Cosmological argument

A family of philosophical arguments that infers a first cause, necessary being, or ultimate explanation from the existence or features of the universe.

Principle of sufficient reason: The principle that every fact or contingent truth has an adequate explanation. It supplies the demand for an ultimate explanation in several versions of the argument.
Kalam cosmological argument: An argument that whatever begins to exist has a cause, and that the universe began to exist. It reaches a cause of the universe by combining a causal premise with a finite past.
Hume's critique of the cosmological argument: David Hume’s objections to inferring a cause or necessary explanation of the universe as a whole. Hume questions whether causal reasoning about parts applies to the universe itself.
Thomas Aquinas: A medieval theologian and philosopher who presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologiae. His arguments from motion, efficient causation, and contingency became influential cosmological forms.
Causality: The relation in which one event, state, or condition produces or helps explain another. Causal versions infer a first cause from the universe’s existence or beginning.
Leibnizian cosmological argument: An argument that contingent reality requires an explanation grounded in a necessary being. It makes the principle of sufficient reason central to explaining why anything exists.
Kant's critique of the cosmological argument: Immanuel Kant’s argument that reason cannot establish a supersensible cause through cosmological reasoning. Kant challenges the move from a contingent world to a necessarily existing being.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A German philosopher and mathematician who developed the principle of sufficient reason and argued for a necessary being. His account asks why the contingent universe exists rather than nothing.
Contingency: The property of being able to exist or fail to exist, rather than existing necessarily. Contingency arguments seek an explanation beyond things that might not have existed.
Thomistic cosmological argument: A family of arguments from dependence, change, or causation to a sustaining first source. Its arguments focus on present dependence, not only on a beginning in time.

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