What Is The Cosmological Argument

This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the cosmological argument. The main part of the lesson involves students working in groups to develop a mini-presentation that can be used to teach the rest of the class one of Aquinas’s 3 ways, then some quick note-taking followed by questions that students answer to consider the strength of Leibniz’s cosmological argument, followed by students producing a factfile on how David Hume criticised the argument, then an information hunt on how other philosophers (such as Bertrand Russell an Richard Dawkins) criticised the argument (within this task students have to mark on their dartboard how strong they believe that criticism is).

Learning Objectives:

To outline the Cosmological Argument as a case for the existence of God.
To explain Leibniz’s contribution to the argument.
To assess the validity of its philosophical criticisms.

(The starter activity is based upon an advert for Guinness which can be found by Googling ‘Guinness Domino’)