The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound

The crux of my opponent's criticism seems to be over which God is implied by the KCA. I have made it fairly clear that I am not arguing for any _specific_ conception of God, but rather a general conception of God as a personal being who created the universe. Though I am a Christian, the intention stated in my OP was to simply demonstrate the existence of "personal cause with attributes that closely resemble a monotheistic conception of God." My opponent seems to have neglected this, and his insistence that my argument must prove a specific concept of God is simply a strawman. "The Christian God is the most reasonable interpretation given both Apologists profile, and more importantly, the beliefs of William Lane Craig, who is the primary source for pro's arguments and a self-described Christian apologist" My being a Christian is simply a red herring. Though I am a Christian, I am not using this argument to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God, but rather just a general conception of deity. I defined the meaning of the term "God" in a very general sense. So though this argument cannot prove a specific conception of God (Which was never my goal to begin with), it is still sound. Interestingly enough, Craig himself does not believe that the KCA entails the existence of the Christian God. Hence, my opponent's point backfires. Additionally, my use of God as a proper noun is simply another red herring. I used it simply out of reverence (I happen to believe in the Christian God, but I never claimed the KCA entailed the existence of that specific concept of deity). Con seems to focus more on the type of deity proven by the argument instead of the factuality of the argument itself. Such nit-picking should raise some eyebrows. "The Kalam Cosmological Argument is, at best, an update of Aristotle's Prime Mover argument. Granting all assumptions and arguments, the only detail you can draw from it is that at one point there was an uncaused cause. However, there is no way to get from an uncaused cause to the head god of a particular religion." Con's historical analysis of the KCA is simply false. The TCA (Thomistic cosmological argument), and not the KCA was based off an Aristotelean system of metaphysics. In fact, the KCA was formed _in opposition_ to Aristotle's doctrine of the eternity of the universe. Islamic theologians such as al-Ghazali (1058-1111) were the first to develop it into an argument for the existence of God. Hence, it is the TCA which is similar to Aristotle's original argument (In fact, Aquinas presupposed an eternal universe). Additionally, if Con's point is that we should reject the KCA on the basis that Aristotle's original argument was invalid, then he is guilty of two logical fallacies. Firstly, he simply begs the question by assuming Aristotle's argument to be false. Secondly, he commits the genetic fallacy -- the origins of an argument do not invalidate it. "For example, pro notes that I have not responded to his claims of the impossibility of infinities. As pro has not established those claims in connection to any point under contention, I have no obligation to do so." On the contrary, I have. Con seems to have neglected where I tied in the impossibility of an actual infinite to the impossibility of an actually infinite past. In my first post, I very clearly tied this point in with the impossibility of an eternal universe. To quote my OP: >If the universe never began to exist, then its past duration would be actually infinite. Since actual infinities cannot >exist, then the past duration of the universe must have been finite, implying that the universe must have begun to >exist. Even if one grants that it is possible for an actual infinite to exist, it still cannot be formed by successive >addition, and henceforth the past duration of the universe must be finite. I encourage Con to carefully read through my OP. "Causality and our understanding of physical laws breaks down as we approach time zero. This means we CANNOT know what the situation was at that point and we CANNOT state what if any conditions existed. All the laws of physics and causality break down as we approach time zero [3]. This means that all common-sense comparisons to how things work in our frame of reference where we have knowledge of how the laws of physics and causality operate are irrelevant." Con seems to be confused here. I never stated anything about the initial conditions of the singularity, only that the singularity itself constituted the boundary to the space-time manifold, which establishes the fact that the universe must have had an absolute beginning. It is true that the standard Friedmann-Lemaitre cannot tell us what the initial conditions are, but that has nothing to do with my argument. I made no claims to what the initial conditions were. I only stated that the singularity constituted the boundary to the space-time manifold and hence an absolute origin ex nihilo is postulated. "It doesn't matter how water would freeze under extreme conditions, the laws of causality and physics aren't in effect." Con completely misses the point of the analogy. The analogy was not to demonstrate that physics were operative in the absence of time (That was assumed in the analogy to prove a point), but that if the cause of the universe were a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the effect also must exist eternally. Immanuel Kant used the example of an eternal ball smushing an eternal pillow. If both were timeless, then the cause and effect must be co-eternal. Whether or not physics applies is simply irrelevant -- the point of the analogy is to show that in a state of timelessness, the effect must be co-eternal with the cause if the cause is not of a personal nature. "If we accepted that reality was stuck in a state of timelessness, nothing could change.... Therefore, agency cannot be the deciding factor that starts time and creates a temporal universe from a timeless state, it must be something else. " Con seems to think that divine timelessness must be an essential property. There is no reason to accept this claim. A personal cause would be a free agent, and thus timelessness would not be an essential property, but a contingent, or accidental property. Think of a sitting man who, existing in a state of timelessness, freely wills to stand up. Con has appeared to have dropped several points, including his pragmatic argument against the KCA. Additionally, Con has not responded to my thermodynamic argument for the finitude of the universe or the argument from the impossibility of an actual infinite. " Pro has admitted that his argument only attempts to prove a personal being of unknown qualities rather than God as required by the OP. Examination of his argumentation shows pro has not even met that lower goal." This attacks a straw man. Nowhere did I state in my OP that my argument must demonstrate the Christian conception of God. I specifically made it clear in my OP (Which my opponent appears to have not read), that the type of deity that I will be arguing for is a "personal cause with attributes that closely resemble a monotheistic conception of God." Con has thus failed to rebut the KCA. As such, my arguments for the soundness of the KCA still stands.