The Cosmological Argument

Cosmological Arguments

"Cosmological Arguments", like the Ontological Argument, attempt to establish that God exists. But cosmological arguments, unlike the Ontological argument, begin with an observation. Specifically they begin with the observation that the universe (the cosmos) exists. These arguments then try to show that only a supernatural being (i.e. God) can account for the existence of the universe. So, a "Cosmological Argument" is any argument:

FROM the premise:
The universe exists

TO the conclusion:
God Exists

There are actually a variety of different ways of arguing from this premise to the conclusion. (As I put it in class, the differences between cosmological arguments have to do with the different ways that they appeal to God to "account for" the existence of the universe.) As such, the "Cosmological Argument" comes in a few different forms. In class, we looked at a few versions:

The Kalām Argument.
The "First Cause" Argument.
The Argument from Contingency

Different Versions of the Cosmological Argument

Again, all cosmological arguments try to show that only a supernatural being (i.e. God) can account for the existence of the universe.

In the causal versions of the argument, God is invoked as the cause of the universe’s existence:

In the "Kalām" version, the argument claims that the past must be finite. (The idea of an infinite past makes no sense.)
In the "First Cause" version (as we saw in the passages from Russell and Blackburn) the argument claims that all causal chains must terminate. (The idea of a causal chain without a first cause makes no sense.)

In what is known as the "Argument from Contingency", God is invoked as an explanation of/reason for the existence of the universe. As we saw in the passage from Leibniz, he doesn’t argue against the idea of infinite time or infinite causal chains.
Instead, he claims that we need to appeal to God’s existence to explain/provide a reason for the existence of the universe.