The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Sound

Thank you, Miles, for making this debate possible.As my opponent has established, he is the one wholly carrying the burden of proof. My onus in this debate is not to prove the KCA unsound, but merely to raise sufficient doubt to Miles' justification for its soundness. For example, if he were trying to prove the resolution "It will rain in New York City exactly three years from now," I wouldn't have to prove that it will be, in fact, sunny in New York City three years from now; I would simply have to refute whatever reasons he gives for predicting rainy weather.With that in mind, throughout the course of this debate, I will offer a simple yet effective refutation to Miles' justification of the KCA that need not extend further than even the first premise, which is (as stated by Miles) "Whatever begins to exist has [an efficient] cause". He gives three basic warrants to believe this is the case, all of which rest on some pretty basic misconceptions:(i) Something cannot come from nothing.(ii) If something could come from nothing, then why isn't that happening right now?(iii) Common experience confirms and never falsifies the first premise.The first two points are less warrants for proving his first premise true than they are counter-objections to the claim that the universe came into being ex nihilo (from nothingness), a claim I did not and will not make. Meanwhile, the final point is pretty much just a skeleton of a warrant, stating no more than "virtual particles don't prove this untrue, which I will go into detail about if I must". It does seem true, though, that personal experience only varifies the first premise: everything we witness beginning to exist does so via some efficient cause, but that is only because everything we witness beginning to exist does so ex materia (from pre-existing materials), which is incomparable to the universe itself.This brings me to what I believe is the KCA's most easy-to-understand flaw and the most salient problem premise one suffers from: its hasty generalization in grouping everything into one category of efficiently-caused things. Certainly, there are things which we know began to exist and are efficiently-caused: tables, airplanes, and even planets and people (efficiently-cased by gravity and parents respectively). But these things all began to exist ex materia, while the universe itself did not. To conclude the latter must be efficiently-caused because the former are commits a rash leap in inductive reasoning, equivilant to concluding that all adult persons are capable of carrying unborn children to term because some female adult persons can.To uncover the first premise's hidden assumptions, we must break it down into smaller, bite-sized pieces, covering all the different ways something can begin to exist: ex materia, ex nihilo, ex deo, and what I will call "sans ex". Pick your poison, Miles:Revised KCA I (ex materia; from pre-existing materials)(P1') Whatever begins to exist ex materia has an efficient cause.(P2') The universe began to exist ex materia.(C') Therefore, the unvierse has an efficient cause.The first premise here is where all of our personal experience and emprical evidence seems to point us. It is more plausible than not that whatever has a material cause also has an efficient cause. Undoubtadly, though, the second premise is false; we're not talking about the true beginning of the universe if there were pre-existing materials!Revised KCA II (ex nihilo; from nothingness)(P1') Whatever begins to exist ex nihilo has an efficient cause.(P2') The universe began to exist ex nihilo.(C') Therefore, the unvierse has an efficient cause.This one sufferes from many problems, a couple of which my opponent was kind enough to already explain himself: his first two warrants, especially (i) something cannot come from nothing.Of course, even if we were to somehow forgive these problems and grant the unlikely truth of premise two, it would still leave the argument disappointingly question-begging, since the only thing which we know of that actually fits into the category of having began to exist ex nihilo is the universe itself! In other words, "whatever begins to exist ex nihilo" can only refer to "the universe itself" and so the two terms are synonymous. Such crippling problems leave the argument looking like little more than "The universe has an efficient cause; therefore, the universe has an efficient cause".Revised KCA III (ex deo; from God)(P1') Whatever begins to exist ex deo has an efficient cause.(P2') The universe began to exist ex deo.(C') Therefore, the unvierse has an efficient cause.Speaking of question-begging, I hope I don't need to explain to my opponent why he shouldn't choose this version of the KCA. The second premise literally is the conclusion he is trying to eventually establish.Revised KCA IV ("sans ex"; not from any of the three "ex"s)(P1') Whatever begins to exist sans ex has an efficient cause.(P2') The universe began to exist sans ex.(C') Therefore, the unvierse has an efficient cause.Mainly for those curious for answers when all others are shot down, I offer my own interpretation of the beginning of the universe here with what I like to call "sans ex" (not from not from any of the three "ex"s). Only when it is granted that there must be some previously or alternatly existing state of affairs sans the universe for the universe to begin to exist do the aforementioned problems arise. But why must we grant such a idea?Miles offered two warrants for beliving the universe began to exist: (i) the philosophical argument stating that an actual infinite is impossible, and (ii) the scientific argument stating that the universe's past is finite, beginning at the Big Bang's singularity. Both of these warrants are justification for believing there was a first moment in time, T=0. That there was a first moment in time is enough to say the universe "began to exist" but to the best of our scientific and philisophical knowledge, there was no previously or alternately existing state of affairs in relation to T=0, be it pre-existing materials or nothingness or anything else.I agree with premise two in this argument, but premise one is as question-begging as it is in the "ex nihilo" version: "whatever begins to exist sans ex" can only, with our knowledge, refer to "the universe itself".Regardless of which revision my opponent chooses to clarify the context of his first premise, we can see the argument itself suffers from either being too unwarranted, too question-begging, or both. I now give the floor to you, Miles.