The Cause of the Universe is Plausibly Personal if the KCA is True

Burdens of Proof By accepting the terms of the debate spelled out in R1, Con accepts his BOP of a more plausible non-personal cause. Thus if Con fails to provide evidence for the cause being more plausibly non-personal, then either we tie or I win if I succeed in my arguments. Why The Cause Is Personal Personal Over Scientific ExplanationHere, Con makes the argument that it's an argument from ignorance to rule out the possibility of a natural cause of the universe. But not only does such promissory scientism beg the question, but it's clearly false. I'm not basing my case on what we don't know, but on what we do know about agent causation, scientific explanation, fine-tuning, the philosophical nature of timeless and immateriality, and the nature of the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause. Instead, it is namely Pro who is making a case from ignorance. He argues for a natural cause based upon his apparent ignorance on how such an entity would cause only universes. In response to my question of what makes universes so special that it's the only thing that a non-personal transcendent causes create, Pro confesses, "I don't know!" Timelessness & ImmaterialityHere Con plays a game of tit for tat, he says, "If Pro can have just the mere possibility of a supernatural timeless personal cause, I ... can have just the mere possibility of a supernatural timeless personal cause." First, I argued for the plausibility of my cause. Second, how does it follow that given the obvious coherency of a transcendent personal cause, that therefore a transcendent non-persoanl cause is equally coherent? This begs the question on Con's part. Whereas for a transcendent mind, there's vast tracts of literature defending dualism as even a plausible view for finite beings such as ourselves! It just seems obvious that minds can possible be independent of physical states, and there's nothing remotely incoherent about a mind having access to all his thoughts at once in a timeless state. On the other hand, if a cause is immaterial, timeless and non-personal, how then does it differ from nothing at all, much less a coherent causal power? All Con argues is a weak inductive argument for mind-brain dependancy. But I don't deny that humans operating in a physical world are fundamentally minds that use physical brains much like a pianist uses a piano. If the piano is damaged or keys are missing, of course the pianist will be unable to utilize his instrument in a musical context. Likewise, if the brain is damaged, all that can be concluded is that the mind has no causal access to such malfunctioned physical states. But God, like humans, can still cause physical states with their minds. Origin of a Temporal Effect from a Timeless CauseIt's perfectly sensible to ask the question of why the effect isn't co-eternal with the cause? In state-state causation, think of a bowling ball resting on a couch from eternity past, the depression on the couch (effect) would be co-eternal with the bowling ball's weight (cause). But with agent-causation, as in the case of the beginning of the universe, we have a transcendent cause who must have been timeless, that is, in some sense eternal. But then the effect of the eternal cause is finite! Agent causation easily succeeds as a way out of this dilemma where state-state causation fails. Now Morriston's objection is based on his assumption of state-state causation rather than agent causation. He supposes that God's changeless state of willing the universe is sufficient for its existence. But there's a difference between God's timeless intention to create a temporal world and God's undertaking to create a temporal world. Thus creation ex nihilo isn't an instance of state-state causation and is therefore not susceptible to Morriston's objection. For God must be temporal since creation even if He is timeless without it. Morriston simply fails to differentiate between God's timeless intention to create a temporal world and God's undertaking to create a temporal world in his objection.[5] Collective Properties of the Universe Con claims that the Fine-Tuning of the universe for beauty and complex life capable of moral apprehension is merely an assumption. First, it's ridiculously obvious the amount of mathematical beauty in the world and simplicity with which nature is ordered. Second, fine-tuning is a neutral term meaning that very small deviations from the actual values of the universe’s constants and quantities would result in a life prohibiting universe. For the range of life-permitting values is exquisitely narrow compared with the range of assumable values.[6]Hitchens complains of hubris to think that the world was designed for us. Such a sneer is irrelevant, for it's still the case that not only is a finely tuned universe more probable given a personal mind, than given a non-personal mind, but a personal mind also seems to be a better explanation of such exquisite fine-tuning. We can summarize our reasoning as follows, The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design It is not due to physical necessity or chance Therefore, it is due to design For the crucial premise 2, it can't be physical necessity since the notion that a a life-prohibiting universe is physically impossible seems outlandish, for if the primordial matter and antimatter had been differently proportioned, or if the universe had expanded just a bit more slowly, or if the entropy were marginally greater, then life would’ve been impossible. Nor could the fine-tuning be due to chance, for the odds of these values falling into a life permitting range can’t be reasonably faced. Out of the possible universes, a life permitting universe is enormously improbable, and therefore we're more rational to affirm that the best explanation of the fine-tuning is due to design. Which is more plausibly the result of a personal mind. Why the Cause Is Not Non-personalWithout Coherence Here Con charged that a transcendent non-personal cause isn't "natural," as in the sense of metaphysical naturalism; where no entities have will or volition whatever, but rather that such a cause is supernatural, and that such a notion merits legitimacy. But rather than Con demonstrating the legitimacy of his case, he merely asks the question, "why not this?" … This amounts to pure speculation without any sort of argument of the amount and caliber that I've provided in my positive case. Con then says that I've not supported my claim about the impossibility of a timeless non-personal cause of a finite universe. But this is clearly false, for since agent causation is the only way out of the dilemma mentioned earlier, then Con faces such a dilemma without an appeal to agent causation. Consider that the only two alternatives to agent causation is state-state and event event causation. But neither can produce the first state or first event from an eternal state or event. Since it's cause must, by definition of causation, be co-eternal. Without Content What does Con mean by a "Supernatural timeless non-personal cause"? Content must be given here otherwise it seems quite meaningless and contrived, and therefore we are free to reject it as an arbitrary alternative to a personal supernatural cause. Con goes out of his way to avoid this task of giving his strange position content, Extend ArgumentsWithout PotentialitiesHere Con just asserts that I made a mistake, Extend ArgumentsConclusionCon wrongly assumes that he doesn't bear a burden, and I've easily beared mine both in showing the impossibility and implausibility of a natural cause which incoherently transcends nature, and in defending the plausibility of a personal cause which coherently transcends his natural creation. Citations 5. http://www.reasonablefaith.org... 6. See J.D. Barrow and F.J. Tipler’s, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle” and, Sir Martin Rees, Robin Collins, et al