The Kalam Argument is a sound argument for the existence of God

As this is the final round, no new argument should be brought up here. I'll attempt to round off the debate at this point as well. The first premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause The first premise is a simple one, but has awkward consequences. As I have pointed out, causality is a sticky subject. The Kalām argument affirms an Aristotelean sense of causality to work, according to Craig[1], yet my opponent repeatedly rejected it. This, of course, is not an important criticism: my opponent could defend the argument using Liebnizian causality instead. However, instead of that, my opponent has, again, rejected to provide any causal system, to explain what causality is. Without actually stating what causality is, and how to explain something being caused, my opponent’s definition of causality is weak at best. Stating that causation is that which begins is just as flawed: for causality must be able to differentiate between different causes: meaning, the cause for, say, a chair, must be different from a statue. However, without providing for any useful definition of causality, my opponent is guilty of Aristotle’s criticism: without even an understanding what causality is, my opponent can hardly lecture on that which does or does not have causes. By contrast, I have put forth an explanation of what causality is. “It is the business of the physicist to know them”[3], after all. I have defended it to an extent, and pointed out the limitation of what causality can explain, which includes the lack of sufficient explanation for the beginning of the universe, yet my opponent rejects this. Thus, on two counts, my opponent has not shown anything regarding what causality is, and thus has not shown how the first premise is true, for he is stating “cause” without considering the metaphysical complication it leads to. More on Aristotle My opponent refers to potentiality again, saying where there is nothing, there is no potentiality. Ironically, by saying this, my opponent has to affirm the Aristotelean causality he has rejected, as potentiality and actuality rests on Aristotle’s cause system. However, as Aristotle makes explicitly clear, at the beginning, there cannot be potentiality, only actuality (causes to have occurred or be non-existent) for the start of the universe! After all, if there is potentiality, then it must change into actuality, which requires something already to exist to influence it. Meaning for God to actualise an event such as creating the universe, he must have some change to cause this, which makes no sense. Thus, at the beginning, there can be no potentiality. I am reiterating this from last round in more depth to make this clear: God or no, if there was potentiality at the beginning at the universe, as my opponent affirms, then he has created his own infinite regress: or at the very least a cause of God. The sticky nature of causes This interesting point becomes true time and time again: one ignores evidential claims. I have sourced this multiple times[4]: there is a giant consensus on subatomic particles being exempt to efficient causes, or the atoms lacking“the source of the primary principle of change or stability”. As a result, we say that these things are uncaused. It still has a formal cause and a material cause, but if it lacks any of the four causes, then it is not caused in the same way as, say, a chair. Imagine it this way: can you think of something which has all four causes, yet does not exist, or exists eternally? It is utterly impossible to do so. This is because, with all four causes, we can know fully of all objects. Even with the final cause, the truth is, it works in such a way that the final cause is “what we make of it”: what the object is used for is its final cause. Without knowing this, we cannot fully explain an object’s cause. Without this existing, though, there simply is no cause to discuss. Aristotlean causality This is simply a turn in every description of the word. Even if we reject Aristotelean causality, as I’ve stated repeatedly, my opponent has now got no way to explain what causality is, and thus we cannot say anything, in reality, about the causes of objects. Infinities Imagine the set of all positive integers. If you cannot tell what numbers are in the set, then the actual infinity is absurd. If you can tell what numbers are in the set, you know an actual infinity is not absurd; it’s as simple as that. You can always name another number in a set if you describe infinity in finite terms, just like you can always state different possibilities of what x could be in a mathematical equation y=x. This doesn’t make infinity impossible: it just means that your way of describing infinity is inefficient. If I describe this set as Aleph-zero, then I have fully described the set, just like by describing x I say “x”, not “one or two or three…”. Designing the designer This is the thing: no matter how you try to rationalise it, the question is still possible. “Why do timeless things exist” is still a possible question, and a perfectly rational one. “Why don’t more exist”, or even “why do any exist” are still feasible questions we can ask. Causality My opponent states causality is purely the efficient cause. However, if I said that “I made this chair from nothing”, I haven’t described at all the cause of the chair: all I have described is what was the changer. But if the chair wasn’t made from anything, but I made it, it is clear the chair doesn’t exist and I’m simply being mad. Similarly, if I said I made a chair, but it’s use was as a pylon, then I haven’t made a chair. All four causes are necessary to give a full account of what an object is. Smoot No. which affirms my side of the motion. The four causes are only true due to the world’s natural laws, but as they deteriorate at the beginning of time, and closer we get to the singularity, then the causality systems would stop applying. Simultaneous causation Never happened, never shall, never will. The idea needs to be expanded upon, as it is a vital crux of the argument, and is worrying that my opponent has only just mentioned this. Dropped points My opponent does not explain how changeless things can change from potentiality to actuality. Meaning, how a deity can go from not creating to creating the universe. This has been dropped twice now. My opponent has given no evidence that things that come from nothing have an efficient cause. The evidence (such as atom decay) leads us to believe that, if something comes from nothing, then it has no efficient cause. Meaning, no material cause, no efficient cause. And as we know material causes are necessary for an efficient cause, which leads us to one conclusion: the universe, which comes from nothing, has no causer. And again, because this is vital, my opponent still has not explained a system of causality to us. This essential debating point has been heavily ignored by my opponent, and thus essentially means the first premise is lacking substantiation. I thank you for reading this debate. The argument by myself comes down to, in short, a critique of causality, and how causality occurs. For causality to be such a large portion of the argument, one must actually provide an explanation of causality. Not only has my opponent not, but I have provided the form of causality commonly used by W.L.Craig, and shown how inconsistencies arise between theology, rational thought and empirical data. Further, I have shown major problems with the impossibility of infinity, as well as what the kalam attempts to do as a whole. With all of this in mind, I urge a vote CON. Thank you. 1 - http://www.reasonablefaith.org...; 2 - http://plato.stanford.edu...; 3 – Physics, 198a 4 – www.tinyurl.com/chaloun