Dr. Craig is a liar.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Or maybe it was the lizard people. Or a sentient macadamia nut. Or maybe the concept of indoor plumbing created the universe.

I don't think I will ever understand this comeback. The KCA is properly formed, logically sound, not question begging, not equivocating, and not contradictory. The premises of the KCA, if true, infer the cause of the universe (or its predecessor) to be uncaused, timeless, immaterial, personal, and at least powerful enough to bring a universe into being from nothing. This is all it does. It does not get us to the the God of the Christianity and says nothing about other attributes that God might have.

So, how do we get from that to your comeback?

You already have all your work still ahead of you before you try to make the leap toward the Christian god.

What does it mean for a conscious mind to exist timelessly? What does it mean to be immaterial? What does it mean to have power without the existence of time, space and energy? What is this "power"? What is creation if not a temporal activity? How does one create time without time with which to create time? What did this being exist within prior to existence? Assuming this entity does exist, what suggests that it's "personal"? What does personal even mean in this context? What implies that it must be a singular god that made the universe? How does a non-physical being act upon a physical world without taking on physical properties?

Those are questions off the top of my head, and there are many more I could present.

[SteveII]

You are confusing something that is illogical with something that has no natural causation. A miracle is something that has supernatural causation. Logic does not enter into it at all.

So God can do things not in keeping with logic.

No. You seem not to understand what it means to say something is illogical. Logic has nothing to do with naturalism or science. Logic has to do with the form of the statement rather than its content. You are trying to say something like this:

1. Only natural things have natural causes
2. God is supernatural 
3. Therefore God does not cause natural things

That is a logically sound argument. However, that does not mean its conclusion is true. I would debate you on premise 1.

[ApeNotKillApe]

So God can do things not in keeping with logic.

No. You seem not to understand what it means to say something is illogical. Logic has nothing to do with naturalism or science. Logic has to do with the form of the statement rather than its content. You are trying to say something like this:

1. Only natural things have natural causes
2. God is supernatural 
3. Therefore God does not cause natural things

That is a logically sound argument. However, that does not mean its conclusion is true. I would debate you on premise 1.

Since I don't know of anything that isn't natural, it would be a short discussion. I don't even know what supernatural is even supposed to mean.

[SteveII]

I don't think I will ever understand this comeback. The KCA is properly formed, logically sound, not question begging, not equivocating, and not contradictory. The premises of the KCA, if true, infer the cause of the universe (or its predecessor) to be uncaused, timeless, immaterial, personal, and at least powerful enough to bring a universe into being from nothing. This is all it does. It does not get us to the the God of the Christianity and says nothing about other attributes that God might have.

So, how do we get from that to your comeback?

You already have all your work still ahead of you before you try to make the leap toward the Christian god.

What does it mean for a conscious mind to exist timelessly? What does it mean to be immaterial? What does it mean to have power without the existence of time, space and energy? What is this "power"? What is creation if not a temporal activity? How does one create time without time with which to create time? What did this being exist within prior to existence? Assuming this entity does exist, what suggests that it's "personal"? What does personal even mean in this context? What implies that it must be a singular god that made the universe? How does a non-physical being act upon a physical world without taking on physical properties?

Those are questions off the top of my head, and there are many more I could present.

Okay, those are fair questions.

Let's start with why I said personal. God created the universe instead of not creating the universe (which seems to be the only two choices). The creation act seems to be a free act of the will rather than something determined by some prior condition.

The quote I posted a page or two ago might help with the timeless question:

One must maintain that "prior " to creation there literally are no intervals of time at all. There would be no earlier and later, no enduring through successive intervals and, hence, no waiting, no temporal becoming. This state would pass away, not successively, but as a whole, at the moment of creation, when time begins.

But such a changeless, undifferentiated state looks suspiciously like a state of timelessness! It seems to me, therefore, that it is not only coherent but also plausible that God existing changelessly alone without creation is timeless and that He enters time at the moment of creation in virtue of His real relation to the temporal universe. The image of God existing idly before creation is just that: a figment of the imagination. Given that time began to exist, the most plausible view of God's relationship to time is that He is timeless without creation and temporal subsequent to creation.

If God is omniscient, he would know all truths simultaneously in his timeless state. An entity who knows all truths does not have to think about things, reason things out, etc. (and therefore mark time with mental events).  As the quote above says, that timeless state ended when the universe was created.  Time started at that point. God was extrinsically changed by his creation. The creative act was simultaneous with its effect.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Still a lot of questions you haven't addressed.

[GrandizerII]

If God is omniscient, he would know all truths simultaneously in his timeless state.

In a timeless state, he'd be functionally no different from a non-sentient timeless entity.

[robvalue]

http://youtu.be/BU7zMB5BWkw

[The Grand Nudger]

When I said these things are part of God's mind/nature I meant it was an intrinsic property and not a created or invented concept. It seems to me that God's mind has to be ordered according to some principles.

Why does it seem that way to you, and what principles would those be? What principles are capable of making demands or requirements on the mind of a god, of limiting it's ability, of determining it's structure or arrangement? Generally, the faithful seem to feel that god makes all the "accordings" - but in your case, you seem to think that there is some fundamental level of organization which even a god can't escape or determine for itself. Some item "x" for which god is not, itself, responsible but can be nothing other than in compliance with.

[Jehanne]

If God is omniscient, he would know all truths simultaneously in his timeless state.

Wouldn't that be an actual infinite?

[The Grand Nudger]

Minor correction, he would know only what it was possible for him to know.  To satisfy the condition of being limited to logical possibility there must at least be the conceptual acknowledgement that some knowledge would not be available to god.  Otherwise god has knowledge which exists, but is impossible for god to acquire -except- by this claimed omni-attribute.  "Omniscience" has been functionally transformed into the ability to do the impossible after all. Why supply the premise that god is limited to logical possibility when we will either deny that premise as it seems convenient - or reduce the terms to meaningless in an effort to make exception?