The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Sound

… the universe began to exist, and therefore requires a cause. God, on the other hand, never began to exist. Pro says we can't have an infinite regress. The alternative is that everything began. Pro wants to arbitrarily exempt his god by saying it has a secret timeless aspect. That's gibberish, but if we stipulate that his god is both timeless and timely, then we should stipulate that everything else is too. In which case, nothing began. When it comes to beginnings, Pro has not established any difference between his god and the rest of the universe. If one began, presumably the other did too. (Note: This new argument in the final round is a response to Pro's new argument in the final round.) … God created the universe ex nihilo, not out of preexistent materials of any sort. Pro said "something cannot come from nothing." Then he said the universe didn't come from nothing. Now he's back to saying it came from nothing, ex nihilo. If so, then Pro's premise is false. If something can come from nothing, the KCA is not sound. Lion and Tigers and Bears Pro said that if the big bang could come from nothing (ex nihilo), then lions and tigers and bears should also come from nothing, and they should do so right here and now where he could observe them. I pointed out that Pro doesn't get to make rules for nothing. Pro said I shouldn't talk about nothing; I should talk about non-being. But I didn't introduce nothing to the conversation; Pro did. Now Pro properly points out that I have (slightly and benignly) misrepresented him (including in the above paragraph). He didn't say L,T,&B should appear around him now. He merely said it is "inexplicable" (meaning he doesn't know why) that they don't. That's true, but it's not an argument, unless he means to claim that all unknowns are false. In order then, to lent coherence and relevance to my paraphrase, I substituted "should" for Pro's "I don't understand," so as to have something to argue against. Common experience confirms and never falsifies premise (1) My opponent has not criticized this line of evidence, so it stands. Nonsense. I pointed out that (a) virtual particles seem to begin without cause, and (b) it was arbitrary and self-self serving to single out begun things as being observed in common experience to have cause. Experience gives no weight to Pro's claim. The weight of experience confirms and never falsifies that minds are not unembodied, but Pro seems to discount experience unless he thinks it supports him. … a beginningless entity cannot have a cause, because it never came into being and therefore cannot be brought into being (that is, have a cause). According to Pro's new, eccentric, and pointless definition of "beginning," there's no reason to think anything has a beginning. If Pro's timely god has a timeless aspect, anything else can too. There's no way to tell. Pro doesn't get to arbitrarily pick one thing and declare that it is the only thing without a beginning. And Pro doesn't get to decide what needs causing and what doesn't. That's fantasy, not sound argument. Indeed, the implicit assumption of this premise [Whatever exists has a cause] is that there are no beginningless entities. No, that just implies (not "assumes") an infinite regress. … the cause of the universe cannot be … the Big Bang, for the Big Bang is simply the event at which the universe began to exist. That's like saying the cause can't be god, because god is simply the invisible eccentric there when the beginning happened. The “Big Bang” had a beginning, and therefore requires a cause. (a) That's a non-sequitur. (See the Copenhagen interpretation.) (b) Was the big bang was the beginning of the universe? My expert said that the scientific consensus is that nobody knows what happened before the big bang. (c) Pro hasn't shown that the big bang lacks a timeless aspect. As for virtual particles, Wiploc didn’t really respond to my claim that the quantum vacuum is the efficient cause of these particles. I responded: The popular-among-experts Copenhagen interpretation considers those beginnings to be causeless, which destroys Pro's entire argument. … the vacuum is an indeterminate cause, but a cause nonetheless. Pro's unsupported personal assertion goes against the majority of expert opinion. Unless my opponent thinks there’s some physical entity which can somehow be described by imaginary numbers, his remarks are irrelevant. I'm told that the design and function of computer chips requires imaginary numbers. They don't have the same behavior or application as other numbers, but they do describe the real world. Thus, they are true and actual. Transfinite numbers are the same, as far as I know, and as far as we have been shown in this debate. Indeed, the reason infinity and zero can work as mathematical objects is that you're simply restricted from dividing and subtracting by them. That's right! If we avoid using zero in ways that make it misbehave, then zero is a real number. But Pro's "proof" that infinities aren't real consists entirely trying to use them in ways that he thinks makes them misbehave. … I don’t understand Wiploc’s comments here about “sizable gaps between locations.” How many locations are on a one inch line? Let's say n. In that case, the gap between locations must be 1/nth of an inch. And that gap can't have any locations in it, according to the no-infinities people. That's just crazy. Inexplicable. I'm not saying it's not true, because maybe it is. The alternative, after all, is having infinitely many locations in an inch. What I'm saying is that you run into mind-bending paradox whether infinities are real or not. So Pro's declaration that no-infinities is the right answer is self-serving arbitrariness. My quotes from Vilenkin were never to validate a philosophical argument, Pro quoted Vilenkin as saying that the universe hasn't been net expanding for infinity. We all agree that it's been expanding since the big bang, but, before that, we don't know. The Vilenkin quote isn't relevant unless Pro shows that the universe was net expanding before the big bang. BGV theorem still requires the unvierse begin to exist. On the information Pro has offered us, this is true only if the net expansion of the universe proceeds past the big bang. Indeed, immaterial, atemporal existence is just a different mode of existence from material, temporal existence. Except material temporal existence is real, and the other was made up for this exercise. Claiming that because the former is not like the latter, it therefore cannot be real is not an argument in any way. Really? Pro thinks it's a great argument when he's talking about infinities. if he is to consistently accuse me of plagiarism, he has to say that I'm plagiarizing when I say “(2) the universe began to exist” or “(2.1) an actually infinite number of things cannot exist”, which is just absurd. That not-drawing-the-line fallacy would prove that there's no such thing as plagiarism. Pro could type "the universe began to exist" (5 words) without thinking, without copying someone else, without knowing whether someone else had ever used that phrasing before. But these were copied from others without attribution, as if they were Pro's own words: If the universe has a cause, there exists an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe who sans the universe is beginningless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, changeless, and enormously powerful. any universe which is on average in a state of comic expansion cannot be past-eternal Nevertheless, I cited my source for premise (4) in the thrid round If you credit your source after being caught, you're still a plagiarist. Conclusion: The KCA is a five-step argument. Every step is vital. Pro has undertaken to prove each and every step of the KCA. For reasons made clear in this post and those above, he failed. Vote Con for persuasion. Vote Con for conduct. Note: Thank's, Pro, for this debate. I admire your clarity, lucidity, and terrifying speed of response.