RE: Stump the Christian?
June 12, 2015 at 7:43 am
(This post was last modified: June 12, 2015 at 7:51 am by Randy Carson.)
(June 12, 2015 at 12:53 am)Neimenovic Wrote:(June 11, 2015 at 11:45 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Composition Fallacy?
The argument is in the classic form Modus ponens:
P implies Q.
P.
Therefore, Q.
1. All men are mortal. (Everything that begins has a cause.)
2. Socrates was a man. (The universe began.)
3. Therefore, Socrates is moral. (Therefore, the universe has a cause.)
The argument does not imply that because some things in the universe have a cause, therefore the whole universe must have a cause. Instead, the premises are argued as follows:
Regarding the first premise:
- Something cannot come from nothing.
- If something can come from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything does not come into being from nothing. If the universe can come into being out of nothing, why not root beer? Or bowling balls? And why don't they appear out of nothing at random?
- Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise one of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. (This is an example of the type of inductive reasoning that undergirds all of science.)
Regarding the second premise:
- The Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that if the universe had existed forever, it would have run out of energy long ago.
- Modern cosmologists, Arvind Borde, Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin, have proved that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history, cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. This also applies to multiverses – if there is such a thing. Vilenkin said,
“This means that scientists “can no longer hide behind a past eternal-universe. There is no escape; they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”
The Fallacy of Equivocation?
The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a word is used in two different ways as follows:
1. Socrates was Greek.
2. Greek is a language.
3. Therefore, Socrates is a language.
However, in the Kalam Argument, God is the efficient cause of the universe, not the material cause. Here is another example:
Michaelangelo is the efficient cause of the statue, "David". The material cause of the statue is the block of marble.
Further, "begins to exist" means "comes into being". Thus, the Kalam argument may also be stated:
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe came into being.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
In the Kalam argument, there simply is no equivocation.
'everything that begins to exist has a cause' is equivalent to 'everything except God has a cause', thus begging the question at the very first premise[/qupte]
And here you blunder from the very first premise which states clearly that "everything which BEGINS has a cause." Thus, you have not dealt with the consideration that God, by definition, does not begin.
Quote:Also special pleading, asserting that god is not subject to infinite regress
Ooooh. Special pleading. Well, Kalam fails for sure, huh? Seriously, address the argument.
[quote'See, there you go again conflating 'beginning to exist out of nothing' and 'beginning to exist by rearrangement of things that already exist'
You have failed to address the Kalam (or the science of cosmology). In the beginning, there was NOTHING to rearrange.
Further, if everything that exists is merely rearranged, then you have to answer by what cause. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.
So, no...