The Kalam Cosmological Argument

[For_The_Kingdom]

Hello, gang

This is my long-awaited thread on the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). There will be a series of threads related to this argument. Why? Because there will more than likely be topics/sub-topics which relates to it, and I don't want things to get conflated.

The Cosmological argument has taken many forms over the past few centuries. I'd like to focus on the most popular formulation of the argument, namely, the Kalam version..which is Christian apologist William Lane Craig's version (or at least the one that he champions).

The argument goes a little something like this..

1. Everything that/which begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause

And just so we take it one step at a time, I'd like this thread to focus on P1 of the argument..

P1: Everything that/which begins to exist has a cause

I really hope we don't get too bogged down with the truth value of P1, because the meat and potatoes is in P2. Can we all just agree that everything which begins to exist has a cause? As tempting as it is to just jump to P2, I have to refrain..as I don't want to assume that everyone here agrees with P1.

That being said; I am here to defend the TRUTH value of P1, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause."

In other words, things don't pop into being, uncaused, out of NOTHING. We can sum it up these 3 ways..our common sense intuition tells us that..

Intuition
1. Out of nothing, nothing comes.
2. Nothing cannot create something.
3. Something cannot come from nothing.

Those three, in a nut shell, is ALL that is being stated in P1 of the argument. I'd like to know the wise guy who disagrees with any of the above 3.

If we can all agree to P1, then we can move to P2, where things tend to get a little ugly...not ugly for me, but for you guys.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by For_The_Kingdom]

That being said; I am here to defend the TRUTH value of P1, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause."

In other words, things don't pop into being, uncaused, out of NOTHING. We can sum it up these 3 ways..our common sense intuition tells us that..

Intuition
1. Out of nothing, nothing comes.
2. Nothing cannot create something.
3. Something cannot come from nothing.

FtK, do you know how, and I do use that word for a reason...how to show something to be the case that you think it is?
One doesn't show one premise of one logical to be true...by appealing to some nebulous "intuition". Are you going to show with evidence or facts that what you label here as your intuition is true?

In other words - do you fact check, sir?

Can we all just agree that everything which begins to exist has a cause?

Nope, we cannot. You are the one coming to us with this argument, you have to defend ALL premises. We can't just give a pass to a premise. That wouldn't be good debating, now would it?

Those three, in a nut shell, is ALL that is being stated in P1 of the argument. I'd like to know the wise guy who disagrees with any of the above 3.

Well no. As I stated in my previous reply, Kalam has two categories of beings, one of which is not spelled out in premise 1. Your premise 1 mentions the first category - those beings that do begin to exist, that have a cause.
What you do not comment on is the second category, those beings that do not begin to exist, that do not have causes. Which, going by your theology, has one member and in fact can only have the one member. So why not just call this category God? Why bother calling it anything else?
So we end up having premise 1 as
P1: Everything that/which begins to exist has a cause and God

Ooops...God, the thing you said you wanted to conclude with , is in your premises, thus rendering the KCA an invalid logical argument.

[FarWanderer]

Can we all just agree that everything which begins to exist has a cause

If you mean everything that begins to exist has a material cause, then yes. Otherwise, no.

[Bust Nak]

Can we all just agree that everything which begins to exist has a cause?

Well, no, virtual particles springs to mind.

In other words, things don't pop into being, uncaused, out of NOTHING.

But what about things that pop into being, uncaused, out of a vacuum?

what is so special about this quantum "realm" that allows for X to pop in to being, and not Y or Z?

Don't know.

The state of nothingness doesn't have any pre-conditions that will only allow X to pop in to being, and not Y.

Are you using "state of nothingness" interchangeably with quantum vacuum? If so, then why would you think there isn't any pre-conditions that will only allow X to pop in to being, and not Y or Z?

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to post 1 by For_The_Kingdom]

One of the biggest problems I might have with these "cosmological" arguments is that they place the invisible man out of reach, you might say. We're trying to prove the Bible god's existence, after all, and the Bible portrays this magical being as being in some important ways very close and very involved in human affairs. He reveals his plans to prophets, he parts seas, and he raises people from the dead. By contrast these cosmological arguments, even if they are valid, only serve to demonstrate that there is a magical being very far away in both space and time.

Which would still put atheism in a deep, shallow grave, wouldn't it?

But the cosmological argument isn't valid. It's based on unproved assumptions in particular it's claim that the universe has a cause, whatever that might mean.

Are you saying that if the universe began to exist, it wouldn't have a cause?

So let's face it: no god created us--we created the gods. Nothing we create could create the cosmos. Simply put, that's why these arguments for gods fail.

You've made no attempts to address any of the premises of the argument, yet you still wound up at the "god does not exist" conclusion.

Non sequitur in the works.

[Inigo Montoya]

The sanest step in demonstrating premise 1 should be a given, axiomatically, is to ask the question "Do we have an example of anything truly 'beginning to exist?'" That is, something not given rise to from pre-existing matter/energy.

I suspect FotK would jump to premise 2 here and offer up the universe, leaving premise 1 flopping about and gasping for air while giving this second premise an earlier-than- intended beating as well.

Even rolling my eyes and granting the first premise, you're forever stuck on premise 2. Best we can presently theorize, the big bang/inflation epoch is an event in the universe's history, not some mile marker where matter and energy magically poof into existence.

And even then, if you were annoyed enough with your drunken house guest and wanted to grant 1 & 2 in the hopes they'd just drive home into oncoming traffic, the absolute very best you could do in such a generous state is clumsily conclude the universe required some cause to find it's present and more recognizable form.

That cause is obviously Eric the Penguin, of whom no greater penguin can be imagined, and of whom it must be said necessarily exists, in all its waddling perfection, in some possible world that eventually includes this one when I shuffle the deck and define its necessity as part of its attributes for existence.

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to post 4 by For_The_Kingdom]

Began to exist: an entity whose existence comes in to being, from a "state" (for lack of better term) of non being and/or non existence.

This has never been observed to have occurred in all of human history.

So if the standard is solely based on what humans have/haven't observed, then we shouldn't believe in abiogenesis either...and abiogenesis is the default position of anyone who rejects theism.

The only problem with that is, one of them have to be right, and the other one wrong (necessarily right/wrong).

There are both logical/scientific problems with the naturalistic worldview...in other words, neither logic nor science supports it...therefore, supernaturalism wins by default.

Law of excluded middle.

Every effect which comes into being*

"Comes into being" according to your definition has never been observed. The idea is purely conceptual.

So, "we should only see it in order to believe it"...text book example of a non sequitur.

The KCA shows (or will show) that an uncaused cause is absolutely positively necessary.

The KCA cannot "show" that an uncaused cause is responsible, because no such thing has ever been observed to occur.

This is carry-over non sequitur logic from the above statements. ^

At best KCA can only speculate about such a condition. This is better known as make believe because the idea has been entirely derived from imagination and speculation.

The KCA states that everything that begins to exist has a cause. If you go into your living room and see a horse standing there, you don't assume that the horse popped into being, uncaused out of nothing...and if someone told you that that was the case, you would think the person is crazy.

We are talking about P1, and if there is anything contrary to that, I haven't heard it yet.

Ok, so if "quantum mechanics" was the cause for the beginning of the universe, then the universe did not "come from nothing", did it? So that doesn't negate any of my three "intuition" points.

No, the universe did not come from nothing. The universe is composed of energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed.

Wikipedia
Conservation of Energy
In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant, it is said to be conserved over time. This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

According to all observation and experimentation, energy is eternal. It changes from form to form due to the properties of quantum mechanics.

Natural laws come into effect ONLY after the universe began to exist.

That being said, to say that quantum mechanics was the cause of the universe is to be both philosophoically and scientifically inaccurate.

I have no problem conceding that quantum mechanics contradicts philosophy. Philosophy is under no requirement to be based on scientific observation. The Wikipedia quote REPRESENTS the current state of scientific observation on physical law, however.

There is a such thing as philosophy of science, ya know...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Second, you can believe in all the science you want, but science cannot contradict logic...in fact, we depend on science being logical.

Of course, we will get to all of that...either way, will you agree that things don't just pop in to being, uncaused, out of nothing??

That is in fact what I have been saying all along. No such thing has EVER been observed to occur.

Non sequitur throughout.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 16 by For_The_Kingdom]

How predictably boring, Kingdom.

How did I know abiogenesis would make an appearance in a thread with nothing to do with it?

By the way, just because a point goes sailing over your head doesn't make said point a non-sequitir. When you say something is non-sequitir, the rest of us understand it's just a point you can't or won't deal with.

Lastly, who made you the arbiter of when natural laws do and don't hold? Can you demonstrate the conservation of energy is invalid prior to inflation? No you cannot. You're derailing your own doomed thread far ahead of schedule.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 16 by For_The_Kingdom]

So if the standard is solely based on what humans have/haven't observed, then we shouldn't believe in abiogenesis either...and abiogenesis is the default position of anyone who rejects theism.

We aren't talking about abiogenesis, and we are talking about what we have observed.

Here let's try these:

1. Nothing has ever been observed to spontaneously come into being. (Nothing ever has.)
2. Nothing causes us to suspect anything spontaneously comes into being.
3. It is impossible for anything to spontaneously come into being.
4. We have no reason to suspect anything ever spontaneously came into being.
5. There is no need, given what we know about the universe, for anything to have spontaneously come into being.

The only counter-argument comes from what you should now consider, mythology.

[William]

[Replying to post 1 by For_The_Kingdom]

If we can all agree to P1, then we can move to P2, where things tend to get a little ugly...not ugly for me, but for you guys.

I - of course - agree with P1.

1. Everything that/which begins to exist, has a cause.

Even given the theory that the quantum stuff of the universe has always existed and has been popping out an endless variety of finite universes, it is the beginnings (and thus the middles and the ends) which always have a cause.

So one could look at the quantum potential [QP] as always ever having existed, and the manifestation of the physical forms which are made up of that quantum stuff, as being the finite product of a cause, but how are we to think of the QP as being that which is the cause when it clearly is just potential material?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 19 by William]

Well, quantum fluctuations are usually very small and over time they are expected to average to zero.
Positron-electron pairs, emerge then cancel, virtual photon with opposite momentum, and so on, and these are expected to be carrier particles. They also usually exist because of some material mechanism - energy transport.

But let's take an atom of hydrogen. If we follow it forward and backwards in time, there is no reason to suspect it has changed nor reason to suspect it will change, all things being equal.

Now we know that some have changed (by nuclear forces), and some will change, but we can see individuals that will never change, and never have. Or at least we can posit this easily.

For example, we don't have to assume the Big Bang created everything. Since this is true, it is uncaused.