The Kalam Cosmological Argument is unsound

===Deconstruction of the Con case===Before I begin, I think it necessary to outline which parts of Con's argument I take issue with and which parts I see no reason in refuting either because I happen to agree or because they hold little relevance to the debate given my other counters. The first premise of the argument (beginning necessitating cause) will be the one I will focus most of my argument countering. And since without the first premise, the rest of the argument necessarily falls apart, parsimony dictates that we focus on that the most. This will give both my opponent and myself ample space to hash out the first premise as precisely and clearly as possible. Con's "mind" argument "infinite succession" point are doubtless interesting in themselves and worthwhile debate topics for another time. However, I don't see refuting them as necessary if Con's defense of P1 can be shown to be flawed from the start.I sincerely hope that my opponent (and readers of this debate) won't take offense to this and think that I'm being lazy with this debate. I just hate debates with too many simultaneous lines of argumentation and I think this single point has ample room for philosophical debate.P1: Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.a priori defense.Con's defense of P1 from an a priori perspective is vulnerable to the same criticism of other supposedly a priori truths and leads us into the problems with foundationalism itself. When someone claims that we can grasp the truth of something purely by means of intuition, they are necessarily leaving out of the discussion the concept of empirical verification or support (from the definition of a priori). So all we have is our intuition. The problem is though that intuition fails as an inter-subjective justificatory methodology.For instance, I can *claim* that I just happen to know that when two straight lines intersect, that the two opposite angles will not be equal. You would obviously disagree but there wouldn't be any inter-subjective line of argumentation available to use to try to convince me otherwise (without first relying on other inter-subjectively accepted a priori truths). Intuition only works as justification when it is shared by everyone. When it isn't (and this is usually the case), as far as argumentation is concerned it's nothing more than conjecture. And unfortunately for my opponent, that's exactly what it is in his a priori defense of the first premise. a posteriori defense.Con has taken to attempt to refute a common a posteriori counter to the first premise (by way of quantum mechanics). I assure my opponent that this will not be necessary to explore further as I have no intention of defending that line of argument here. Instead, I plan to critique the methodology itself employed by my opponent, that of inductive inference ot universal truths.David Hume was among the first to recognize the problems with employing induction to arrive at necessary truths. He observed famously that even watching the Sun arise every morning, it fails to give us sanction to ascribe to its rising any necessity. The problem described here is known as the problem of induction. It states that: "The problem is how to support or justify them and it leads to a dilemma: the principle cannot be proved deductively, for it is contingent, and only necessary truths can be proved deductively. Nor can it be supported inductively—by arguing that it has always or usually been reliable in the past—for that would beg the question by assuming just what is to be proved."[1]As stated above, inductive inference poses a two-fold problem of justification. It cannot be proved valid by deduction given that inductive inferences fail to pose necessary truths. Nor can it be proved inductively without recourse to circularity and hence incoherence. Therefore, any line of reasoning jumping from noted contingencies (i.e., events happening to exhibit causes) to necessity (ALL events MUST have a cause) proves itself unwarranted.===Conclusion===Con's arguments for P1 have both been shown wanting in terms of argumentative support and justification. In both lines of argument, Con's arguments have rested on presumed and unstated premises which have been left unsupported. On the a priori foundation, Con has stumbled into the problems associated with foundationalism and non-inferential truths. On the a posteriori foundation, Con's argument is left vulnerable to the problem with inductively justifying universal, metaphysical truths. Thankfully though, this debate will allow us to explore these two important epistemological concepts and their relation to the Kalam argument.I now pass the debate back over to Con.===Sources===[1] http://plato.stanford.edu...