The Cosmological Argument Against Atheism
Jan. 1, 2026
“Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20 NASB 2020)
The Cosmological argument, the “God” is the first cause, can first be found in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and later Neoplatonists. In the east, the cosmological argument can be seen in Udayana’s Nyāyakusumāñjali I,4.
There are three aspects here. You can’t get something from nothing. Even an infinite sequence of caused events can’t explain the first one. Since the entire universe, with all its caused events, had a beginning, there had to be an initial uncaused cause.
Three forms of the Cosmological Argument
There are three forms of the cosmological argument, but they all end up at the same place.
Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) in his work Monadology, 32 taught another form of the cosmological argument: no fact can be real without a reason for it being real. There had to be some reason [or cause] for the universe to exist. Or to put it another way, you can’t get something from nothing.
Thomistic: The Central Asian Sunni philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (c.980–1037), followed by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), said that you can’t get an entity with a beginning from an infinite regress of entities with a beginning.
The kalam argument, propounded by the Coptic theologian John Philopenus (510-553 A.D.), Persian Sunni philosopher al-Ghāzāli (1058–1111) and others, is a slightly different form of the cosmological argument: since the universe had a beginning, something had to cause that beginning.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
Was There a Beginning?
There are a number of responses atheists have. On is that the universe needs no explanation; it is “just there, and that’s all” (Russell 1948 [1964]: 175). This view was reiterated by Hawking (1987: 651). (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/)
A more thoughtful view, though not commonly believed anymore, is that the universe did not have a beginning. However, secular scientists generally agree that our universe had a beginning at the big bang.
Norm Giesler has an acronym for major points that shows this: Surge
Second Law of thermodynamics (entropy) – similar to reversion to the mean
Universe is expanding from a single point at the big bang
Radiation afterglow – cosmic background radiation
Great galaxy seeds – 1 part in 100,000 variations allowed galaxy formation
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity said the universe had a beginning
The Oscillating Universe Theory
However, the oscillating universe theory is an attempt to get around this problem that atheists have. It says the universe we know of had a beginning, but the rate of expansion will slow, stop, and eventually contract back to a single point. Then another big bang will occur. In fact, they postulate that this happened in the past, and so there were an infinite number of previous universes. So the “first cause” of our universe was the ending of the universe before ours.
There are at least three issues with this though.
1) There is no evidence that there is enough mass, or mass plus energy, to slow down the expansion. Some have hypothesized “dark matter” that is more than regular matter, in order to have enough mass to stop the expansion of the universe. A second problem is that the gravity necessary to stop the system would have to be greater as things got farther away. For example, a gas molecule at the surface of the earth is not going to directly get to escape velocity to leave the earth forever. However, if a gas molecular is near the upper limit of our atmosphere, where gravity is weaker, has a much better chance of reaching “escape velocity” and leaving the earth’s atmosphere forever. Likewise, as matter expands farther from the center of the big bang, it is easier to have “escape velocity” and never contract.
Astronomers have attempted to measure how much mass and energy is present in the universe to see if there is enough for the universe to stop expanding and contract again. They cannot find it. Stars and heavy elements are only about 0.53%. 4% in gas around and in between galaxies. However, for galaxies to stay together as they do despite spinning, and certain observed gravitational-lensing effects, astronomers propose “dark matter” that is does not interact with any normal forces except gravity. They believe that dark matter provides 27% of the mass needed for the universe to stop expanding and contract again. The missing 68% is what they call “Dark energy” that pushes the universes outward. There is no evidence of this dark energy though. See the article https://theconversation.com/most-normal-matter-in-the-universe-isnt-found-in-planets-stars-or-galaxies-an-astronomer-explains-where-its-distributed-269313?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nautilus-newsletter for more info.
Another possibility, which it seems they have not considered is that God instead of dark energy could have changed weakened the gravitational constant, and other constants of the universe.
Finally, fatal to the oscillating universe theory is that the rate of expansion of the universe appears to be increasing, not decreasing.
2) Entropy, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, says that there will be some mass and energy loss between subsequent “big bangs”. If this happened an infinite number of times in the past, then there is nothing left to expand. Let me illustrate with an example.
Suppose I pour a bucket of water from one pail into another. I pour carefully so not to spill a single drop. Let’s say it is done at 33 degrees F, to reduce evaporation. In fact, only one drop of water evaporates when I pour into a bucket. Now if someone has pour the same water into buckets, losing one drop of water each time, for an infinite number of times, how much water would be left? The answer is, there is no water left to pour. This answer is the same regardless of what quantity of water you started with, if you have poured in an infinite number of times. Now applying to the alleged oscillating universe, if one atom is lost on each subsequent big bang, and this started an infinite number of times in the past, then there is no mass or energy left. The previous is an example of “turtles” all the way down”. You can’t have an infinite regress; there has to be some first cause.
3) For the sake of argument, let’s assume this infinite regress was true, then the eternal set of all universes is greater than our universe, and that is what the cosmological argument says: something greater than our universe is eternal.
The Multiverse
Quantum mechanics has given us an interesting situation where the path of a photon, or other subatomic forces, appear to act like a probabilistic wave until it is measured. This was illustrated in the famous Schrödinger’s Cat analogy. This has given rise to the theory that the universe is “split” into two almost identical universes except that in one universe the path went one way, while in the other universe the path went a different way.
One problem with this view is “scaling”. If every time a person made a decision, or a non-deterministic event occurred, a universe was split, then there were more universes than all the microorganisms that ever lived. In fact, people in this universe are quite rare, compared to the number of universes.
Another problem with this view is again “turtles all the way down”. What happened before the universe split the first time? Or, since it was infinite there was no first time, then there was no initial split. If there was no first split, then there was no second split on a path, then no third split, then there is no number of splits at all.
A third issue is that, for sake or argument, that infinite regress was true. Then the cosmological argument is proved in a way, and the multiverse is eternal and the cause of our universe.
Conclusion
So there has to be something, or Someone that is eternal and before our universe, that caused our universe. However, the cosmological argument has limitations. It does not prove the God of Christianity, how intelligent that God is, is He personal, or that God cares about us. To learn those things, we have to leave the world of philosophical reasoning and look for how God revealed Himself.
For Further Reading
Boslough, John. Stephen Hawkin’s Universe : An introduction to the most remarkable scientist of our time. Avon Books. 1980.
Geisler, Norman L. and Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Crossway. 2004.
Geisler, Normal. L. & Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. (audio series). Hoevel Audio, Inc. 2006.
Moreland, J.P. Scaling the Secular City : A Defense of Christianity. Baker Book House 1987.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator. Zondervan. 2004.
Tipler, Frank J. The Physics of Christianity. Doubleday 2007.
Zweerink, Jeffrey A. Who’s Afraid of the Multiverse? Reasons to Believe. 2008.
Here is an interesting debate between Nobel-prize winning physicist, and atheist, Roger Penrose and William Lane Craig on the Cosmological argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wLtCqm72-Y