Kalam

[Belacqua]

But none of those states of affairs could exist without time.

You're right. I certainly don't mean to imply that Aristotle believed in a static universe, or that things don't develop over time. Everything is in motion, which means time.

The point is that Kalam argues for a thing that happened at one time, which then might have stopped. An analogy would be dominoes -- the first domino falls and starts the sequence, but then the first one is out of action. It could lie there, or the cat could eat it, or whatever, and it wouldn't affect the ongoing fall of the dominoes. 

So that's a temporal starting point, as is the Big Bang. (A series per accidens, because the cause of the previous step could disappear, and the chain would continue.)

Aristotle believed in an eternal universe, that has always been going. So there was no point when the first domino hadn't fallen yet. 

For Aristotle (and Thomas) the analogy would be to a set of gears. The first gear provides the initial impetus and makes all the rest of the gears turn, but if it stopped all the rest would stop too. This applies to the motion of things in the universe, but, more importantly, to the existence of things in the universe. Each turning gear relies for its motion and existence on the previous gear, back to the First Cause Gear.

I hasten to add that this is an analogy ONLY to show the dependence of each step in the chain on the first step. I know that in real life you need a hamster to turn the first gear. Plus the gears need to touch, etc. It is an analogy only concerning the dependence of the parts. 

Sorry, I don't want people to start arguing about mechanical motion, when that's only an analogy.

Confusingly enough, Thomas DID believe that the universe had a temporal starting point, because the Bible tells him so. But that, for him, was an article of faith. He was persuaded by Aristotle's argument that such a starting point could not be proved by logic. So those troublesome five ways never argue for a temporal starting point. (Kalam does.) 

When you get your time machine, PLEASE go back and persuade the English translator not to translate Aristotle's αἰτία as "cause." This has led to such confusion that annoying people like me have to step in and try to clear things up, and it never goes well.