The Kalam Cosmological Argument proves the existence of a Personal Creator

Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. My opponent argues that this is an uncontroversial premise- that of course, something cannot come into being uncaused from nothing- that all things come from something caused by another. Indeed, I would be hard pressed to come up with a counterexample of an a creation ex nihilo that is also without cause. Even common examples of such “a-causal beginnings” such as quantum fluctuation involve not “nothing” but a quantum vacuum, and the “cause” is, though very loosely termed thus, the nature of quantum fields- the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty. Does this mean I therefore concede to this premise? Not exactly. Just as we haven’t observed anything coming into existence out of nothing without cause, we similarly have not observed anything coming into existence, at least in the sense that the KCA must adhere to. Allforms of “beginnings” thus far involve creation ex material. Something from something. Strictly speaking they are emergent forms of arrangement from pre-existing matter/energy. It’s also worth noting that just as we have no observed something coming existing uncaused out of nothing, we have also not observed something coming into existence outside of time- that is, causality itself is rooted in going from a prior instance to a subsequent. So the first premise is controversial in that regard. Premise 2: The universe began to exist. My opponent notes there are 2 main cases to be made to support the notion that the universe began to exist- philosophical and scientific. Both of which suffer problems. Philosophical: My opponent cites the argument against actual infinity to make the claim that because actual infinity cannot exist in reality, therefore an infinite time cannot have passed and thus there necessarily must’ve been a beginning. The problem of course is in the argument itself- the Hilbert’s Hotel Paradox example that is itself problematic. It attempts to treat infinity (which is a valid mathematical concept that is used in physics all the time) as if it were finite. A hotel with infinitely many rooms would not become “filled” to begin with- it would simply continue to be filled. To say an “infinitely many number of rooms” would be filled by “infinite number of guests” is like trying to put a stopper to infinity itself- an absurd concept. It only highlights the peculiar nature of infinity itself- after all, there infinite number of “all integers” as “all negative integers” even though it would mean there are “half-an-infinity” if we were to treat it as a finite number. Conceding this argument ultimately poses a deeper problem, however, with the crucial part of the argument- the third premise, which I will discuss in the appropriate part. Scientific: Unfortunately my opponent drops the ball with regards to scientific evidence to point to a beginning of the universe to argue that the second law of thermodynamics means that the universe must have begun since if an infinite time were to have gone by, we would’ve entered a “heat death” a long ago. In fact, this seeming problem to a “beginningless universe” is in fact not a problem at all. Simply put, all there needs to be is a moment in which there was a change in equilibrium. Something like the event that had occurred approximately 14 billion years ago, called the Big Bang. As for the universe being “created” from the Big Bang, it’s worth noting the fact that this “creation” that the cosmologists allude to is in fact qualitatively different than a creation ex nihilo. In fact, NO current pre-planck cosmology, whether it be the Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem or Aguirre-Gratton’s infinite universe (which in fact would refute the notion of infinity being an impossibility since this theorem currently stands scrutiny) violate the First Law of Thermodynamics- that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Furthermore, current cosmology posits a very different understanding of time itself. It is linked to space and hence forms a spacetime. What does this mean? It means that time isn’t understood in the classical, philosophical sense of simply the transition from a “prior instance” to “subsequent”- something that the universe itself would go through since the universe is composed OF time. This in turn indicates that even if time were to begin, the “universe” (defined in the more general “energy” or “all that exists”) needs not to have been created- rather, time would arise from the very nature of this energy. This was a possibility that Vilenkin has noted in his 1982 paper with regards to quantum tunnelling, which his work with Borde and Guth further explore. This leads to: Premise 3: the universe has a cause. As I noted in Premise 1, causality is rooted in time. If time (as understood in the classical philosophical sense of transition alluded previously) were to have begun, then that means the creator of the universe would, since it were the creator OF time, be timeless. But how can this be? In fact, how can a timeless personal being exist? For mind to function- to think, to form a will- requires time to pre-exist. Without it, the very notion of “beginning” is meaningless, or worse, incoherent. The defender of the KCA is therefore left to make a very nonsensical statement of “there was nothing- no time- before the creation of the universe, then the universe and time were created. ” To deny the pre-existence of time for causality and thought is to deny the very idea of creation. However, if time were therefore to not have been created, then the argument against actual infinity would be moot. What about the physicist’s understanding of time, which presumably would help the defender escape this trap? The problem is that by doing so the argument is instead left with another solution than the one that the KCA ultimately argues for, and thus via Ockam’s Razor, it falls apart.