Quick questions on The Cosmological Argument - TCE Philosophy (Tasmania)

A subtler version reasons from contingency. Contingent things are those that exist but might not have; they depend on something else for their existence. If everything were contingent, the existence of the whole collection would remain unexplained, since each member only passes the question along. To explain why anything exists at all, there must be a necessary being, one whose existence is not dependent on anything else, and this is taken to be God.

Modern cosmology proposes the Big Bang as the origin of the observable universe, a hot dense early state expanding into the cosmos we see. Some take this to support the cosmological argument, since a universe with a finite past seems to call for a cause of its beginning. Others argue the Big Bang replaces the need for a divine cause, offering a natural account of the origin. The relationship is contested: a defender of the argument can ask what caused or grounded the Big Bang itself, while a critic can question whether the notion of a cause even applies at or before the initial state, where ordinary time may not extend.