Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 12:55 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
#1
Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
Here's another I posted on reasonablefaith.org.  Again, I doubt it will be approved. What do you all think?

I have several objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA).  Perhaps I will post the others later. The most damning and obvious is that the KCA does not in any way advance Christian theology (much less Catholic), or any theology for that matter.  It certainly advances Deism, or at least scientific Deism..  Specifically, WLC claim that the resultant cause is 'enormously powerful' is direct admission that the cause is finite.   But the Christian God is infinitely powerful, not "enormously" or "immensely" powerful.  WLC qualifies the term.  Heck, I'm "immensely powerful" compared to an ant.  A whisper is can start an avalanche.  A butterfly (according to chaos theory) could start a  hurricane.   Are they "immensely powerful"?  Further, the aspects WLC applies to the 'cause' are relative ONLY to this universe.  I can go on and on, but I'll give this basic analogy:  But the point is that WLC himself admits that the KCA doesn't in the slightest advance Christian theology.  The argument is over right there. Consider:

Last night, I had a DREAM that I was at a WLC seminar where he proposed the KCA.  When I awoke, I realized that EVERYTHING he claimed about the cause applied to me.  My dream had a beginning and I was the cause.  But I am not spaceless, or timeless.  Perhaps in the context of my dream (THAT universe) I was, but I am clearly not in reality.  And of course, I am not "immensely powerful".    You could of course say that I have only 'kicked the can down the road', eventually I must end with a 'spaceless/timeless' cause.  But that is why the KCA advances SCIENTIFIC DEISM - even if I concede that point (which I do not), there are MANY more reasonable interpretations.  For example, why can't the laws of quantum mechanics and a multiverse fabric of reality (universes being created all the 'time', just like Hawking radiation) be 'timeless'?  Why can't mathematics (the efficient cause) be timeless?  If you want to say 'math' and 'God' are equivalent? Go for it.  But myself? I will not be worshiping the number line.  And of course, in such an interpretation. the 'cause' is not personal. In fact, how is a timeless cause "personal" at all?  It is an oxymoron.  A personal being must be able to make a decision (let's create a universe today), right? But how can a 'timeless' being make a decision? To make a decision you must be a different state BEFORE and AFTER the decision. 

I could go on and on.  But I will conclude with the following.  WLC himself admits the above is correct in a recent video (top ten bad objections to the KCA (a very despicable and disingenuous title - imagine if I made a similar video - top ten 'bad' beliefs about Catholicism - #1, human sacrifice #2 Drink blood, and so on and so on.).  In that video, his response to the above is "SO WHAT! I never claimed the KCA advances Christian theology."  Well, then, my response is "THEN WHY???"  If all you have done is push SCIENTIFIC reasoning to the point that perhaps there is a multiverse or some other fabric of reality beyond what we can observe, and there is some set of efficient causes that perhaps exists outside our universe's context - fantastic - I'm all for it. But you do NOT need to appeal to any theological interpretation whatsoever.  In the end, it's STILL science.
Reply
#2
RE: Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
The biggest problem with the KCA is it doesn't get you to God or have anything to do with God, it basically is arguing that the universe had a cause.
Reply
#3
RE: Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosm...l_argument
Reply
#4
RE: Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
It puzzles me (but doesn't surprise me all that much) that in this era of quantum indeterminacy people still insist on causality. KCA has been dead for years, I just wish that someone would tell Mr. Craig.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
Reply
#5
RE: Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
The ones that trot out Kalam haven't read any Quantum physics. Something that becomes obvious if you can make even the most basic statements on the subject.
Quote:I don't understand why you'd come to a discussion forum, and then proceed to reap from visibility any voice that disagrees with you. If you're going to do that, why not just sit in front of a mirror and pat yourself on the back continuously?
-Esquilax

Evolution - Adapt or be eaten.
Reply
#6
RE: Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument
Here's an excellent summary of WLC's shenanigans:

RationalWiki -- William Lane Craig

(Above article edited, in very small part, by yours truly.)  Here's my favorite BS syllogism (which I added to the above courtesy of Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland):

Major Premise:  A bishop can only move diagonally.

Minor Premise:  The Pope is the bishop of Rome.

Therefore,

Conclusion:  The Pope can only move diagonally.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  The Cosmological Argument and Free Will Mudhammam 64 11296 September 19, 2014 at 10:52 pm
Last Post: genkaus
  List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis Neo-Scholastic 8 1572 April 5, 2013 at 7:31 pm
Last Post: Tonus



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)