Susanna Newcome's cosmological argument

ABSTRACT

Despite its philosophical interest, Susanna Newcome's Enquiry into the Evidence of the Christian Religion (1728, revised 1732) has received little attention from commentators. This paper seeks to redress this oversight by offering a reconstruction of Newcome's innovative argument for God's existence. Newcome employs a cosmological argument that differs from Thomist and kalām version of the argument. Specifically, Newcome challenges the idea that the causal chains observed in nature can exist independently. She does this through an appeal to findings from Newtonian natural philosophy that suggest that the universe has entropic tendencies. This suggests the the continued operations of nature are dependent on a cause external to the universe. Newcome identifies this external cause with God. Various strengths and weaknesses of Newcome's argument are discussed and an attempt is made to situate the argument within her broader epistemic framework and the larger context of Newtonian physico-theology. The paper also explores what is known of Newcome's biography and intellectual milieu.