The Kalam Cosmological argument.

[Angrboda]

Angrboda, no, not really, I'm not. Not an expert on Hume. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what you are talking about, as to what Hume said. If you're speaking about Hume claiming things people infer as designed, and then applying that by analogy to natural things to see that has a Designer, then that's interesting. But I will comment on that after you confirm. Design vs chance would be more going into the Fine Tuning argument Dr. Craig uses. As for the Kalam, its soundness and Truth only depends on the soundness and Truth of Premise 1 and 2, since I think everyone grants Premise 3 follows from Steps 1 and 2.

David Hume is the most famous critic of these arguments. In Part II of his famous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume formulates the argument as follows:

Look round the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

Since the world, on this analysis, is closely analogous to the most intricate artifacts produced by human beings, we can infer “by all the rules of analogy” the existence of an intelligent designer who created the world. Just as the watch has a watchmaker, then, the universe has a universe-maker.

As expressed in this passage, then, the argument is a straightforward argument from analogy with the following structure:

• The material universe resembles the intelligent productions of human beings in that it exhibits design.
  
• The design in any human artifact is the effect of having been made by an intelligent being.
  
• Like effects have like causes.
  
• Therefore, the design in the material universe is the effect of having been made by an intelligent creator.
  

Hume criticizes the argument on two main grounds. First, Hume rejects the analogy between the material universe and any particular human artifact. As Hume states the relevant rule of analogy, “wherever you depart in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty” (Hume, Dialogues, Part II). Hume then goes on to argue that the cases are simply too dissimilar to support an inference that they are like effects having like causes:

If we see a house,… we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect (Hume, Dialogues, Part II).

Since the analogy fails, Hume argues that we would need to have experience with the creation of material worlds in order to justify any a posteriori claims about the causes of any particular material world; since we obviously lack such experience, we lack adequate justification for the claim that the material universe has an intelligent cause.

Second, Hume argues that, even if the resemblance between the material universe and human artifacts justified thinking they have similar causes, it would not justify thinking that an all-perfect God exists and created the world. For example, there is nothing in the argument that would warrant the inference that the creator of the universe is perfectly intelligent or perfectly good. Indeed, Hume argues that there is nothing there that would justify thinking even that there is just one deity: “what shadow of an argument… can you produce from your hypothesis to prove the unity of the Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world” (Hume Dialogues, Part V)?
As for God declaring Himself Eternal: I am saying, what God declared Himself to be nearly 3500 or 4000 years ago, when He spoke to Abraham and Moses, the Kalam can prove to be True of Him today. It can show that a Personal Creator of the Universe, that transcends space and time, created the Universe today; but God declared this of Himself 3000+ years, when He spoke to King David, King Solomon, or Prophets and Patriarchs like Moses and Abraham. Just a "coincidence", I'm sure, and this answers the point of those who were claiming, even if Kalam shows God exists, it doesn't show the Abrahamic God. Well it certainly shows a Powerful Creator God, Who is Eternal, and thus comes quite close to showing the God of Abrahamic Monotheism. Of course, it is a cumulative case, and further arguments down the line, like fine tuning, the moral argument, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ etc show more details.

https://iep.utm.edu/design-arguments-for...-god/#SH1b



As for the Kalam, it has many problems which have been noted by many.  Only those with a predetermined conclusion in mind take it all that seriously.  And as noted, it only would prove that the universe had a cause, even if it were sound.  That the cause necessarily was God requires a leap of faith which none of us are under any obligation to take.