In Defense of the Kalam

[Avodaiah]

First of all, I have read more than just Craig's Reasonable Faith article on the Kalam, in fact' i'm not sure I read that one. I did take a look at these though:
Cosmological Absurdity
IC Wiki article
Cosmological Kalamity
I think one or two other ones too, but I can't find them now.

Anyway, on to the counterarguments:
I) The universe began to exist.
1) How do you know?
Because the things in the universe are constantly moving and changing. And if the universe is changing, it has to have a beginning state to change from. That means if the universe is changing, it must have had a beginning.
2) Time doesn't progress in such a simple way.
It doesn't matter if time progresses at different speeds or even backwards; everything in the universe still moves through time, and it can't have been moving through time infinitely: Again, if things are changing, they must have had a beginning state to change from.
3) This may be true for things in the universe, but not for the universe itself.
True, things in the universe can cause other things in it, but this is a form of change, and if this sequence of causes has gone on infinitely (i.e. the universe is infinite), then we are left with the same problem of infinite changes without a beginning state. That means the universe must not have gone on infinitely.
II) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1) According to particle physics, this does not seem to be the case.
This is not just a law of physics; it is a law of pure mathematics and logic. Nothing cannot become something, just like 0 cannot equal 1; there needs to be a cause.
2) Ex nihilo or ex materia? You need to pick one.
Ex materia in both premises. The entire point of the argument is that there can be no creation ex nihilo. When we say God created the universe from nothing, we mean from nothing but Himself and His own power. We're not idiots... you know, usually... :S
3) NBE is just a synonym for God.
No, NBE is a hypothetical category, just like BE is. This argument is not trying to prove that there is only one NBE (i.e. God); there could be 2, 10, 100, or more NBEs in it. This argument only proves that the category is not empty and that every BE was caused by an NBE.
III) The universe has a cause.
1) Then who created God?
Remember that only things that begin to exist have to have a cause, and only things that change begin to exist. Also only things which move through time can change. Whatever the universe's cause is, it need not do any of these things.
2) This doesn't prove which god exists.
I never said it does. It is just an argument against atheism, not for any specific religion.

P.S. I'm a guy, Esquilax.

[Rampant.A.I.]

First of all, I have read more than just Craig's Reasonable Faith article on the Kalam, in fact' i'm not sure I read that one. I did take a look at these though:
Cosmological Absurdity
IC Wiki article
Cosmological Kalamity
I think one or two other ones too, but I can't find them now.

Anyway, on to the counterarguments:
I) The universe began to exist.
1) How do you know?
Because the things in the universe are constantly moving and changing. And if the universe is changing, it has to have a beginning state to change from. That means if the universe is changing, it must have had a beginning.
2) Time doesn't progress in such a simple way.
It doesn't matter if time progresses at different speeds or even backwards; everything in the universe still moves through time, and it can't have been moving through time infinitely: Again, if things are changing, they must have had a beginning state to change from.
3) This may be true for things in the universe, but not for the universe itself.
True, things in the universe can cause other things in it, but this is a form of change, and if this sequence of causes has gone on infinitely (i.e. the universe is infinite), then we are left with the same problem of infinite changes without a beginning state. That means the universe must not have gone on infinitely.
II) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1) According to particle physics, this does not seem to be the case.
This is not just a law of physics; it is a law of pure mathematics and logic. Nothing cannot become something, just like 0 cannot equal 1; there needs to be a cause.
2) Ex nihilo or ex materia? You need to pick one.
Ex materia in both premises. The entire point of the argument is that there can be no creation ex nihilo. When we say God created the universe from nothing, we mean from nothing but Himself and His own power. We're not idiots... you know, usually... :S
3) NBE is just a synonym for God.
No, NBE is a hypothetical category, just like BE is. This argument is not trying to prove that there is only one NBE (i.e. God); there could be 2, 10, 100, or more NBEs in it. This argument only proves that the category is not empty and that every BE was caused by an NBE.
III) The universe has a cause.
1) Then who created God?
Remember that only things that begin to exist have to have a cause, and only things that change begin to exist. Also only things which move through time can change. Whatever the universe's cause is, it need not do any of these things.
2) This doesn't prove which god exists.
I never said it does. It is just an argument against atheism, not for any specific religion.

P.S. I'm a guy, Esquilax.

I'll respond to this further when I have time to look it over, however it's apparent from the first point you're ignoring the objection about causality, and restating arguments based on the causality as observed in the existing universe.

If the universe began to exist, why would currently observed causality, an artifact of the existing universe, (space and time) apply before space and time existed?

What makes an un-caused first cause distinguishable from the possible properties of the pre-universe as an entity, or single un-caused cause?

Where is there any indication that a first-cause event must have been intelligent, corporeal, or an entity?

Why is the OP Gish-Gallop copy-pasting instead of responding to the objections raised?

There are countless events in history of unexplained phenomena tagged "GodDidIt," only to later be explained. The KCA is a desperate last-ditch effort to legitimize "We Don't Know" :. <GodDidIt> as a rational "explanation" when it has failed to be anything other than a temporary placeholder for future scientific knowledge.

[Mudhammam]

Anyway, on to the counterarguments:
I) The universe began to exist.
1) How do you know?
Because the things in the universe are constantly moving and changing. And if the universe is changing, it has to have a beginning state to change from. That means if the universe is changing, it must have had a beginning.
2) Time doesn't progress in such a simple way.
It doesn't matter if time progresses at different speeds or even backwards; everything in the universe still moves through time, and it can't have been moving through time infinitely: Again, if things are changing, they must have had a beginning state to change from.
3) This may be true for things in the universe, but not for the universe itself.
True, things in the universe can cause other things in it, but this is a form of change, and if this sequence of causes has gone on infinitely (i.e. the universe is infinite), then we are left with the same problem of infinite changes without a beginning state. That means the universe must not have gone on infinitely.

Correct. Cosmology currently points to the Big Bang as the beginning of space-time.

II) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1) According to particle physics, this does not seem to be the case.
This is not just a law of physics; it is a law of pure mathematics and logic. Nothing cannot become something, just like 0 cannot equal 1; there needs to be a cause.
2) Ex nihilo or ex materia? You need to pick one.
Ex materia in both premises. The entire point of the argument is that there can be no creation ex nihilo. When we say God created the universe from nothing, we mean from nothing but Himself and His own power. We're not idiots... you know, usually... :S
3) NBE is just a synonym for God.
No, NBE is a hypothetical category, just like BE is. This argument is not trying to prove that there is only one NBE (i.e. God); there could be 2, 10, 100, or more NBEs in it. This argument only proves that the category is not empty and that every BE was caused by an NBE.

Nothing significant stated here. You've just interchanged the word "unknown" with the word "God" without explaining anything and subsequently beg many more questions about the nature of this deity that you've created and conveniently left unanswered.

III) The universe has a cause.
1) Then who created God?
Remember that only things that begin to exist have to have a cause, and only things that change begin to exist. Also only things which move through time can change. Whatever the universe's cause is, it need not do any of these things.
2) This doesn't prove which god exists.
I never said it does. It is just an argument against atheism, not for any specific religion.

P.S. I'm a guy, Esquilax.

Pretty weak argument that offers no new information regarding the nature of reality or the origin of the Universe. It should be called the Kalam semantics game.

[shep]

The universe began to exist.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Therefore the universe had a cause.

I've done my research on this, and as far as I can tell, it's a true argument.
Yes, people have tried to refute it a thousand times, but none of these attempts, as far as I have seen, have been successful. So anyone who thinks this argument is false, please tell me why.
Avodaiah

The argument assumes we need a creator.

[Tonus]

The argument assumes we need a creator.

I asked before, but wouldn't "the big bang" fit the argument just as well as "god"? The argument simply indicates that something must have caused the universe to exist. Why wouldn't that something be "the big bang"? Or even "Marduk, from the corpse of Tiamat"?

[Esquilax]

Anyway, on to the counterarguments:
I) The universe began to exist.
1) How do you know?
Because the things in the universe are constantly moving and changing. And if the universe is changing, it has to have a beginning state to change from. That means if the universe is changing, it must have had a beginning.

This... doesn't really follow at all. Why couldn't an eternal thing change too? To be honest, this is just a non sequitur.

2) Time doesn't progress in such a simple way.
It doesn't matter if time progresses at different speeds or even backwards; everything in the universe still moves through time, and it can't have been moving through time infinitely: Again, if things are changing, they must have had a beginning state to change from.

Okay, fallacy of composition again: everything in the universe moves through time, but what happened before the big bang was not in the universe. It was, literally, outside of spacetime as we understand it. What's true of the contents doesn't need to be true of the whole, or the exterior of the whole.

3) This may be true for things in the universe, but not for the universe itself.
True, things in the universe can cause other things in it, but this is a form of change, and if this sequence of causes has gone on infinitely (i.e. the universe is infinite), then we are left with the same problem of infinite changes without a beginning state. That means the universe must not have gone on infinitely.

Why is the concept of infinite regress a problem? What extra information are you bringing to this that shows it's impossible?

II) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
1) According to particle physics, this does not seem to be the case.
This is not just a law of physics; it is a law of pure mathematics and logic. Nothing cannot become something, just like 0 cannot equal 1; there needs to be a cause.

Bare assertions don't mean much, especially when others are bringing to bear real science, and all you're doing is saying no, without providing anything.

2) Ex nihilo or ex materia? You need to pick one.
Ex materia in both premises. The entire point of the argument is that there can be no creation ex nihilo. When we say God created the universe from nothing, we mean from nothing but Himself and His own power. We're not idiots... you know, usually... :S

So what you're saying is that you already believe in something that breaks the rules that Kalam sets forth, and yet you're still trying to seriously use them?

3) NBE is just a synonym for God.
No, NBE is a hypothetical category, just like BE is. This argument is not trying to prove that there is only one NBE (i.e. God); there could be 2, 10, 100, or more NBEs in it. This argument only proves that the category is not empty and that every BE was caused by an NBE.

Kalam is not the way to prove that.

III) The universe has a cause.
1) Then who created God?
Remember that only things that begin to exist have to have a cause, and only things that change begin to exist. Also only things which move through time can change. Whatever the universe's cause is, it need not do any of these things.

Did you know that the original version of the cosmological argument didn't have this "begin to exist" nonsense in it? That was added later, as an attempted loophole around this exact counterargument. Isn't it interesting, how the argument changed without any new information being discovered?

More importantly, your rebuttal here still doesn't stand: you can't just assert that god didn't begin to exist by definitional fiat, that's just making stuff up. And how do you know that the universe moves through time? All you actually know is that things within the universe move through time, because time is contained within the universe. Space and time are linked, after all; you don't know what's beyond, so stop making assertions about it.

2) This doesn't prove which god exists.
I never said it does. It is just an argument against atheism, not for any specific religion.

It's not even an argument against atheism, if you actually know what atheism is: atheism never stated that the universe doesn't have a cause, so there's no sense in which any of your premises conflict with atheism in the slightest. The only reason we're arguing here is because the premises themselves are bare assertions made without evidence or justification, just recourse to a series of observed rules that we have no reason to think apply beyond the borders of the universe.

P.S. I'm a guy, Esquilax.

Understood. I think it was the "aiah" sound at the end of your username that made me think otherwise. Bit feminine.

[Avodaiah]

Hi all, sorry I haven't replied in a while. Anyway...

Bare assertions don't mean much, especially when others are bringing to bear real science, and all you're doing is saying no, without providing anything.

I didn't make a bare assertion. I stated a self-evident truth. The fact that everything that begins to exist has a cause is not something we're unsure of until we see or detect it happening. It is a simple truth about existence itself. 0 does not make 1. Nothing does not make something. A lack of cause does not make a real effect.

The argument simply indicates that something must have caused the universe to exist. Why wouldn't that something be "the big bang"?

Let me answer your question with a question: Forget about why the universe's cause had to be outside of time, why do causes propagate inside of time? It's the way time works: The state of the universe at any point in time depends on the state of the universe immediately before it. It couldn't just have started by itself when there was nothing immediately before it, because then time would have been completely different from how we know it. This is an extroardinary claim to make, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
But like I said before, it can't go on forever into the past, either.

Speaking of which...

This... doesn't really follow at all. Why couldn't an eternal thing change too? To be honest, this is just a non sequitur.

I kind of already answered this question: If something doesn't have a starting point to change from, it can't change. Literally the entire universe changes. Therefore it had a starting point, i.e. not eternal.
Kind of reminds me of a quote I read earlier today...

all you're doing is saying no, without providing anything.

So if time didn't go infinitely into the past, and it didn't start by itself, then it must have been started by something outside of it. God? Maybe. Something else? Maybe. Nothing? No.

[Minimalist]

I didn't make a bare assertion. I stated a self-evident truth.

Ah. So the problem is that you can't tell the difference.

[Alex K]

Hi all, sorry I haven't replied in a while. Anyway...

Bare assertions don't mean much, especially when others are bringing to bear real science, and all you're doing is saying no, without providing anything.

I didn't make a bare assertion. I stated a self-evident truth. The fact that everything that begins to exist has a cause is not something we're unsure of until we see or detect it happening.

No, sorry, it's not a self evident anything, it's a half-wrong (*) intuition you gleaned from the macroscopic physical laws within our universe, then applied where it is even more inapplicable.

(*) even within our universe, cause and effect are more than sketchy at the microscopic level. They are mainly an artifact of increasing entropy, and in combination with quantum uncertainty, the source of your intuition breaks down terminally. Now, all this is still dealing with rearranging of pre-existing energy quanta within our universe, your discussion of "something from nothing" outside of spacetime does not even come close to making any logical connection with your naive assumptions.

[Tonus]

The argument simply indicates that something must have caused the universe to exist. Why wouldn't that something be "the big bang"?

Let me answer your question with a question: Forget about why the universe's cause had to be outside of time, why do causes propagate inside of time?

To clarify my point: looking at Kalam's model, I don't see why we could not use "the Big Bang" as the "cause." If your answer is that further elaboration is required, that's fine, and it may help us to eliminate some possibilities for a cause. What do you believe the cause to be?