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5 COSMOLOGICAL AND DESIGN ARGUMENTS
Alexander R. Pruss
Richard M. Gale
Introduction
Unlike the ontological argument, which appeals only to highly sophisticated philosophers
who delight in highly abstract deductive reasoning, cosmological and design arguments
figure prominently in the argumentative support that everyday working theists give for
their faith. The reason for this broad pastoral appeal is that these arguments begin with
commonplace facts about the world and then, by appeal to principles that look plausible,
establish the existence of a being who, while not shown to have all of God's essential
properties, properties that God must have to exist, is at least a close cousin of the God of
traditional Western theism. Our plan is to begin with a preliminary botanization of these
arguments, indicating their similarities and differences, and then discuss each of them
separately, giving prominence to the many different forms they take.
end p.116
Preliminary Botanization
Each of the two arguments begins with a contingent existential fact. A contingent fact is a
true proposition that has the possibility of being true and the possibility of being false, in
which possibility is understood in the broadly logical or conceptual sense. By extension,
a contingent being is one who has both the possibility of existing and the possibility of