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    The Kalām cosmological argument, developed by al-Kindi an... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Creation ex nihilo is impossible

    The Kalām cosmological argument, developed by al-Kindi and later Aquinas, establishes that an actually infinite regress of prior material causes is logically impossible, requiring an uncaused first cause that produces being from non-being.

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    Key Terms

    Aquinas
    Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Italian priest and philosopher (1225-1274) who became one of the most influential thinkers in Western history. He attempted to show that Christian faith and human reason are compatible, arguing that we can use logic and observation to understand God and the natural world. His ideas deeply shaped Catholic theology and continue to influence how religious and secular institutions think about ethics, knowledge, and the relationship between science and belief.
    Kalām Cosmological Argument(Recently re-popularized by William Lane Craig)
    The argument for the temporal finitude of the cosmos preferred by advocates of kalām
    Material causes(as one type of explanation for how things exist)
    The physical stuff or material that something is made of—like how a statue is made of marble or bronze.
    actually infinite regress(as something the argument claims cannot exist)
    An endless chain of causes going backward forever, where each thing is caused by a previous thing with no starting point. The argument claims this is impossible in the real world.

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    al-Kindi(as a scholar who misidentified the authorship of an important text)
    An influential medieval Islamic philosopher (around 801-873 CE) who tried to blend Greek philosophy with Islamic theology and mistakenly thought the Theology of Aristotle was genuinely written by Aristotle.
    being from non-being(as the power attributed to the first cause)
    The idea of creating something out of nothing, rather than rearranging things that already existed.
    logically impossible(as the status of infinite regress according to this argument)
    Something that violates basic rules of logic and therefore cannot be true or exist, no matter what.
    uncaused first cause(as what the argument concludes must exist)
    Something that created everything else but was not itself created by anything—the ultimate beginning that needs no explanation for its own existence.

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    Against an attribute of God1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

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    Creation ex nihilo is impossible

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