The Kalam Cosmological Argument is unsound

Hi Pro! I'll divide my argument into 2 sections, one answering the objections, the other establishing why the Kalam is sound. CIRCULAR REASONING What Pro is actually describing is any deductive argument there is. To give an example of a deductive argument:: 1) All men are mortal. 2) Plato is a man. 3) Therefore Plato is mortal. I am not required to provide another member of the group of 'mortal' to prove the conclusion - the conclusion still follows that all men are mortal regardless of whether or not I give another member. The same is with the Kalam - I don't need to show something else that doesn't begin to exist to show that everything that begins to exist has a cause - everything either begins to exist, or it does not. This necessary truth cannot be question begging, or reasoning in a circle like my opponent is suggesting. Nevertheless, Pro asks for another member of NBE, and I would say that numbers do not begin to exist. Mathmeticians and philosophers alike assert that numbers don't begin to exist, but rather are universal, necessary truths. The same could be said about shapes. Even if nothing existed at all, numbers and shapes will still be necessary truths - the concept of a square would still exist even if space and time did not. So at no point does that mean that the argument is reasoning in a circle, or begging the question. FALLACY OF COMPOSITION Here, I would completely agree that if the Kalam was arguing that because everything within the universe that began to exist has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause, that would certainly be the fallacy of composition. However, I don't know of anyone who argues this. The reasons why we believe that the universe, beginning to exist then has a cause is because of three reasons: 1) Something cannot come from nothing; out of nothing, nothing comes. This is both a logical and metaphysical truth 2) If something can come from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why anything comes into being from nothing; why only universes and not anything else? 3) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the premise. The statement 'everything that begins to exist has a cause' is constantly verified, and there is no evidence to the contrary. (Note: this is appealing to Inductive reasoning - not the fallacy of composition) So at no point does the Kalam argue that because everything within the universe has a cause, therefore the universe itself has a cause. Rather, we offer 3 independent reasons to suggest that the first premise is true. FALLACY OF EQUIVOCATION Pro says that the everything only trivially begins to exist, and that the universe is the only thing to come into being from nothingness, so there is no inductive support for the premise. However, 'begins to exist' only really means 'comes into being', i.e, everything that comes into being has a cause for it coming into being. The universe came into being, therefore the universe has a cause. If you re-word it like that, you find that the premise becomes much clearer. I would define something to 'begin to exist' if: The thing exists at Time 'T', and there is no point prior to Time 'T', in which the thing exists. So, you don't need to differentiate between those that begin to exist from nothing and those that begin to exist from something. because they have no relevance - all we really mean is that whatever comes into being has a cause. Moreover, supporters of the Kalam, although they think do that the universe came into being 'ex nihilo', they also think that it came from an external cause - that is the whole point of the argument! So, we do not need to include any sort of differentiation between nothingness and somethingness - they are all grouped under the set 'comes into being'. TIME AND CREATION Well, the answer is simultaneous causation; time came into being at the exact same moment as the universe was created. That is the view of many Christian Philosophers. But regardless, why is it impossible for a timeless entity to cause something without time? I don't see any contradiction - you are committing the same fallacy you are accusing me of in the fallacy of composition! That because everything in the universe has causal relations in time, therefore actions without the universe have to have temporal causal relations. This is the same thing that Pro accuses me of, and so if he is to say that Premise 1 is to be false because of the fallacy of composition, he can't then commit the very same thing, when he says that all causes are in relation to time. If we are to go by my opponent's logic, for all we know there are no causal restrains without the universe. SOUNDNESS OF THE KALAM PREMISE 1 As I have already explained, there are 3 reasons why we believe premise 1 to be true: 1) Something cannot come from nothing. 2) If something can come from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why anything comes into being from nothing. 3) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the premise. (appealing to inductive reasoning) PREMISE 2 We have 2 main reasons to believe that the universe began to exist: - Scientific evidence: By far the most accepted model about how the universe began is the Big Bang theorem - the universe expanded from a singularity a finite time ago. The biggest progress concerning the beginning of the universe was established in 2003, when three leading cosmologists: Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has on average been expanding throughout its history, cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary. In other words, the universe began to exist. - An actual infinite cannot be traversed. If someone was to go on a journey to an infinitely distant point in space, it wouldn't merely take them a long time to get there. The reality is, they would never get there. However long they had been travelling for, a part of the journey would still remain. They would never arrive at the destination, because infinite space cannot be traversed. It is the same of someone were to count to infinity; it wouldn't just take a long time to count to infinity, but they would never get there. For however long they were counting, they would still only count to a finite number. It is not possible to traverse a set of numbers from 0 to infinity. We can then apply this to the past, because if the past were infinite, it wouldn't merely take a long time to get there, but the present would never arrive. It doesn't matter how much time has passed, time would still be stuck in the infinite past.No matter how much time had passed, we would still be working through the infinite past. However, we know that the present has arrived. The past can't be infinite - and therefore the universe came into being a finite time ago. PREMISE 3 Premise 3 follows from the first 2 premises PREMISE 4 What reasons do we have to think that the cause was God? Well, the cause, bringing time and space into existence, has to be: timeless, immaterial, changeless, personal and hugely powerful. There are only 2 options that fit under these criteria - Abstract Objects (For example, numbers), or an unembodied mind or conscience (i.e 'God'). Abstract Objects cannot cause anything, so by deductive reasoning the cause of the universe is an unembodied mind, i.e God. Sources: http://www.reasonablefaith.org... http://www.reasonablefaith.org... http://www.philosophyofreligion.info... http://www.philosophyofreligion.info...