Cosmological Arguments

The Element discusses the structure content and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory section investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change causation contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Sections 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic Kalam and Leibnizian cosmological arguments noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Section 4 offers an entirely new approach to the cosmological argument - the approach of theistic modal realism. The proper explananda of cosmological arguments on this approach is not change causation contingency or objective becoming in the world. The proper explananda is the totality of metaphysical reality - all actualia and all possibilia. The result is the most compelling and least objectionable version of the cosmological argument.