Editing Kalam cosmological argument (section)

==Historical background==

The origins of the [[cosmological argument]] can be traced to [[classical antiquity]], rooted in the concept of the [[unmoved mover|prime mover]], introduced by [[Aristotle]]. In the 6th century, [[Syriac Christianity|Syriac Christian]] theologian [[John Philoponus]] (c. 490–c. 570) proposed the first known version of the argument based on the impossibility of an [[Cosmological argument#The infinite regress|infinite temporal regress]], postulating that time itself must have had a beginning.<ref name=philo1>{{Cite book |last=Erasmus |first=Jacobus |title=The <i>Kalām</i> Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319734378}}</ref>

Like other early Christian commentators, Philoponus disputed the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] doctrine of the [[Eternity of the world|eternity of matter]], noting that this was inconsistent with the [[Judeo-Christian]] doctrine of ''[[creatio ex nihilo]]''. Furthermore, he examined the contradiction between Greek conceptions of past eternity and Aristotle's repudiation of the existence of [[actual infinities]].<ref name=duncan>{{cite book |last1=Duncan |first1=Steven |title=Analytic Philosophy of Religion: its history since 1955 |year=2010 |publisher=Humanities-Ebooks |page=165}}</ref> In 529, he presented his critique, ''On the Eternity of the World Against Proclus'', categorising arguments for the [[temporal finitism|finitude of the past]], which underpinned his arguments for the existence of God.<ref name=philo1/>

Philoponus's ideas would be developed substantially within the proceedings of [[middle ages|medieval]] [[Islam|Islamic]] [[scholasticism]]—or ''[[kalam]]''—through the 9th and 12th centuries,<ref name=duncan/> refined in the 11th century by [[Al-Ghazali]] and in the 12th by [[Averroes|Ibn Rushd]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Averroes, Ibn Rushd |author-link= |date=1954 |title=The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-Tahafut) |url= |location=London |publisher=Luzac |page=58 |isbn=}}</ref> In his landmark thesis, ''[[The Incoherence of the Philosophers]]'', Persian Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali characterised the absurdity of a beginningless universe and of the existence of actual infinities, articulating a prototypical formulation of the modern Kalam cosmological argument:<ref name="Craig, 1994: 80">[[#CrgRF|Craig, 1994]]: 80</ref>

:"Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a being which begins;
:therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning."

In the 13th century, the cosmological argument was introduced to medieval Christian theology, wherein it would be examined by [[Bonaventure|St. Bonaventure]] as well as [[Thomas Aquinas]] in his ''[[Summa Theologica]]'' (I, q.2, a.3) and ''[[Summa Contra Gentiles]]'' (I, 13).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kovach |first1=FJ |date=1974 |title=The Question of the Eternity of the World in St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas – A Critical Analysis |url= |journal=Southwestern Journal of Philosophy |volume=5 |issue= |pages=141–172 |doi= 10.5840/swjphil19745233|access-date=}}</ref><ref name="auto2">[[#Smith|Smith, 2007]]: 183</ref><ref>[[#CrgKC|Craig, 2000]]</ref> Conceptions of [[temporal finitism]] that had been substantiated in Philoponus's—and later, Al-Ghazali's—writings inspired energetic debate between Aquinas and Bonaventure, as well as further generations of scholars up until the 18th century. Craig writes:<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/lectures/how-did-the-universe-begin-saddleback-church | title=How Did the Universe Begin? | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }}</ref>

:"It finally sputtered to something of an inconclusive end in the thought of the great German philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]] in the 18th century. Kant held, ironically, that there are rationally compelling arguments for both [the finitude and infinitude of the past], so that the problem is insoluble and exposes the bankruptcy of reason itself."