Editing Kalam cosmological argument (section)

{{Short description|Philosophical argument for the existence of God}}
{{For|the book on the topic by William Lane Craig|The Kalām Cosmological Argument}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}

[[File:William Lane Craig.jpg|thumb|[[William Lane Craig]] (born 1949), who revived the Kalam cosmological argument during the 20th and 21st centuries]]

The '''Kalam cosmological argument''' is a modern formulation of the [[cosmological argument]] for the [[existence of God]]. It is named after the ''[[Kalam]]'' (medieval [[Islam]]ic [[scholasticism]]) from which many of its key ideas originated.<ref name=craig7>{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-kalam-cosmological-argument | title=The Kalam Cosmological Argument | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }}</ref> [[Philosopher]] and [[theologian]] [[William Lane Craig]] was principally responsible for revitalising these ideas for modern academic discourse through his book ''[[The Kalām Cosmological Argument]]'' (1979), as well as other publications.

The argument's central thesis is the [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] impossibility of a [[temporality|temporally]] past-infinite [[universe]] and of [[Actual infinity|actual infinities]] existing in the [[reality|real world]], traced by Craig to 11th-century Persian Muslim scholastic philosopher [[Al-Ghazali]]. This feature distinguishes it from other cosmological arguments, such as [[Thomas Aquinas|Aquinas's]] [[Five Ways (Aquinas)#Second way: The Argument of the First Cause|Second Way]], which rests on the impossibility of a [[causality|causally]] ordered [[infinite regress]], and those of [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibniz]] and [[Samuel Clarke]], which refer to the [[principle of sufficient reason]].<ref name="auto1">[[#SEP|Reichenbach, 2004]]</ref>

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]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Graham  |date=2002 |title=Arguing about the Kalam Cosmological Argument |url= https://philarchive.org/rec/OPPAAT|journal=Philo |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=34–61 |doi= 10.5840/philo2002513|access-date=}}</ref><ref name="auto1"/> According to [[Michael Martin (philosopher)|Michael Martin]], the cosmological arguments presented by Craig, Bruce Reichenbach, and [[Richard Swinburne]] are "among the most sophisticated and well-argued in [[Contemporary philosophy|contemporary]] [[Theology|theological]] philosophy".<ref>[[#Mart|Martin, 1990]]: 101</ref>