Is the kalam cosmological argument fallacious?

[historia]

From another thread:

There are multiple fallacies and problems with the KALAM.

. . .

Firstly,

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause".
There is some uncertainty to whether the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles have any causes for their beginning. They may be exceptions. Freedom of will conform the religious is real and therefore has uncaused components. Therefore the first premise is bogus.

Secondly,

Our understanding of causality is based on recombination of pre-existing stuff, entities and properties (material cause), which does not apply for divine creation. Therefore there is an equivocation fallacy here as well.
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." Here he refers to material cause recombination of pre-existing stuff.
"The universe has a cause." Here he refers to divine creation-ex nihilo.

Thirdly,

He makes the fallacy of composition.
If things inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) begin to exist or have a cause for their existence does not mean the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself began to exists or have a cause for it's existence.
The fabric of Space-Time is probably finite and necessarily has a beginning state of minimum entropy(Singularity) and possibly an end state of maximum entropy(Heat Death).
The fabric of Space-time may be just a thing inside the universe(multiverse or whatever).

Fourthly,

We have also the fallacy of single cause.
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy,[1] is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an
outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

There may be that the fabric of Space-Time(this thing inside universe(multiverse or whatever) or the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself was caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

Fifthly,
Scientists don't know what happened before plank time.
So all this talk is irrelevant and highly speculative.
The reality there is a gap in our knowledge.
Using this gap to make an argument for God just makes one guilty of the fallacy: argument from ignorance and plays right into the God of the Gaps.

Question for debate: Is alexxcJRO correct that the kalam cosmological argument suffers from these various logical fallacies?

[Miles]

.


For those not familiar with the Kalam cosmological argument, it's commonly formulated as:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe has a cause for its existence

And, of course, it has survived because many believe it is a foundation for an argument for the existence of a god.

Depending on one's philosophical bent there are several analyses of the argument on the internet that expose its fallacies that may be of interest, including Here, HERE, HERE, and HERE


.

[TRANSPONDER]

It is essentially the First Cause argument, dressed up to look more impressive. It still suffers from the same basic p[roblem at the heart of Theist apologetics - 'where did this Prime mover come from?' Theism stoutly states that it is 'eternal' and quote John as though that was evidence.

Essentially I don't think there is much point about discussing the validity of the Kalam rationale itself, because it is really about debating the rival probability or feasibility of a cosmos of matter/energy that either appeared out of nothing or was always there, or a complex creative intelligent being that popped out of nowhere or always existed.

I'll say now (anticipating query) that a cosmos of Nothing (which is what matter exists in) which had the capacity to imitate 'something' (matter/energy) takes less explaining than a god without any origin or was always there. And the bottom line is that this is good enough for skepticism/materialism, even before we get to 'which god? And even if theism flails and puffs about it, that they reject the suggestion is irrelevant if it is good enough for atheism. Quite apart from I think it is also good enough for science, or soon will be.

[alexxcJRO]

From another thread:

There are multiple fallacies and problems with the KALAM.

. . .

Firstly,

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause".
There is some uncertainty to whether the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles have any causes for their beginning. They may be exceptions. Freedom of will conform the religious is real and therefore has uncaused components. Therefore the first premise is bogus.

Secondly,

Our understanding of causality is based on recombination of pre-existing stuff, entities and properties (material cause), which does not apply for divine creation. Therefore there is an equivocation fallacy here as well.
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." Here he refers to material cause recombination of pre-existing stuff.
"The universe has a cause." Here he refers to divine creation-ex nihilo.

Thirdly,

He makes the fallacy of composition.
If things inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) begin to exist or have a cause for their existence does not mean the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself began to exists or have a cause for it's existence.
The fabric of Space-Time is probably finite and necessarily has a beginning state of minimum entropy(Singularity) and possibly an end state of maximum entropy(Heat Death).
The fabric of Space-time may be just a thing inside the universe(multiverse or whatever).

Fourthly,

We have also the fallacy of single cause.
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy,[1] is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an
outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

There may be that the fabric of Space-Time(this thing inside universe(multiverse or whatever) or the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself was caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

Fifthly,
Scientists don't know what happened before plank time.
So all this talk is irrelevant and highly speculative.
The reality there is a gap in our knowledge.
Using this gap to make an argument for God just makes one guilty of the fallacy: argument from ignorance and plays right into the God of the Gaps.

Question for debate: Is alexxcJRO correct that the kalam cosmological argument suffers from these various logical fallacies?

A bit of a follow up!

KALAM:
P1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
P2. The universe began to exist.
C. Therefore the universe has a cause.

A: False premise/ uncertainty of being true

Freedom of will necessitate having some uncaused elements/components to it. (humans are free in the sense that they are autonomously able to make decisions that are not caused by anything)

P1. Free will acts by definition are uncaused
P2. Conform Christian beliefs free will acts exists
C. They are things(free will acts) that begin to exist that do not have a cause to their existence

P1. If P1(KALAM) is true then nothing that begins to exits has no cause for its existence
P2. They are things(free will acts) that begin to exist that do not have a cause to their existence
C. P1 is false.
Observation1: There is some uncertainty to whether the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles have any causes for their beginning. They may be exceptions. (gives support to the uncertainty of P1 being true)
Observation2: This objection does not applies to deterministic Christians beliefs.

B:"Equivocation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Equivocation (disambiguation).
In logic, equivocation ('calling two different things by the same name') is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses within an argument."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation

P1. Equivocation is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses within an argument.
P2. The KALAM argument use same word-cause with multiple senses “cause1” and “cause2” within the argument.
C. Therefore KALAM makes the logical fallacy called equivocation
*cause 1: recombination of pre-existing objects-things, entities and properties=material cause
*cause 2: divine creation ex nihilo=efficient cause

C:“The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." This is fallacious, because vehicles are made with a variety of parts, most of which are not made of rubber.“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

If things inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) begin to exist or have a cause for their existence does not mean the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself began to exists or have a cause for it's existence.
The fabric of Space-Time is probably finite and necessarily has a beginning state of minimum entropy(Singularity) and possibly an end state of maximum entropy(Heat Death).
The fabric of Space-time may be just a thing, a part inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) and not the whole thing.
There may be other things inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) where the arrow of time is moving backwards. A mirroring fabric of Space-Time of our fabric of Space-Time.


D. The fallacy of single cause.
"The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy,[1] is an informal fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

P1. The fallacy of the single cause is an informal fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.
P2 The KALAM argument assumes there is a single, simple cause of an outcome(creation of the universe).
C. Therefore KALAM makes the logical fallacy called fallacy of the single cause
Observation: In reality the universe may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.(multiple supernatural gods or multiple extremely powerful multi-dimensional aliens beings or multiple natural causes or explanation4 or explantion5 or …ad infinitum).

E. “"God of the gaps" is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence.
The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which according to the users of the term, is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy.”
“Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proved true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Scientists don't know what happened before plank time(10-43 seconds).

“The universe began to exist” talk is highly speculative, ignorant and non-sequitur.

Using this gap of knowledge to make an argument for God just makes one guilty of the fallacy: argument from ignorance, and plays right into the God of the Gaps.

F. Second premise uncertainty of being true

Observation1: The inflation that followed the singularity and expansion may be just a phase, a transformation in the life of the universe and not the beginning out of nothingness of it all.
Observation1: The inflation that followed the singularity and expansion may be just a phase, a transformation in the life of things that are a part of the universe and not the beginning out of nothingness of it all.

[Eloi]

I guess such KALAM is what the Scripture says:

Heb. 3:4 Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God.

I don't need to be a philosopher to understand what it means and fully agree.

[David the apologist]

It gets us to a transcendent, personal cause of the universe. Et hoc dicimus Deum.

There are multiple fallacies and problems with the KALAM. This has been pointed out ad nauseam on this forum.


Firstly,

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause".
There is some uncertainty to whether the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles have any causes for their beginning. They may be exceptions.

On sensible versions of objective collapse theory, the reduction of the wave function describing a quantum system is triggered by the environment. On Bohmian Mechanics, the precise state of the system at any time is driven by a pilot wave. On MWI, the same unitary evolution that is considered unproblematically causal in other contexts is all that occurs, and wave function collapse is an illusion caused by decoherence.

You need an unsensible version of objective collapse theory, like spontaneous localization, to get to an uncaused event. Are you planning on defending a spontaneous localization theory here?

Freedom of will conform the religious is real and therefore has uncaused components. Therefore the first premise is bogus.

In free will, we have an event determined by an agent, rather than by another event. Agent causality is different from event causality, but it is still causality.

Secondly,

Our understanding of causality is based on recombination of pre-existing stuff, entities and properties (material cause), which does not apply for divine creation. Therefore there is an equivocation fallacy here as well.
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." Here he refers to material cause recombination of pre-existing stuff.
"The universe has a cause." Here he refers to divine creation-ex nihilo.

Eh... not really.

The notion of causation is broad enough to cover both instances.

Thirdly,

The fallacy of composition.
If things inside the universe(multiverse or whatever) begin to exist or have a cause for their existence does not mean the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself began to exists or have a cause for it's existence.
The fabric of Space-Time is probably finite and necessarily has a beginning state of minimum entropy(Singularity) and possibly an end state of maximum entropy(Heat Death).
The fabric of Space-time may be just a thing inside the universe(multiverse or whatever).

Not if we define the universe as "space, time, mass-energy-momentum, and quantum fields." Thoae are the basic elements of modern physics, so I see no reason not to equate the entirety of the natural universe with them. If you want to add non-physical objects to our ontology, be my guest. Your fellow skeptics will probably start whining about the burden of proof, though.

Fourthly,

We have also the fallacy of single cause.
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy,[1] is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an
outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

There may be that the fabric of Space-Time(this thing inside universe(multiverse or whatever) or the universe(multiverse or whatever) itself was caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

Perhaps, but...

1. It has been established that these causal factors would have to transcend space, time, mass-energy-momentum, and quantum fields. Which is sufficient to refute physicalism, unless you want to re-define physics.

2. If such causal factors co-existed from eternity past, we would require an explanation of why they suddenly began to act a finite time ago. This will require, ultimately, that one of the co-factors is a quasi-personal agent.

3. Skeptics are usually big on simplicity, so it's kind of odd that they'd suddenly start arguing that we need multiple factors to explain the universe when one will do.

Scientists don't know what happened before plank time.
So all this talk is irrelevant and highly speculative.
The reality there is a gap in our knowledge.
Using this gap to make an argument for God just makes one guilty of the fallacy: argument from ignorance and plays right into the God of the Gaps.

While it's true that scientists don't know what happened prior to the Planck time, it is highly unlikely that the geodesic incompleteness of the past is going to go away without the skeptic having to say something silly (eg, "the arrow of time reversed at the point of minimum contraction" - entropy is the only thing that physics countenances that can distinguish past from future, how is this any different from describing the beginning of two universes?)

"From the perspective of modern science, events don't have purposes or causes; they simply conform to the laws of nature.

So much the worse for science.

Without an explanation of what, exactly, a "law of nature" is supposed to be, I don't see how a "law of nature" is any better than a dictate of God.

I'd prefer to explain the behavior of things by referring to something about the things themselves, thank you very much. Caroll can keep his talk of "natural laws" to himself, as far as I'm concerned. At least until he can explain what it means for a "law" to "govern" mindless things.

[historia]

Secondly,

Our understanding of causality is based on recombination of pre-existing stuff, entities and properties (material cause), which does not apply for divine creation. Therefore there is an equivocation fallacy here as well.
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." Here he refers to material cause recombination of pre-existing stuff.
"The universe has a cause." Here he refers to divine creation-ex nihilo.

Eh... not really.

The notion of causation is broad enough to cover both instances.

To flesh this out a bit, we might consider William Lane Craig's response to this objection in "The Origin and Creation of the Universe: A Reply to Adolf Grünbaum," The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science vol. 43 iss. 2 (1992), pgs. 233-240:

The univocal concept of "cause" employed in premiss and conclusion alike is the concept of efficient causality, that is to say, something which produces or brings into being its effects. Whether such production involves transformation of previously existing materials or creation ex nihilo is completely incidental.

That this is so is evident from the fact that the proponent of the argument must confront and deal with the objection that the first cause may not have created ex nihilo, but instead transformed an eternal, quiescent universe into a universe in change (Goetz [1989]).

So the argument is clearly not equivocal.

[brunumb]

[Replying to Miles in post #2]

Thank you for the links Miles. Let me add the following clip to the mix:

[alexxcJRO]

On sensible versions of objective collapse theory, the reduction of the wave function describing a quantum system is triggered by the environment. On Bohmian Mechanics, the precise state of the system at any time is driven by a pilot wave. On MWI, the same unitary evolution that is considered unproblematically causal in other contexts is all that occurs, and wave function collapse is an illusion caused by decoherence.

You need an unsensible version of objective collapse theory, like spontaneous localization, to get to an uncaused event. Are you planning on defending a spontaneous localization theory here?

So much the worse for science.

Without an explanation of what, exactly, a "law of nature" is supposed to be, I don't see how a "law of nature" is any better than a dictate of God.

I'd prefer to explain the behavior of things by referring to something about the things themselves, thank you very much. Caroll can keep his talk of "natural laws" to himself, as far as I'm concerned. At least until he can explain what it means for a "law" to "govern" mindless things.

Discussion of interpretations is not quantum mechanics. It is a completely separate discipline called quantum foundations.
"Quantum foundations is a discipline of science that seeks to understand the most counter-intuitive aspects of quantum theory, reformulate it and even propose new generalizations thereof. Contrary to other physical theories, such as general relativity, the defining axioms of quantum theory are quite ad hoc, with no obvious physical intuition. While they lead to the right experimental predictions, they do not come with a mental picture of the world where they fit."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foundations
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/bl ... n-physics/


Interpretations are akin to bible interpretations it does not gets you to the reality, all it gets you it is speculative imaginative things which may well be fantasmagorical or true in part or whole.
Assigning subjective, qualitive terms like "better" to a hypothesis-interpretation and leave it at that instead of trying to prove your hypothesis-interpretation as according with objective reality not just phantasmagorical whimsical imaginations is not very productive.
Engaging in speculative thinking is fun as an imagination exercise. But one cannot base his entire life on just that.
The key point the uncertainty to whether the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles have any causes for their beginning doesn’t disappear because one brings forward talk about subjective things like interpretation. Until it can objectively be showed through experimentation that the process surrounding the radioactive decay of an atom or virtual particles is deterministic in nature the question remains open. Therefore the premise that everything has caused to its existence cannot be said to be true.
Its also always possible the answer is unknowable.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems demonstrates it is impossible to prove everything.
Even after we prove that atom decay and virtual particles happen through deterministic processes we may find other uncertainty down the line in respect to the things that helped us get an answer about atom decay and virtual particles.
This process of proving the universe if fully deterministic may never end-ad infinitum, having always things to gain knowledge about.

In free will, we have an event determined by an agent, rather than by another event. Agent causality is different from event causality, but it is still causality.

Free will acts are outside causal determination in the sense that past events don’t determine our choices. Free actions are caused by the agent himself in an uncaused manner rather than by the agent because of some prior event(memories) or state of affairs(beliefs, knowledge) .
Therefore the first premise is bogus.

Observation: Is it possible is that free will does not exist and any choices are predetermined by past events(memories), state of affairs(beliefs, knowledge) and psychological born traits. Which I think is most likely(belief not a claim).

Eh... not really.

The notion of causation is broad enough to cover both instances.

But one uses two different meanings in this argument therefore equivocation. (Difference which is significant)
Uses every day recombining pre-existing stuff as a way to prove the magical ex nihilo.
Its like using the normal spheres existing in nature to prove there exist a perfectly spherical object(which exist so far only as an abstract concept) in nature.
Its like using the normal fluids existing in nature to prove there exist a perfectly fluid(which exist so far only as an abstract concept) in nature.
Also first one needs to prove such concepts can really happen in objective reality.
In the mind any fantasmagorical abstract thing its possible like ex nihilo causation; perfect circle; perfect sphere; perfect fluid; omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent beings that have free will; omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent beings that coexist with natural evil and free will; omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being that impregnates a human to become a human so to be able to sacrifice himself to himself so to be able to forgive the humans and save them from himself.

Not if we define the universe as "space, time, mass-energy-momentum, and quantum fields." Thoae are the basic elements of modern physics, so I see no reason not to equate the entirety of the natural universe with them. If you want to add non-physical objects to our ontology, be my guest. Your fellow skeptics will probably start whining about the burden of proof, though.

Argument from ignorance. I can’t imagine anything else therefore...
All you have is argument from ignorance. You can’t have anything outside space-time continuum says you.
Many believed regular matter was all there is. Then we learned of anti-matter. Now we talk of Dark matter. There may be caca matter, fhjdstgfae matter, ...

Laws internal to the universe may not necessarily apply to the universe as a whole.
Cause and effect is a law of the universe. This does not mean it applies to the universe itself.
Proponents of the KALAM have to prove that. You cannot just assume things.

Space-time continuum may be a thing inside the universe that begin to exist. It therefore does not necessarily applies to the universe itself. Space time continuum may be a thing that resulted from an “explosion” inside the universe.
We don’t know if cause and affect applies outside the universe or if it exists there.
There may be multiple dimensions, where space-time continuum happened to begin to exist in only one dimension.
We don’t know if space-time continuum, way it came to be applies to other dimensions or if there are multiple universes in a multiverse where attributes of individual universe don’t apply to the whole multiverse as a whole with each universe having unique weird properties unimaginable to us.

The multiverse/multi dimensional universe may be uncaused not affected like your preferred fantasmagorical magical being.
Also as of 2015, the big bang model has been revised by physicists using quantum mechanical equations to replace the need for the singularity, thus giving the universe the possibility of existing forever.
https://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quant ... verse.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9314009381

Perhaps, but...

1. It has been established that these causal factors would have to transcend space, time, mass-energy-momentum, and quantum fields. Which is sufficient to refute physicalism, unless you want to re-define physics.

Q: Who has established this?
Its not refuting anything. It's maybe about adding knowledge to existing knowledge.
I have no problem with redefining things, changing my thinking.
Science is about truth not dogma.
Einstein went against most if not all scientists.
Humans are the problem not science itself.
Science its about truth not about holding precious pre-existing notions close to heart and never let go.

2. If such causal factors co-existed from eternity past, we would require an explanation of why they suddenly began to act a finite time ago. This will require, ultimately, that one of the co-factors is a quasi-personal agent.

This does not refute the problem of single cause.

3. Skeptics are usually big on simplicity, so it's kind of odd that they'd suddenly start arguing that we need multiple factors to explain the universe when one will do.

Talking about person or persons wishes or wants behind an argument it shows only weakness and impotence.

[TRANSPONDER]

I guess such KALAM is what the Scripture says:

Heb. 3:4 Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God.

I don't need to be a philosopher to understand what it means and fully agree.

That's obviously unsound and invalid. Who or what made a creator (never mind which one)? The Believer will say 'God is eternal' (had no origin). It's futile to ask how that makes sense - it is a Faith -claim and of course can be backed up by a Biblequote as though that proved anything.

All I can do is repeat that a near to nothing popping out of nothing or was eternal , takes less explaining than a complex intelligent creator that popped out of nowhere or was always there.

The point above "P1. Free will acts by definition are uncaused" if this is Part of Kalam and a claim by Lane -Craig, he ought to know better, and if he does it's a rhetorical swindle. Specifically, equivocation. Free will means the basis of human choice and it is debatable (in fact I don't believe it) to claim that a human choice has no cause, origin, mechanism or cause. It is instinct, preference, subliminal inclinations, habit (1), unrecognised information, indoctrination or bias, if not based on a conscious decision. Even if Humans had a random coin flip mental mechanism, that wouldn't equate to this idea of a Creator's uncaused cause which, if it is the random decision idea, makes the Creator create for no reason at all. If it is trying to wangle a mental argument for a being that didn't need to be created, then that is equivocation taken to the level of a rhetorical swindle, and I can't believe that any self - respecting theist apologist would try to pull that cheat.

So (really) it fails because if free will is uncaused, it doesn't need a creator, and the point of Kalam is that a creator is needed.

(1) who hasn't changed their job or dwelling and (when not thinking) found themselves following educated instinct to the old workplace or dwelling place ? I have