Sarah asked:

I have recently started an A-level R.E. course. My essay question is, Does the cosmological
argument offer substantial proof for God's existence? Can you help me on where to start and the
scholars involved?

============

Have a look and see what books/readings you can get hold of on the philosophy of religion. The
contemporary philosophers Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga are two to look out for.

The most famous criticism of the Cosmological Argument is in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,
Although you will probably find the text too hard-going at your stage, you might well find that a
commentary on Kant - there are many available - will say something useful about Kant's views on the
Cosmological Argument.

Stephen Hawking, in his Brief History of Time,attempts to outflank the cosmological argument
altogether, by questioning the assumption that an infinite series of events going back into the past
involves an infinite time. I suspect that he has missed the philosophical point, however. As you will
see below, the infinitude of time as such is not really the issue.

What is the cosmological argument? The best way I know to present the argument is with an analogy.
Imagine that you are in the middle of an incredibly long spiral staircase, looking at a glass chandelier
suspended on a chain. Looking up, you see the chain disappear into the sky. Now, a reasonable
question would be, What is holding the chandelier up? If some clever Dick said, 'Well, every link on
the chain is held by the preceding link, but the links go on to infinity,' you would not be impressed.
That merely puts off the question 'What's holding it up?' indefinitely. To put off a question indefinitely
is not the same as answering it.

But that seems to be just what someone is saying, when they argue that every event happens
BECAUSE of its preceding cause, and so on to infinity!

If that argument does seem fishy to you, then the alternative seems to be to believe in a 'First Cause'.
Either the chain of effects to causes is not infinite, because God is the first cause in the chain, or the
chain of effects to causes is infinite, but the 'cause' of the infinite chain's existing, rather than not
existing is outside of time altogether, in God's eternal will.

I have tried to make the Cosmological Argument appear 'substantial'. I don't think it is valid. I do think,
however, that it is invalid for interesting reasons.

Geoffrey Klempner