The Kalam Cosmological Argument proves the existence of a Personal Creator

IntroductionI accept Con's challenge and look forward to a rigorous dialog.As Con indicating, I will be defending the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) as supported by William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig's version of the argument is a bit more involved than what Con quoted as it also argues for a personal creator, which is the burden I am tasked to meet.The KCA is an evidential argument and as such it argues that belief in a personal creator is more rational than not. It does not, and cannot, eliminate all doubt from the individual. Thus, I recommend to the voters that they vote according to the debater than best justified their position rather than assuming that either of us are tasked to remove all doubt.The KCAThis is William Lane Craig's formulation of the KCA as I have come to understand it:P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.P2. The universe began to exist.C1. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.P3. The first cause must be eternal.P4. All eternal causes of temporal effects must be personal.C2. The universe was caused by a personal creator.I will now expand on each premise.P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.This premise needs little defense given the absurdity of something being caused by nothing. Not only is there is no evidence of something being caused ex nihilo, science itself is predicated on this principle. If one were to embrace causation ex nihilo, then science is an irrational endeavor, for what is science if not the study of why things occur?I am aware of the various rebuttals to this point, but I'd rather deal with the ones my opponent intends to specifically employ. Therefore, I will leave my argument brief on this point and await his response.P2. The universe began to exist.It is impossible to have an actual infinite of something. While something like the universe is indefinite—that is, it may grow indefinitely—it does not follow that it is infinite or can even be infinite. The notion of an actual infinite is logically absurd. In an actual infinite, you could add and remove things to the set and the set would not change. It would be the same as saying, "I've added more, and it's the same. Then I removed a lot more than I originally added, and it was still the same." If a set grows when things are added, then it is not infinite even if it is quite large. Likewise, if a set is infinite, then it already encompasses everything and cannot be modified.Science also strongly supports this premise. The universe is expanding, as first discovered by the red shifts in the stars. [1] Thermodynamics and the discovery of dark energy remove further doubt; the universe will continue to expand until heat death is reached. [2] The expansion of the universe implies that the universe is not eternal, since an eternal universe would necessarily be at a state of equilibrium.C1. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.If whatever begins to exist has a cause (P1) and the universe began to exist (P2), then the universe has a cause.P3. The first cause must be eternal.As argued in P1, there cannot be an actual infinite, so there cannot be an infinite number of effects in time. Therefore, even if my opponent were to argue that the universe was begat by another temporal object, he would simply be appealing to another event. The only way to rationally stop the regression is to assert that this universe, directly or indirectly, was caused by an uncaused entity. Since causes and effect are by definition temporal, any uncaused entity would necessarily be eternal.P4. All eternal causes of temporal effects must be personal.An eternal cause would be one of two things: teleological (personal/intelligent) or non-teleological (mechanical). The non-teleological option can be eliminated as the cause of the universe because a non-teleological entity is by definition dead and inoperative. An eternal object MUST be in equilibrium; it is logically contradictory to assert an eternal object that is changing. Remember, change is only logically valid within the context of time. Thus, a dead eternal entity is incapable of causing anything, much less the temporal effects of space-time as we know it.A teleological eternal agent on the other hand can fit the definition of equilibrium and still create temporal effects. A personal agent implies an agent with a will. It is logically possible for an eternal personal agent to freely choose to create temporal effects without necessitating change in its own properties. Since the same cannot be said for non-teleological eternal entities, we are left to conclude that any eternal cause of a temporal effect must be intelligent.C2. The universe was caused by a personal creator.If the universe has a cause (C1), and the cause must be eternal (P3), then the universe has an eternal cause. If the universe has an eternal cause and all eternal causes of temporal effects must be personal (P4), then the universe must have been caused by a personal agent.ConclusionThus, we have evidence that the universe was caused by a personal creator. This evidence is parsimonious with human experience, science, and philosophy. It requires the least amount of assumptions to reach its conclusion. I intend to show throughout this debate that it is more reasonable to believe in a personal creator than to believe the universe either exists eternally or was caused by nothing.Sources http://skyserver.sdss.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...