The Kalam Cosmological Argument Is Sound

I thank Con for instituting this debate. As per the rules, I will give my opening argument first and not argue in the last round.The KCA is a very simple, yet very powerful, argument for the existence of God. It's dubious whether one can reach the conclusion that God exists from the KCA alone, but that's why philosophers like William Lane Craig use the argument in a cumulative case for God's existence. Craig argues that you can infer that the Creator is timeless, spaceless, and immaterial from the KCA since all space, matter, and time began at the Big Bang event. But as per the rules I do not have to show that the cause must be personal, just that the universe has a cause. So that I will attempt to do.The argument is formulated as follows:P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.P2: The universe began to exist.C: Therefore, the universe has a cause.I have put the words "begins to exist" in bold type because it tends to cause confusion in this argument. The argument says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, not that everything has a cause. So arguing what caused God? is not a proper response to this argument.P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.Doctor Craig, in his book On Guard, lists three reasons to believe that premise 1 is true:1 -- Something cannot come from nothing.2 -- If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn't come into being from nothing.3 -- Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1. [3]I can't think of a single thing that comes into existence without a cause. In fact, William Lane Craig (who is the man that comes to mind when you think of the KCA) wrote, regarding the KCA,"When I first published my work on the kalam cosmological argument back in 1979, I figured that atheists would attack premise 2 of the argument, that the universe began to exist. But I didn't think they'd go after premise 1. For that would expose them as people not sincerely seeking after truth but just looking for an academic refutation of the argument."What a surprise, then, to hear atheists denying premise 1 in order to escape the argument! For example, Quentin Smith of Western Michigan University responded that the most rational position to hold is that the universe came 'from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing' [1] -- a nice close to a Gettysburg Address of atheism, perhaps!" [2]Quentin Smith is utterly mistaken. Nothing can come from nothing uncaused. Nothing is literally nothing; it has no qualities, no potentialities. It literally does not exist. Before the universe existed was nothing, and if nothing existed, nothing can come from it without cause.I can't think of a single thing that comes into existence uncaused. And if it did, then it remains inexplicable why just anything and everything doesn't come into existence from nothing. I exist, and the reason I exist is because my existence was caused by my mother and father conceiving me. The van I drive exists because people built it. Things don't just come into existence.Premise one is simply a common sense premise. I'm not sure how one could be a sincere seeker of truth and not accept premise one. It's at least more likely true than its negation. It would be like denying that the universe exists. You can't prove it does but it would irrational to deny its existence. The only reason that Con and I are here to debate this topic is because our parents conceived us. Everything that begins to exist requires a cause of its existence.P2: The universe began to exist.The Second Law of Thermodynamics affirms that the universe is running out of usable energy and, hence, cannot be eternal. We also see that the universe is expanding, and at an accelerated rate. As we see the universe is expanding more and more rapidly, and the universe is running out of usable energy, the universe will inevitably run out of usable energy and result in a "heat death." As the universe is expanding and not static, we can see that the universe, indeed, had a beginning as it is not eternal.We can also approach this from a philosophical viewpoint:1) If an infinite number of moments occurred before today, then today would never have come, since it is impossible to traverse an infinite number of moments.2) But today has come.3) Hence, there was a finite number of moments before today; the universe had a beginning. [4]William Lane Craig describes the argument as follows: "...a collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite. Sometimes this is described as the impossibility of traversing the infinite. In order for us to have 'arrived' at today, temporal existence has, so to speak, traversed an infinite number of prior events. But before the present could arrive, the event immediately prior to it would have to arrive, and before that event could arrive, the event immediately prior to it would have to arrive, and so on ad infinitum. No event could ever arrive, since before it could elapse there will always be one more event that had to have happened first. Thus, if the series of past events were beginningless, the present event could not have arrived, which is absurd." [5]So premise two is supported because whether or not an actual infinity can exist, there could not have been an infinity of time otherwise this present moment would never have arrived.The conclusion is affirmed, and I await Con's rebuttal.[1] William Lane Craig, On Guard, Ontario, Canada, 2010, pp. 75, 77, and 78.[2] Quentin Smith,William Lane Craig, On Guard, p. 76[4] Norman L. Geisler, The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Books, p. 399.[5] William Lane Craig,