The Kalam Cosmological Argument is sound

I'm glad to see that the validity of the KCA has been accepted. Now all that remains is for me to establish the truth of the premises. P1: Everything that comes into existence has a cause "My opponent simply committed the Bare Assertion fallacy by stating 'something cannot come from nothing' without justification" The Bare Assertion fallacy comes from the Latin Ipse dixit, which means "He himself said it" [1]. But this assertion that things that begin to exist have a cause is not just something that is justified because numerous people have said it. This premise is supported by observation and knowledge. Something that is very important to note is that we cannot know that something is 100% true. For instance, we cannot know with 100% certainty that gravity exists. We can justify the existence of gravity by saying that all objects with mass are attracted to each other, therefore there must be a force responsible for this attraction. We accept this because there are no counterexamples of something just floating off the earth without cause. Thus, we can say that gravity exists. So all "truths" really come from observation. We can observe that something does not come into existence without cause. "Also, something can begin to exist even if it is not from nothing (like a chair), if this ever occurred without a cause, then the first principle would still be falsified." While a chair can begin to exist, it always has a cause. The cause is that someone put the chair together or something along those lines. There is always a cause, so the first principle stands. Next, we deal with the Vacuum Fluctuation Model. KCA defender W. L. Craig deals with this model in his book Naturalism: A Critical Analysis: Though still bandied about in the popular press, Vacuum Fluctuation models did not outlive the decade of the 1980s [The decade of my opponent's sources]. Not only were there theoretical problems with the production mechanisms of matter, but these models faced a deep internal incoherence. According to such models, it is impossible to specify precisely when and where a fluctuation will occur in the primordial vacuum which will then grow into a universe. With infinite past time there is a positive probability of such a fluctuation occurring at any point in space. Thus, given infinite past time, universes will eventually be spawned at every point in the primordial vacuum, and, as they expand, they will begin to collide and coalesce with one another. Thus, given infinite past time, we should be observing an infinitely old universe, not a relatively young one [2]. We can easily see that this model is both outdated and contradictory. "All of this would flow from the current laws of physics." Except this idea clearly violates the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy which state that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. "Basically, there are equations which rely on acausal principles which could plausibly describe the beginning of the universe. The very fact that these comply with the laws of physics, disproves the claim that the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument regarding scientific causality involves a principle that we should take very seriously." My opponent still must give examples of these equations, as the one he gave was refuted. Also, these do not go with the laws of physics because they violate the laws of conservation. It can be argued that vacuum fluctuations do violate these laws for a very brief moment because of the Heisenberg principle, but our universe has been around for much longer than that."My last objection, would be to claim that causation presupposes time"My opponent has not sufficiently explained why cause must come before effect. And I am interested to hear his rebuttal for simultaneous causation: Why is it that cause and effect cannot occur simultaneously? Premise 1 stands.P2: The Universe came into existencePerhaps the Big Bang theory itself does not completely support P2, but other scientific knowledge does.Alexander Vilenkin, the scientist whose theory my opponent used to attempt to undermine P1, is quoted as saying: "All the evidence we have says that the Universe had a beginning" [3]. This premise is pretty much accepted as fact in the scientific community.Even if there was no "before the Big Bang," there still would have been a point at which the Universe began to exist. Premise 2 stands.Conclusion: The Universe had a causeI have demonstrated that through observation and scientific knowledge, we can see how these premises are true. The model of cosmic origins mentioned by my opponent that would not require a cause was refuted. I have shown that the second premise is true, based upon the present scientific knowledge. I have also shown that there was a moment in time when the universe began to exist: The universe is not eternal.Therefore, the KCA stands.Sources:[1]- http://en.wikipedia.org...[2]- http://books.google.com...[3]- http://www.newgeology.us...