The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz

by William Lane Craig

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2001

Overview

Even as interest in the cosmological argument for God’s existence has grown amongst philosophers of religion, few contemporary treatments deal with it fairly and consistently. In this survey of the history of the cosmological proof, William Lane Craig summarizes the thought of the 13 most prominent proponents of the argument. His even-handed analysis is the most comprehensive to date, and alleviates the errors found in other treatments.

Key Features

• Historical approach to an important philosophical argument for God’s existence
• Addresses items left unmentioned by original philosophers
• Explains implications from this study for witness in today’s world

Contents

• Preface
• Aristotle
• Arabic Theologians and Philosophers
• Al-Kindi
• Al-Farabi
• Ibn Sina
• Al-Ghazali
• Ibn Rushd
• Jewish Philosophers of Religion
• Saadia
• Maimonides
• Thomas Aquinas
• John Duns Scotus
• Benedict De Spinoza
• G.W.F. Leibniz
• A Typology of Cosmological Arguments

Top Highlights

“R. L. Sturch’s unpublished Oxford doctoral thesis ‘The Cosmological Argument’.” (Page ix)

“(1) those that maintain the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress” (Page 282)

“what we know we come to know only through sense data.¹³ Therefore” (Page 160)

“Why is the kettle boiling?’, I might respond by describing the action of the heat from the fire in causing the water molecules to vibrate faster and faster until they escape in the form of steam—or I might respond that the kettle is boiling because my wife is preparing me a cup of tea. Both provide a sufficient reason: one in terms of efficient causality, the other in terms of final causality.” (Page 261)

“But since it is unbegotten, it must also be indestructible.” (Page 6)

Product Details

• Title: The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz
• Author: William Lane Craig
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 2001
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Pages: 318
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: God › Proof, Cosmological--History of doctrines
• ISBNs: 9781579107871, 1579107877
• Resource ID: LLS:CSMLGCLRGMNLBNZ
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-01-16T19:08:00Z

About William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig, PhD is a Research Professor at Talbot School of Theology and at Houston Baptist University. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, England, before taking a doctorate in theology from the Ludwig Maximilians Universität-München, Germany, at which latter institution he was for two years a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, writing on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. He spent seven years at the Katholike Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, before taking his post at Talbot in 1994. He has authored or edited over forty books, including WAssessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? (with John Dominic Crossan), and Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? (with Gerd Lüdemann), as well as nearly 200 articles in professional journals such as iNew Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Expository Times, and Kerygma und Dogma.