The Following Arguments for the Existence of God are Valid - 1K

Seeing as how my opponent has dropped his last 3 points, and wisefully so, then I will assume along with him that our discussion will thus focus on the rest of the argument. Furthermore, given that there has been a slight weight lifted off our shoulders, I will title most of the sections in correspondence with one premise only. Lastly, In light of his clarification on his ambigious use of some words, I will be forced to change some of my arguments - though in no way does this hamper my chance of success (there are multiple ways of defeating KCA). ===================== P1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence. ===================== My opponent makes two interesting claims in his response, one being about the nature of causality while the other being about my "semantical attack on the phrase of coming into existence". I will demonstrate not only is he precepts about the causal premise irrevocably misplaced, but that he hasn't paid enough attention to the claim that something "begins to exist". To say the least, my opponent's defense of his causal premise is lackluster. He supplies no philosophic reasoning, even though he correctly points out that it's a metaphysical issue, and instead gives me several quotes and a supposed satisfactory example from the conduct in the fields of science. First and foremost, Hume rejected the idea that we could have perception of the causal process -- and stating that we have no right to believe in causality. To touch upon all the issues why he believes this, and what consequences this has after, is a very big topic. I ask of my opponent...does he want to defend Hume? Because not only would I be interested, but obviously there is the nature of Hume's claim being COUNTERPRODUCTIVE to my opponent's goal. Secondly, you state that if we were to think of any field of science, it would seem that to say something can exist without a cause is to accept all sorts of nonsense...but you fail to follow through with why this is so. I'm puzzled - in what way does reflecting on the fields of science reveal the absurdness of something coming out of nothing, as it is referred? There doesn't seem to be any fundamental scientific principle barring this from happening, especially since there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum -- aka "nothing" -- to begin with[1]. My opponent states that my analysis of the use of "beginning to exist" is semantics, but I see that pulling the card "semantics" is too heavily abused, especially on this website. As it stands, there can probably only be two interpretations of such a statement: either it states that certain things have come into form but obviously the matter that gave it form was always there (such as the earth example), or it literally came into existence. As my opponent would seemingly agree, the former example is definitely plausible while the latter is not. If he agrees, then unfortunately he is also burying his own grave. Because by his own admission, he agrees that more or less that for him to ask whether or not matter always existed is nonsensical - after all, what can COME INTO existence? If you ask me what caused matter, why can't I respond by saying it has always existed? If you point to every other instance of causality, I can simply point out that it was all fundamentally instances of matter being reformed. This problem stands in stark contrast with your causal principle; that things can have simply always existed or come out of "nothing". ===================== P2. The universe began to exist. ===================== "If quantum cosmology is a realistic description of the universe, than we should be using imaginary numbers for all our time variables." ----> This is a problem, because the issues that quantum cosmology/quantum gravity/etc. deals with are highly theoretical, and are concerned with situations in which the physical laws present in reality now weren't so back then. Indeed, during the first few moments of the Big Bang, many of our scientific laws were meaningless given the conditions. Regarding your alternative proposal, I can simply defer you to this simple reminder: it still helps my case. Because ultimately to get into a cosmological debate will not only subsume this entire debate into a debate about physics, that no undoubtedly is out of either of our expertise, but more importantly, it's the fact that you bring up a theory that can support a nontheistic explanation of the development of the universe. What's more interesting is that the physicists you have cited give very compelling models to the origin and development - Alan Guth, who originated the very well supported inflationary universe theory, advocates a multiverse system, in which universe do begin but they are among an infinite amount of other ones who inflate as well. Indeed, we can go on about what these physicists advocate but ultimately they give convincing models without a theistic element. I simply presented Hawking's example as a case in which even the idea that the universe needs a beginning can be doubted. Of course, this won't stop here since you will undoubtedly refer to the idea of an actual infinite being impossible, in the context of their being an infinite past. This would point seem to be validated if you argue the universe had a beginning point - fine with me, I can even run with that assumption. Therefore, I will strike the notion about time down in the following section: ===================== Cardinal assumption about the nature of time ===================== A key assumption of the KCA is that it is in support of the A-series, in contrast to my support of the B-series. A good summarization can be found here[2], in which "according to The B Theory, there are no genuine, unanalyzable A properties, and all talk that appears to be about A properties is really reducible to talk about B relations. For example, when we say that the year 1900 has the property of being past, all we really mean is that 1900 is earlier than the time at which we are speaking. On this view, there is no sense in which it is true to say that time really passes, and any appearance to the contrary is merely a result of the way we humans happen to perceive the world." The A-theory is the opposite, in which it employs singular predicates as a model of time (two days in the past, two days in the future, etc.) and claims that time is not a mind-dependent phenomena. While seemingly off topic, it makes a substantial point - an infinite past CAN exist. This is because given the B-theory, which I find to be superior (for reasons I will disclose further on), an infinite past is feasible in this new perspective. This is why Hilbert's Grand Hotel paradox prove useless against it, since it is essentially a dis-analogy. People often ask if the past was infinite how do we reach this point; they would be missing the point because they assume there is some "flow of time", when in fact there isn't given the B-theory. I will defend this claim by briefly supplying three faults of the A-series: it has inherently contradictory properties (being future in some cases, then in others being the present, etc.); ambiguous terms that can't be resolved without using the relational properties, and it's failure to find an absolute frame of reference. ==================== Conclusion ==================== I haven't responded to the points about the creator being eternal, because though I find extreme faults in then, my opponent has -- whether knowingly or not -- potentially breached into other philosophical topics such as what constitutes a "change" in an entity. Such a discussion is very ambigious and would need a lot of fleshing out, which my character limits can not afford. So I will simply allow him to have that point, though it obviously still relies on his defense of a model of time. ---References--- 1.See comment sections