The Cosmological Argument

The "Cosmological Argument" refers to a a branch of arguments for the existence of God. The cosmological argument comes in various forms but the general idea is that we begin with an undeniable fact- the existence of the universe- and reason to the existence of God, by arguing that God is the best explanation for the universe or that the universe requires a cause.

Recently the most popular version has been the Kalam Cosmological Argument which has been vigorously defended in both popular and scholarly works over the past 30 years by Dr William Lane Craig. That argument proposes that the universe began to exist and that God is it's cause.

However other versions of the cosmological argument propose a principle called the "principle of sufficient reason" or other causal principles and propose that God is the necessary explanation of the universe. Dr Alexander Pruss is one scholar today who argues for the principle of sufficient reason. Here is a wide-ranging article titled "Some Recent Progress on the Cosmological Argument" where Pruss covers various issues in contemporary philosophical debates about cosmological arguments and the problems with the principle of sufficient reason. He focuses on various grounds for attack that opponents of Cosmological Arguments use. Here's an outline of the structure:

1. Introduction
2. Need the first cause be God?
3. Can there be an explanation not involving a first cause?
4. The principle of sufficient reason
5. Four justifications of belief in the PSR or the CP
6. The Taxi cab objection
7. Alternatives to the PSR
8. Conclusions

Pruss concludes that "The last fifty years of analytic philosophy has focused our attention on three critical questions about cosmological arguments. Each of these questions can receive a plausible answer from a defender of the cosmological argument. Moreover, a cumulative case argument can be run from the number of different principles on which a cosmological argument can be based. There is thus good reason, even on the basis of the cosmological argument alone, to suppose that a
God-like being exists.".

Is his conclusion reasonable? Read the article and see what you think! And beware: Some of it is very heavy going, especially if you're relatively uninitiated in philosophy like I am.