Questions on the Kalam Cosmological argument

[MindForgedManacle]

This post is slightly long, so bear with me.

P1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence.

P2) The universe began its existence.

C) Therefore the universe has a cause for it's existed.

C2) (sometimes this is a hidden conclusion) That cause was the God of classical theism and was a personal cause because he chose to create the universe.

So, ever since I heard the Kalam argument and really thought about it, I've had some problems with how apologists move on from the argument (ignoring the 2nd premises issues with Special Relativity). William Lane Craig and his parrots always (ALWAYS) follow up the argument with something like:

And when you analyze what it means to be the cause of the universe, that of course is an argument for a transcendant, spaceless, timeless, changeless and immaterial being of immense power.

I mean really, that was like verbatim Bill Craig. My questions are: What the heck do most of those even actually mean, how do they get to those concepts and are those concepts (if I understand them correctly) even coherent?

Let me elaborate a bit. What does it even mean to "exist" "spacelessly and timelessly"? Those seem antithetical to any coherent meaning of "to exist" as we use the phrase. If something is 'spaceless', it by definition takes up no space, yes? And given I'm (cautiously) a nominalist, this seems to be describing the opposite of what it means to exist.
Secondly, if something is timeless (and changeless) in what sense does it make sense to speak of it acting?
And what is "immaterial" even mean in the context of an attribute of a thing? And how do people like Craig even get to the cause being a... being in the first place?


Lastly, that analyais can - I think - be shown to be nonsensical. I mean, if the cause of space, time, matter and energy, when analyzed, is therefore known not to be those 4 things, I could just as 'validly' run the following argument:

P1) Every human that is born has a cause for its existence.

P2) I - a human - was born.

P3) Therefore I had a cause for my existence.

And when you analyze what it means to be the cause of bringing a human into existence, that would lead to it being an unconscious, faceless, spineless, [Insert other random Non-Human attributes here]...

Help meh understand. ;;_;;

[Cyberman]

You've pretty much nailed it. Kalam is nothing more than a redrafting of the original cosmological argument intended to define the conclusion into existence. After that Craig just waltzes off down the yellow brick road with a bizarre list of total non sequiturs.

The original argument ran something like this:

1 Everything that exists has a cause
2 The Universe exists
3 Therefore the Universe had a cause
4 Therefore God exists

"But," says Man, "that's a dead giveaway, isn't it? You've just made God subject to premise 1, so by your own argument God must have had a cause. QED."

"Oh dear," says WLC, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly nips off to crap out this monstrous turd of spurious logic so as to get his God off the hook and fool the gullible.

However, even if we were to grant everything in Craig's argument as perfectly valid, God still has to be stapled to the end of it, because without that punchline it can be made to 'prove' Zeus, Quetzecoatl and Ceiling Cat just as much as it does Yahweh.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Good ol' Kalam. I can't count how many times it's been debunked but it's a staple argument proposed by the apologist.

[Simon Moon]

The problems with Kalam CA go deeper than just whether the premises are true or not.

Kalam CA is guilty of several fallacies that invalidate it.

The first is the fallacy of equivocation. It equivocates on the meaning of the phrase 'begins to exist'.

In P1, the phrase 'begins to exist' refer to objects within the universe that are a rearrangement of existing energy and matter. Trees, people, tables, etc begin to exist under this definition. This is creation ex materia.

In P2, the phrase 'begins to exist' refers to creation out of nothing. In other words, the deity created all matter and energy out of nothing. This is creation ex nihilo.

If Kalam is rewritten using the different definitions, the fallacy becomes obvious. (to borrow from IronChariots,org)

1. Every rearrangement of pre-existing matter has a cause. (supported by every observation, ever.)
2. The universe began to exist from absolute nonexistence, NOT from a rearrangement of pre-existing matter.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

In other words:

1. Every X has a cause.
2. The universe Y.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

As you can see, once the equivocation is made plain, the argument is invalid.

Kalam also contains the fallacy of composition.

P1 refers to 'everything' that we have ever observed, which is the set of every 'thing' withing the universe. P2 refers to the universe itself, which is not part of the set of every 'thing' as defined in P1. A set can't be a member of itself.

Just because the parts have certain properties, does not mean the whole has the same properties.

In other words, Kalam CA is saying something as idiotic as, "Atoms are not visible to the naked eye. Humans are made up of atoms. Therefore, humans are not visible to the naked eye

[Angrboda]

[Minimalist]

Zeus was waaayyy cooler than that fucking murderous prick, yhwh.

[Kim]

Usually Craig starts by illustrating why actual infinites are logically "absurd", and from there he draws the conclusion that the universe is finite and must have a beginning. He then asserts that this requires a timeless non-physical all powerful creator, since this is required to create a physical universe out of absolutely "nothing".

How would you respond to this claim?

[Cyberman]

Probably something like this:

---

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[Consilius]

Let me elaborate a bit. What does it even mean to "exist" "spacelessly and timelessly"? Those seem antithetical to any coherent meaning of "to exist" as we use the phrase. If something is 'spaceless', it by definition takes up no space, yes? And given I'm (cautiously) a nominalist, this seems to be describing the opposite of what it means to exist.
Secondly, if something is timeless (and changeless) in what sense does it make sense to speak of it acting?
And what is "immaterial" even mean in the context of an attribute of a thing? And how do people like Craig even get to the cause being a... being in the first place?

To be 'spaceless' is to exist unhindered by space.
To be 'timeless' is to exist unhindered by time. That is the reason that a timeless thing cannot change in nature (a better term for 'changeless' here is 'immutable').
The actions of the thing being mentioned are spoken of as perceived by people. For instance, the God of the Bible would not have waited to part the Red Sea, but the Israelites of the Exodus would have seen Him perform the action around 2000 B.C.

Lastly, that analyais can - I think - be shown to be nonsensical. I mean, if the cause of space, time, matter and energy, when analyzed, is therefore known not to be those 4 things, I could just as 'validly' run the following argument:

P1) Every human that is born has a cause for its existence.

P2) I - a human - was born.

P3) Therefore I had a cause for my existence.

And when you analyze what it means to be the cause of bringing a human into existence, that would lead to it being an unconscious, faceless, spineless, [Insert other random Non-Human attributes here]...

Help meh understand. ;;_;;

The inventor of the hammer made his tool without using a hammer, because he didn't need one.
The forces that made planet Earth did not have Earth when they made it, because planet Earth didn't exist yet. They did not need planet Earth to make planet Earth, and they did not need planet Earth to exist.
My mother didn't need my infant body to use to give birth to me with. Mostly because that would be disgusting.
A God wouldn't need flowers, people, the Sun, the Milky Way, space, or time to put these things into being.
Thank you.

[MindForgedManacle]

To be 'spaceless' is to exist unhindered by space.
To be 'timeless' is to exist unhindered by time. That is the reason that a timeless thing cannot change in nature (a better term for 'changeless' here is 'immutable').

Again, that is incoherent. My point was that existence in any coherent sense would imply spatial occupance. If something exists 'spacelessly', then you're not making sense, since that is indistinguishable from not existing. And Craig is a nominalist, so he can't point to Platonism.

The actions of the thing being mentioned are spoken of as perceived by people. For instance, the God of the Bible would not have waited to part the Red Sea, but the Israelites of the Exodus would have seen Him perform the action around 2000 B.C.

Er, no. If a being is timeless (and therefore immutable), it cannot do anything, much less with intention. To say that it could would be to say that God could act such that things that didn't exist would be affected, which inescapably draws in a temporal framework.
Or more clearly, God can act even though acting necessitates distinct temporal moments to differentiate and allow them.

The inventor of the hammer made his tool without using a hammer, because he didn't need one.
The forces that made planet Earth did not have Earth when they made it, because planet Earth didn't exist yet. They did not need planet Earth to make planet Earth, and they did not need planet Earth to exist.
My mother didn't need my infant body to use to give birth to me with. Mostly because that would be disgusting.
A God wouldn't need flowers, people, the Sun, the Milky Way, space, or time to put these things into being.
Thank you.

I'd thank you as well, for completely missing the point. My point was that such is NOT a universal principle, hence my human argument. In other words, the creator of something has no necessity of being the opposite of its creations.

Your examples are fundamentally flawed here. Craig and co. explicitly state that since the KCA establishes that God created time, space, matter and energy, he therefore is not of those things. But the pre-Earth materials and hammer-making materials share most of their properties, and are not the opposite.

And given my objections to the coherence of a non-spatiotemporal 'existence', I think it holds.