The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment

The purpose of this work is twofold: first, to offer a fresh look at the historical
background of the kal¯
am cosmological argument and, second, to offer a modern
and creative defence of the argument. Perhaps the finest discussions on the history
of the argument include Harry Austryn Wolfson’s (1976:355–465) exposition of
kal¯
am arguments for the creation of the world, William Lane Craig’s (2001)
thorough analysis of the cosmological argument from Plato to Leibniz, Richard
Sorabji’s (2006) study of time and creation in antiquity, and Herbert A. Davidson’s
(1987) excellent survey of the arguments in favour of creation in mediaeval Islamic
and Jewish philosophy. However, the survey of the kal¯
am cosmological argument
presented in this work is unique in five ways.