explanation, and that the chain of causes cannot extend to infinity. There must be a first cause, an uncaused cause, that sustains everything else in existence. For Pell, this was not merely an abstract philosophical point but the foundation of all rational theology.

Pell was less interested in the Kalam variant of the cosmological argument, with its emphasis on the beginning of the universe, than in the classical Thomistic version, which argues that even an eternal universe would require a sustaining cause. The question is not 'What started everything?' but 'What keeps everything in existence right now?' — and the answer, Pell maintained, is God.

In public forums, Pell presented the cosmological argument as common sense elevated to philosophical rigour. Nothing in our experience comes from nothing. The universe is not self-explanatory. Therefore, something outside the universe — something necessary rather than contingent — must account for its existence.