COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

Leibniz avoided the problem of infinite regression by reinterpreting the endless series, not of events, but of explanations. According to Leibniz, everything has a sufficient reason.

The princicple of sufficient reason states that in the case of any positive truth, there is some sufficient reason for it. There is an explanation, known or unknown, for everything.

The world does not seem to contain within itself the reason for its own existence. Therefore God exists.

This is because: Ex nihilo nihil fit (from nothing, nothing comes)

• ORIGINS: Muslim scholars al-Kindi and al Ghazali

William Lane Craig's development:

• the present would not exist in an actual infinite universe, because successive additions cannot be added to an actual infinite (i.e - why is time still continuing if the universe is infinite?)
• the present DOES exist, as the result of a chronological series of past events
• the universe must be finite
• a finite universe had a beginning
• whatever began to exist has a cause, as things cannot cause themselves
• therefore the universe had a first cause of its existence
• this first cause was God