Kalam cosmological argument

The Kalām cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God; named for the kalam (medieval Islamic scholasticism), it was popularized by William Lane Craig in his The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979). The Kalām cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the cosmological argument for the existence of God; named for the kalam (medieval Islamic scholasticism), it was popularized by William Lane Craig in his The Kalām Cosmological Argument (1979). The argument is similar to the unmoved mover in Aristotelianism due to its basis in the nature of causality and argument against the possibility of an infinite regress. However, Aristotle himself did not believe in a temporally finite universe and his argument is concerned with simultaneously existing causes. The Kalām argument is named after the Arabic word for 'speech' because Craig, arguing against the possibility of the existence of actual infinities in time, traced the idea to 11th-century Muslim Scholastic philosopher Al-Ghazali. The implication of the name is that God spoke (or, to be more precise, willed) the universe into existence. Since Craig's original publication, the Kalam cosmological argument has elicited public debate between Craig and Graham Oppy, Adolf Grünbaum, J. L. Mackie and Quentin Smith, and has been used in Christian apologetics. According to Michael Martin, the cosmological arguments presented by Craig, Bruce Reichenbach, and Richard Swinburne are 'among the most sophisticated and well argued in contemporary theological philosophy', while also noting that, in reference to Craig's argument specifically, 'there may have been trillions of personal agents involved in the creation'. The Kalam argument's underpinning is the impossibility of an actual infinite and/or the traversing of infinite time, which is what distinguishes it from other cosmological arguments (as was mentioned) such as that of Thomas Aquinas, which rests on the impossibility of an essentially ordered infinite regress, and that of Leibniz and Clark, which uses the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The most prominent form of the argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, states the Kalam cosmological argument as the following brief syllogism: Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a conceptual analysis of the properties of the cause: Referring to the implications of Classical Theism that follow from this argument, Craig writes: The Kalam cosmological argument is based on the concept of the prime-mover, introduced by Aristotle, and entered early Christian or Neoplatonist philosophy in Late Antiquity, being developed by John Philoponus. Along with much of classical Greek philosophy, the concept was adopted into medieval Islamic tradition, where it received its fullest articulation at the hands of Muslim scholars, most directly by Islamic theologians of the Sunni tradition. Its historic proponents include Al-Kindi, Al-Ghazali, and St. Bonaventure.