Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Amirhossein Ghaffarifar ¹
• Ahmad Karimi ²
• Abdulrahim Soleimani Behbahani ³

¹ Ph.D. in Kalam., Quran and Hadith University, Qom, Iran

² Assiciate Professor in Philosophy of Religion, University of Quran and Hadith, Qom, Iran

³ Assistant Professor, Islamic Science and Culture Research Institute, Islamic Propaganda bureau, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Huduth Cosmological argument is one of the proofs of Divine existence, which mostly applied by theologians. Believing in the createdness of the universe, theologians support the argument, while philosophers reject it because they think that the universe is eternal. A prominent philosopher in the west tradition is William Craig, which put forward philosophical and natural arguments, some of them are new. On the other hand, the argument has well known opponents such as Wallace Mathson, Josh Dever, Quentin Persifor Smith and Russel which some philosophers followed them, rejecting Huduth argument through the sequence of causes, positivism, and the eternality of the universe. Examining the most important critiques on the minor premise of the Huduth argument by Western philosophers, this study, by critical analytical method, has shown that their arguments are not sufficient to prove their claim. Although it seems that Craig's arguments for the existence of the universe are not certain and he has used indefinite hypotheses, but considering his set of reasons and also using various arguments such as the arguments of Islamic thinkers can accumulatively justify the theory of createdness against rival theories.

Keywords

• Huduth Cosmological argument
• The createdness of the Universe
• William Craig
• Wallace Matson
• Josh Dever "