Theistic Argument Explorer

Theistic Arguments Index

Explore 100 arguments across 6 categories

These arguments were collated, summarized, and sourced by C. A. McIntosh. Used by permission. Go to McIntosh's website here.

McIntosh has published three journals on these arguments. Access them here:

  1. “Recent Work on Traditional Arguments for Theism I,” Philosophy Compass 17/7 (2022), pp. 1-12.
  2. “Recent Work on Traditional Arguments for Theism II,” Philosophy Compass 17/7 (2022), pp. 1-9.
  3. “Nontraditional Arguments for Theism,” Philosophy Compass 14/5 (2019), pp. 1-14.
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Cosmological

34 arguments

Kalam

Craig

Premises

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Source for Argument

William Lane Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (Wipf & Stock, 1979). Mark Nowacki, The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, (Prometheus Books, 2007). William Lane Craig and James Sinclair, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” in Craig and Moreland (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell, 2009), ch. 3. Jabocus Erasmus, The Kalam Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment (Springer, 2018).

Loke

Premises

  1. There exists a series of causes-and-effects and changes, and the number of earlier entities is either actually infinite or finite.
  2. If the number of earlier entities is finite, then either earlier and later entities are joined together like a loop such that there is no first member in the series, or the series has a first member i.e., a First Cause and a first change.
  3. It is not the case that the number of earlier entities is actually infinite.
  4. It is not the case that earlier and later entities are joined together like a loop.
  5. Therefore, there exists a First Cause and a first change.
  6. Since the First Cause is the first, it must be uncaused.
  7. Since everything that begins to exist has a cause, the First Cause must be beginningless.
  8. Since the first change did not begin to exist uncaused, the first change must have been caused by a First Cause which was initially changeless.
  9. In order to cause the first event from an initial changeless state, the First Cause must
  10. The capacity to be the originator of the first event in a way that is undetermined by any prior event, since the First Cause is the first, and:
  11. The capacity to prevent itself from changing, for otherwise the First Cause would not have been initially changeless.

Footnotes to Premises

  • Premise 1: changes = events
  • Premise 2: first change = first event
  • Premise 11: (9.1) and (9.2) imply that the First Cause has libertarian freedom.

Source for Argument

Andrew Ter Ern Loke, God and Ultimate Origins (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Andrew Ter Ern Loke, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” in Ruloff and Horban (eds.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury, 2021), ch. 2.

Miller

Premises

  1. Pr(U | T) > Pr(U|~T).
  2. Therefore, Pr(T|U) > Pr(T).

Footnotes to Premises

  • Premise 1: U = The universe began to exist.
  • Premise 1: T = Theism

Source for Argument

Calum Miller, “A Bayesian Formulation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument,” Religious Studies 50/4 (2014), pp. 521-534.

Pruss

Premises

  1. Something has a cause.
  2. There are no causal loops.
  3. Nothing has an infinite causal history.
  4. Therefore, there is an uncaused cause (1-3).
  5. If there is an uncaused cause, God exists.
  6. Therefore, God exists.

Footnotes to Premises

  • Premise 3: This is causal finitism. Note that causal finitism is consistent with there being actual infinities.
  • Premise 4: Suppose x causes y, and that everything has a cause. So, x has a cause, w. Since (2) implies all causes are distinct, w must also have a cause, ad infinitum. I.e., y must have an infinite causal history,contra (3). QED.

Source for Argument

Alexander Pruss, Infinity, Causation, and Paradox (Oxford, 2018). Alexander Pruss, “Paradoxes of Infinity and the First Cause,” in Rasmussen and Vallier (eds.), A New Theist Response to the New Atheists (Routledge, 2020), ch. 1.