The Kalam Cosmological Argument is sound.

(As a note, the 505 error glitch on DDO which has plagued many of us prevented me from having a lot of time to write my arguments, so please forgive me if they seem rushed at some points.) I want to begin by pointing out that Pro concedes my framework in respect to his burden of proof. If my arguments are equally convincing, then Pro loses the debate. Additionally, Pro concedes my criticism of his warrants for premise one of the KCA. From this fact alone, his argument is currently unsound because the first premise remains undefended. I await Pro’s rebuttal to this line of argument in the next round. In regards to the second premise of the KCA, Pro advanced the following argument: If Einstein’s general theory of relativity is true, the universe began to exist. Einstein’s general theory of relativity is true, therefore the universe began to exist. I rebutted Pro’s contention by pointing out that despite its predictive success on some scales, general relativity is an incomplete model that has yet to be unified with quantum gravity, and thus does not correspond to physical reality. Pro mustered one response to my detailed analysis of the current scientific status of general relativity: ‘I’m not talking about general relativity, I’m talking about the Big Bang’. In advancing this argument, Pro demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the relationship between the Big Bang theory and general relativity. Simply put, general relativity offers us a set of equations that describe potential conditions in the physical universe. When scientists noticed that the universe is seemingly isotropic and homogenous, only one set of equations within general relativity could be true: the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metrics. These metrics provide us with a physical picture of the universe that we call the Big Bang: an expanding spacetime that began with an initial cosmological singularity (this is further demonstrated by the Hawking-Penrose theorem). It’s quite clear that the Big Bang cosmological model is based on general relativity, and therefore, the incompleteness of general relativity is incredibly relevant here even if Pro erroneously insists otherwise. Pro brings up a new argument, suggesting the second law of thermodynamics provides evidence the universe began to exist. Again, Pro is misunderstanding scales here. The law of thermodynamics is a macroscopic law, not a microscopic law. We have no idea how it plays out on the quantum mechanical scale, so it’s dangerous to linearly extrapolate backwards without heeding this information. Furthermore, Pro overstates the importance of the second law. It does not prove the universe had a beginning. At best, it proves entropy had a beginning. These are obviously not the same thing. In any case, as confident Pro is in using physical laws to prove the universe had a beginning, physicists don’t agree with him. Guth, the famous cosmologist, said ““I don’t know whether the universe had a beginning. “. This ties into my point about quantum gravity models. When we look at our most complete models of physics, some of them say that the universe had a beginning, others say it didn’t, and we can’t really choose between them at this point. In response to my alternative explanations of the beginning of the universe, Pro states that god is the necessary explanation, not the physical possibilities I proposed. However, because my examples are at least possible, Pro’s arguments fall apart. He states that the cause of the universe must be immaterial. My examples show that the cause of the universe can be material. He states that the cause of the universe must timeless and spaceless. My examples show that the cause of the universe can take place in space and time. As a whole, the models I propose, since they are at least possible, show that Pro’s move from “the universe had a beginning” to “the universe must have had a transcendent cause” is wholly unjustified, because there are plenty of ways to explain the beginning of the universe without such a maneuver. Pro’s only argument for the plausibility of a transcendent cause is its alleged necessity, but once it’s been shown that such a cause is not necessary, the explanation that “god did it” shares equal plausibility with the others I presented, and Pro’s burden of proof requires him to prevent reasons to prefer his explanation over mine. Back to Pro.