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A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the prime mover argument. The concept of causation is a principal underpinning idea in all cosmological arguments, particularly in affirming the necessity for a First Cause .
The origins of the cosmological argument can be traced to classical antiquity, rooted in the concept of the prime mover, introduced by Aristotle.In the 6th century, Syriac Christian theologian John Philoponus (c. 490–c. 570) proposed the first known version of the argument based on the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress, postulating that time itself must have had a beginning.
The cosmological argument, later attributed to Aristotle, thereby concludes that God exists. However, if the cosmos had a beginning, Aristotle argued, it would require an efficient first cause, a notion that Aristotle took to demonstrate a critical flaw. [22] [23] [24]
Criticism of the cosmological argument, and hence the first three Ways, emerged in the 18th century by the philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant. [ 34 ] Kant argued that our minds give structure to the raw materials of reality and that the world is therefore divided into the phenomenal world (the world we experience and know), and the ...
Many criticisms focus on versions of the strong anthropic principle, such as Barrow and Tipler's anthropic cosmological principle, which are teleological notions that tend to describe the existence of life as a necessary prerequisite for the observable constants of physics.
The Kalām Cosmological Argument is a 1979 book by the philosopher William Lane Craig, in which the author offers a contemporary defense of the Kalām cosmological argument and argues for the existence of God, with an emphasis on the alleged metaphysical impossibility of an infinite regress of past events. First, Craig argues that the universe ...
It cannot be regarded as more than an inference. Yet the cosmological argument treats it as if it were an object of knowledge exactly on the same level as perception of any thing or object in the course of experience. Thirdly, according to Kant, it presupposes the Ontological argument, already proved false.
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 1274) presented several versions of the cosmological argument in his Summa Theologica, and of the teleological argument in his Summa contra Gentiles. He presented the ontological argument, but rejected it in favor of proofs that invoke cause and effect alone.