Does the Kalam Cosmological Argument fail?

The Stephen Hawking Quote Source:

Hartle and Hawking, "Wave Function of the Universe," p. 2961; Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, p. 85.

The Alex Vilenkin Quote:

Alex Vilenkin, Many Words in One: The Search for Other Universes (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), p. 176

The Frank Barrow and John Tippler Quote:

John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 442.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Atheism
• Theism
• Big
• Bang
• Kalam
• Cosmological
• Argument
• William
• Lane
• Craig
• Vilenkin
• Barrow
• Tipple
• Stephen
• Hawking
• Quantum
• vacuum
• virtual
• particles

[theonlyway2truth]

btw, I don't even accept the Kalam Anymore. If you are interested in my reasoning, send me a message.

[cartoonhead5]

The universe did not begin to exist becuse time did not exist before the universe. So the universe has always existed thus the arugment fails.

[theonlyway2truth]

@cartoonhead5

e comes into being at t if and only if (i) e exists at t, (ii) t is the first time at which e exists, (iii) there is no state of affairs in the actual world in which e exists timelessly, and (iv) e’s existing at t is a tensed fact.

[PanDeism]

The theological theory of pandeism fully accounts for this....

[theonlyway2truth]

@PanDeism This is relevant how? This is an argument against naturalism and for a supernatural intelligence. It is not specifically for any particular religion or God concept.

[PanDeism]

@theonlyway2truth Naetheless, if we ought to be accoutred with logic in contemplating the existence of a Creator, the same must apply to our contemplation of the nature of such Creator, and the most fundamental model of a Creator which fully accounts for all evidence must be deemed as correct until proof is presented which can not be thereby explained -- pandeism is that fundamental model....

[theonlyway2truth]

@PanDeism

Honestly, this debate doesn't matter. The KCA is an argument against atheism. In so far as it demonstrates that there is a transcendent mind who created the universe, I'm happy. This argument is only one part of a larger case for christianity.

[fivethirty]

@theonlyway2truth YES PLEASE SHARE BECAUSE I DISAGREE!

[sirdelrio]

@theonlyway2truth also, all the theorems that theists claim 'predict' an absolute beginning, what they actually predict is a singularity, and the singularity is not nothing. Also in physics, a singularity is "a phenomenon that cannot be described by available theory". There are singularities of various kinds: cosmological singularities, black hole singularities, et al. because current theory cannot describe what happens there. Cutting edge theoretical approaches are 'solving' the singularity.

[sirdelrio]

@theonlyway2truth When physicists say that "space-time, matter and energy came into existence" they are speculating. There is no experimental evidence for this. The experimental evidence goes back up to 300.000y from the bigbang, before that, all we have are mathematical models. Some of them come out right in predicting the future events, but none of them says ANYTHING about the beginning (is not like they predict 'an absolute beginning', no), like evolution says nothing of abiogenesis.

[sirdelrio]

@theonlyway2truth i have never accepted it either, but send me your reasoning to personal message. And please, stop with the 'absolutely nothing'. Quoting Hawking is not enough. If you were familiar with cosmology from a knowledge of the physics, the experimental evidence and the models, you wouldnt say that.

[Gnomefro]

@thetraceur123 This really is all Kalam can support. Any speculation about minds, intelligence etc are unsupported claims that are made up by people who want to argue for certain bronze age myths. As far as I'm concerned, appealing to intelligence, the most impressive example of material phenomena that we know of, as an elemental attribute of nature that doesn't need explanation is putting the cart before the horse and not an explanation at all. No matter how comforting it may sound to some.

[Gnomefro]

@thetraceur123 However, naturalistic responses have long since dealt with teleological arguments, through the theory of evolution, the weak anthropic principle and our demonstrable utter ignorance of the number of trials involved in the creation of this universe, so we don't need a mind, intelligence or any kind of top down "explanation". In fact, this would seem to defy the very idea of an explanation. What remains would be a transcendent natural cause.

[Gnomefro]

@thetraceur123 A real issue with Kalam, especially in versions that take the big bang theory for granted, is that there is a massive confusion around the terms "universe" and "nature". I could create a simulated universe on my PC that had inhabitants that discussed their versions of Kalam and conclude that their universes had a creator, and they would be right, it would be me. But I'm natural, even though I transcend their universe.

[Gnomefro]

@thetraceur123 "and if the argument and it's premises is true, the Universe had a cause ( Higher being eg God ). Though we can't study it it, but doesn't mean it isn't true."

If the "universe" had a cause in the sense you're talking about, it could still be a natural process that nobody in their right mind would call "God" or even a "being". What Kalam demonstrates is just that causality is not a universal phenomenon.

[thetraceur123]

@hejcoze You can't for example prove scientificly that there is an external world but we all still believes it ( Or atleast almost everyone :) ) but, you could use sound arguments for the existance of the external world and thus make a conclusion that the external world exists.