Religious Studies, pages 1-23

Is the cosmological argument intuitive?

Publication typeJournal Article
Publication date2025-02-10
scimago Q1
SJR0.395
CiteScore1.2
Impact factor0.5
ISSN00344125, 1469901X
Abstract

The cosmological argument for the existence of God seems to have significant intuitive resonance. According to a familiar version of the cosmological argument, there must be some explanation for why the universe exists, and God provides the explanation. This argument seems to depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), according to which, if something exists, there must be an explanation for why it exists. As we detail, recent evidence indicates that people presuppose something like the PSR in their explanatory outlook. However, the other key part of the cosmological argument is that God is supposed to be self-explanatory – God’s existence is necessary. We examine this empirically and find that people do not generally think that the existence of God is necessary in the sense relevant for the cosmological argument.

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