The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Invalid

This has been a very interesting exchange. Once again, a huge thanks to Pro for instigating this debate. I have yet to see the accusation of equivocation against the Kalam defended so adamantly. However, Pro once again confuses the defense of a premise with the premise itself. Also, Pro contradicts himself in regards to his representation of William Lane Craig.Misrepresenting William Lane CraigIn Round 2, my opponent says "He [William Lane Craig] dismisses ex nihilo himself!". This is where Pro misrepresents Craig, because Craig himself explicitly argues that the Universe was created ex nihilo. [1] Pro is being dishonest and inconsistent when he claims in Round 3 that "I did not attempt to show that Craig does not believe in creatio ex nihilo".Finally, Pro, once again, comes to a false conclusion about Craig's position due to incompletely quoting him. In Round 3, Pro offers the following quote from Craig:"The causal premiss is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing"Pro then goes on to argue that this leaves creatio ex nihilo outside of the causual premiss of the argument. That is, that this metaphysical intuition excludes creatio ex nihilo. But this is merely a quote taken from the beginning of Craig's particular post. In fact, later on in that post Craig goes on to argue that not only is "something can not come from nothing uncaused" not contradicted by the metaphysical intuition, "something can not come from nothing", but that these two statements necessarily entail each other! Let "something can not come from nothing" be (A), and "something can not come from nothing uncaused" be (B) and then consider the following quote that is taken later on from Craig's post:"I think [B] is logically equivalent to (A). They entail each other. Just consider: suppose someone proposed to refute (A) by saying, “Something can come from nothing if it has a cause!” The proponent of (A) would rightly think that the other person hadn’t understood him. If something has a cause, then it doesn’t come from nothing. To come from nothing is to lack all causal conditions, period. Think of it this way: if something comes into being uncaused from nothing, then obviously it comes into being from nothing (B→A). And if something comes into being from nothing, then it comes into being uncaused from nothing (A→B). So (A) and (B) are logically equivalent. So either (A) or (B) can be used to support premiss (1)." [2]Thus we can see that Pro's claim that creatio ex nihilo is outside of the scope of premise one is simply unfounded. Indeed, there is nothing about creatio ex nihilo that contradicts this metaphysical principle, and certainly nothing about the metaphysical principle that excludes creatio ex nihilo. Therefore we certainly see no justification for any sort of abstract implicit discrimination against creatio ex nihilo in P1 of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.On Beginning (Say, Anyone See Prometheus?)Here Pro attempts to show that P1 of the KCA implicitly discriminates against creatio ex nihilo by "looking deeper into the argument and factoring in context and the rationale behind the premises". This is precisely what I meant by confusing the defense of a premise with the premise itself. Pro factors in the defense of this premise and then equates that defense with the actual meaning of he premise itself. Strangely though, he does not challenge my definitions of the words within the Kalam Cosmological Argument. He accepts my definition of "begins to exist" and my definition of "cause". Yet as I have explicitly demonstrated, these definitions are in no way discriminatory to creatio ex nihilo. Strangely enough, Pro then goes on to argue that "hidden and unstated are the restrictions to ex materia events in P1". Yet in admitting this he inadvertently admits that such discrimination does not exist in the Kalam Cosmological Argument! Indeed, if language is "unstated", then it is non-existent. Literal statement arguments are meant to be taken literally. The Kalam is certainly not poetry, with "begins to exist" being a metaphor. In essence, Pro's claim of implied discrimination is a textbook example of a bare assertion. There is absolutely no reason to think that such discrimination exists in light of the definitions provided, yet Pro asserts that the discrimination is there. If Pro's argument were valid, then any and every argument could be refuted by appealing to "hidden and unstated" meanings.I'd also like to point out that we're debating about the logical validity of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, as stated and defined. We are not debating about the logical validity of Pro's imagined version of the Kalam. Remember Pro's comment: "The point is that the restriction is implicit. It is there, but invisible." What Pro is arguing is essentially that the Kalam Cosmological Argument does not really read the way we think it reads. Allow me to reveal the "hidden" language that Pro argues somehow exists: Everything that begins to exist from material has a cause for its existence. The Universe began to exist from nothing. Therefore the Universe has a cause. This is the Kalam that my opponent sees. This added language, to him, is implied. However, such language does not exist. This is not the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This is a straw-man. On Matters Concerning Straw Pro quotes William Lane Craig and once again derives an absurd conclusion that does not logically follow from what Craig states. The quote reads: "Finally, the first premiss is constantly confirmed in our experience, which provides atheists who are scientific naturalists with the strongest of motivations to accept it." Now this is a proper quote from Craig, but Con concludes from this quote that "Our experiences are limited to beginnings ex materia. Our experiences can't confirm beginnings ex nihilo because we don't experience them. Thus, if this generalization were to include such events, it would be false to say that our experiences confirm it!" But this doesn't logically follow at all. Keep in mind that P1 of the Kalam is non-discriminatory towards creatio ex materia and creatio ex nihilo. So when we find that our everyday experiences confirm the principle "something can not come from nothing uncaused", we see nothing but the first premise confirmed. However, even if Pro's objection were valid, this would only serve to show P1 false. If Pro is using this as a way to show a fallacy of equivocation, then Pro has once again confused the defense of a premise with the premise itself. Conclusion My opponent has: Misrepresented William Lane Craig and drawn incorrect conclusions from Craig's quotes by incompletely quoting him. Conceded that there is no explicit discrimination in premise one of the KCA against creatio ex nihilo. Committed the bare assertion fallacy by claiming there is a "hidden and unstated" discrimination in premise one of the KCA against creatio ex nihilo. Confused the defense of a premise with the premise itself. Straw-manned the entire Kalam Cosmological Argument by arguing there is "hidden" language. The result of "revealing" this "hidden" language creates a straw-man version of the KCA. In summary, Pro has completely failed to meet his burden of proof. While the soundness of each premise is still up for debate, we can clearly see that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is logically sound. The first premise contains no discrimination against creatio ex nihilo. Pro's objection that it does is literally "It's there! It's just invisible!". Therefore the accusation of equivocation is non-existent. Vote Con, for the love of Comic-Con. [1] http://www.reasonablefaith.org... [2] http://www.reasonablefaith.org...