Kalam Cosmological Argument for God is Invalid

I will present an argument, which is based on Scott Clifton's (TheoreticalBullshit) argument which attempts to use's William Lain Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument for God to prove that God does not exist. My opponent should defend the KCA. Cliffton's argument [1] can be summarized as follows: P1: Nothing which exists can cause something which does not exist to begin existing. P2: Given (1), Anything which begins to exist was not caused to do so by something which exists. P3: The universe began to exist. P4: Given (2) and (3), the universe was not caused to exist by anything which exists. P5: God caused the universe to begin to exist. C1: Given (4) and (5), God does not exist. Defense of P1 --------------- There are technically two types of logical causality: necessary and sufficient [2][3]. Actually there are three types of causality, but the third one is the "contributory cause" and it is not relevant to this debate, imho. Necessary Causes: If x is a necessary cause of y, then the presence of y necessarily implies the presence of x. [3] Sufficient Causes: If x is a sufficient cause of y, then the presence of x necessarily implies the presence of y. [3] Furthermore, there are Philosophical Laws of Causality [4] which is what Dr. Craig uses: "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." I will come back to these statements a little bit later. It's important to determine what this premise really means and to determine why W. L. Craig's response is inadequate, at best. To be specific here is what Dr. Craig wrote: "The problem is that (P1*) is patently false. I, for example, began to exist. Did I do so without a cause? According to (P2), which follows from (P1*), everything that begins to exist just pops into being uncaused. Not only is that patently false, but so believing would make science and life itself impossible. No need to learn about the birds and the bees! Do internet atheists really expect people to swallow poppycock like this in order to avoid theism?"[5] If my opponent accepts Ontological Reductionism [6], then the patently false statement is that Dr. Craig "began to exist" or that anything, aside from energy, began to exist. Dr. Craig began to exist no more than a fist began to exist when I squeezed my fingers to my palm or that a cross began to exist when I nailed two 2x4's together. In essence, a fist is a relationship between my fingers and my palm (both of which already exist); a cross is a relationship between two 2x4's and a nail (all of which already exist). The only thing that's happening in these cases is that entities, which already exist, interact in a specific manner and we label the result of that interaction as something else. However, the result of interacting entities is not a new entity in itself, it's merely the same entities as before, just in a different formation. As we saw before: a fist is merely my palm and fingers coming together; my palm and fingers are merely cells arranged in a certain way; the cells are merely chemicals arranged in a certain way; the chemicals are merely atoms arranged in a certain way; atoms are matter; matter is energy [7]. The First Law of Thermodynamics already states that mater can be neither created nor destroyed, so if my opponent does not object to that then I will enter this as Defense 1 of Premise 1 (P1). Dr. Craig suggests that there is an ontological difference between the parts and the whole, which may also be interpreted as Holsim [8], but I will not address this point unless my opponent disagrees with Ontological Reductionism. My position is that our interpretation of the whole is not ontologically different from the parts. As I will show next, the laws of causality make it impossible for things which exist to cause something which does not exist to come in existence. So back to causality: in all of our present examples, causes are applied to things, which already exist, to produce an effect. For example: a nail is driven through two 2x4s to produce a cross. So let's try to apply that principle to God causing the universe to exist, so in the initial state: 1. God exists (for the sake of argument). 2. Nothing else exists. 3. God exerts a cause. 4. The Universe begins to exist However, there is a big leap between 3 and 4, namely: what is the cause applied to? Well, nothing else exists, so the cause is applied to "nothing" or the cause is applied to the Universe. If the cause is applied to the Universe, then the Universe existed prior to it being created, therefore God did not create the Universe. If the cause is applied to "noting" then the conclusion is pretty straight forward: God exerted an affect "nothing" therefore "nothing" was caused. If my opponent agrees with this logic, then I will enter it as Defense 2 to Premise 1 (P1). One thing to note is that while Defense 1 and Defense 2 seem to be mutually exclusive, they're meant to cover to different criticisms of Premise 1 so the defenses should be taken in the context of those criticisms. Defense 1 addresses Dr. Craig's response that he "began to exist." Defense 2 addresses the claim that something, which exists, can cause something else, which does not exist, to start existing. Specifically, it addresses the claim God caused the Universe to start existing. Defense of P2: --------------- P2 is simply a restatement of P1, so the Defense of P1 applies here. Defense of P3: --------------- P3 is essentially P2 of the KCA [9], so I assume that my opponent accepts it without the need for further defense. Defense of P4: --------------- P4 follows from P2 and P3, so no further defense is necessary. Defense of P5: --------------- P5 is essentially the same as P5 of the KCA [9], so I assume that my opponent accepts it without further need for defense. Good luck to my opponent! [1] http://12tuesday.com... [2] http://plato.stanford.edu... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://www.reasonablefaith.org... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] http://nobelprize.org... [8] http://en.wikipedia.org... [9] http://www.leaderu.com...