♠ Ace of Spades
the cosmological family
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
al-Ghazali — Algazel, The Proof of Islam
Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-iʿtiqād (Moderation in Belief)
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Modus ponens
- Concludes to
- First cause (a cause of the universe's beginning; not further specified)
- Premise ground
- Metaphysical (causal principle: whatever begins to exist has a cause)
- Modal strength
- Actual (a cause of the beginning; nothing said of the cause's own mode of being)
- What it licenses
- Period
- Medieval (c. 1095)
- Tradition
- Kalam (Ash'arite)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-iʿtiqādالاقتصاد في الاعتقاد - الإمام الغزالي (ت) إنصاف رمضان.pdf - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full - Further reading
Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (1979). Recorded as the populariser displaced when the card was traced back to al-Ghazali's Al-Iqtisad I.1 — not a source for the formulation.
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
ergocards.com/kalam
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