The cosmological argument is actually a family of arguments that seek to demonstrate the existence of a sufficient reason or first cause of the existence of the cosmos. Among the proponents of the cosmological argu-ment stand many of the most prominent figures in the history of western philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī, Maimonides, Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Locke, to name but some. The arguments offered by these thinkers can be grouped into three basic types: (1) what may be called the kalam cosmological argument for a first cause of the beginning of the universe; (2) the Thomist cosmological argument for a sustaining ground of being of the world; and (3) the Leibnizian cosmological argument for a sufficient reason why anything at all exists.

The kalam cosmological argument derives its name from the Arabic...