The Kalam Cosmological Argument is sound.

Thanks to Pro for establishing this debate. I look forward to a productive and civil dialogue. First, we should clarify what exactly follows if Pro has the burden of proof. The burden of proof allows the voters to determine who will win the arguments score if both debaters argue equally well. For example, if Pro and Con are equally convincing and the burden of proof is on Pro, then Pro loses the debate. As Con, I must merely offer arguments which are equally as convincing as Pro’s in order to win. Pro, on the other hand, has to offer arguments which are more convincing than mine in order to win. Pro defends his first premise by pointing out that when scientists try to explain physical events, they assume a cause and effect relationship. Because scientists assume a cause and effect relationship, then there must be a law saying all physical events have a cause and effect. However, this argument does not reflect current thinking in science. While it’s true that most everyday science involves causality, higher level physics does not, especially when it comes to the origins of the universe. According to the philosopher of physics Quentin Smith, Hartle and Vilenkin ideas on the wave function of the universe“imply that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features our universe possesses. For example, contains intelligent organisms such as humans. This remaining universe has a certain probability very high -- near to a hundred percent -- of coming into existence uncaused.” (http://tinyurl.com...)I’m not interested in determining if these theories are plausible. If they are at least possible according to current scientific models, then it follows that science does not necessarily need to make use of causality when explaining the origins of the universe, refuting Pro’s defense. I’d like to turn to Pro’s defense of his second premise. My contention is that because we do not have a complete scientific theory on the origins of the universe, Pro cannot use science to prove that the universe must have had a beginning. Essentially, Pro argues “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.” By true, I mean a one-to-one correspondence with physical reality. In this sense, general relativity is false, refuting Pro’s syllogism. Now, I don’t mean I deny the predictive power of general relativity on the scales it’s meant to apply to. What I mean is that general relativity cannot be true in that it’s an incomplete theory of the universe. In other words, general relativity is successful on some scales, but not all scales, thus invalidating it as a candidate for a complete explanation of the origin of the universe. Obviously, an incomplete theory of the universe does not share a one-to-one correspondence to physical reality. General relativity is incomplete because it does not apply to the quantum mechanical scale. While relativity assumes the principle of locality, quantum mechanics is rife with non-locality, entailing that relativity does not apply to the quantum scale (http://tinyurl.com...). Since relativity does not apply to the quantum scale, it does not apply to all scales, entailing that relativity is an incomplete theory of the universe and therefore untrue. Scientists recognize that while relativity is predictively successful in many respects, it is not a true explanation of the origins of the universe because it does not apply to the quantum scale, inspiring their long-standing search for a quantum gravity theory to marry the two together. Quantum gravity models, which are theoretically complete, explain the origins of the universe and combine relativity with quantum mechanics. According to some quantum gravity models, the universe had a beginning, while others affirm an eternal universe. In any case, we aren’t even close to knowing which ones are true yet. Pro uses an incomplete scientific theory to prove the universe had a beginning, but when we look at the complete scientific theories about the origins of the universe, it’s evident we have no idea if the universe had a beginning or not. I now turn to the third component of Pro's argument. "If the universe had a cause, then that cause is god. The universe had a cause, therefore the cause of the universe is god." My contention is that Pro's syllogism is false because there are many causes we can devise which are just as reasonable as god. First, referring back to quantum gravity models, we have many scientific theories which explain the origins of the universe without god. There are many famous examples being considered as we speak: the Vilenkin quantum tunneling model, the Hartle-Hawking model, and the Carroll-Chen model. These explanations are equally as plausible as god. Although they are scientifically tentative models, god is not even a scientific model to begin with, nonetheless a tentative one. Just like god, there are no a priori philosophical reasons to rule out these models. Thus, these models are scientifically and logically equivalent to god as an explanation, refuting Pro’s syllogism. The universe could have been brought into being by infinite simultaneous causation of elementary particles. Simultaneous causation is the idea that "the causal order must not be the temporal order because of the possibility of cause and effect being contemporaneous."(http://tinyurl.com...) X and Y have such a relationship if X, the cause, and Y, the effect, happen at the same instantaneous moment. The possibility of simultaneous causation demonstrates how the universe could have came into being. The earliest instant of the universe was simultaneous causation of elementary particles. For example, a given quark is caused to exist by a given electron, which is caused to exist by a given quark, ad infinitum, at the earliest instant of the universe. This causation is instantaneous, so so all of these cause and effect relations happen at the same moment in time. Elementary particles therefore have an explanation with reference to other elementary particles. Since all physical things are reducible to interactions of elementary particles, an explanation of elementary particles in the first state entails an explanation of everything within the first state. This hypothesis makes predictions which are confirmed by physics. It predicts that particles are able to instantaneously affect the conditions of other particles. This is proven by the Aspect experiments mentioned before. His 1986 experiment, "Experiments on Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-type Correlations with Pairs of Visible Photons', published in Quantum Concepts in Space and Time, found that "If a photon x is measured to be in a 'spin up' state, this simultaneously causes a spatially distant photon y to be in a 'spin down' state". The philosopher of physics Quentin Smith writes that "Alain Aspect's confirmation of Bell's theorem can plausibly be taken as confirming the existence of simultaneous or instantaneous causation across arbitrarily large spatial distances.". It is therefore the case that particles can instantaneously change the states of other particles. It also predicts that space is infinite.This is entailed by inflationary Big Bang cosmology also entails that space is infinite. Alexander Vilenkin and Jaume Garriga published an article called 'Many worlds in one' in the journal Physics Review, and they conclude in their abstract that "generic prediction of inflation is that the thermalized region we inhabit is spatially infinite." It is logically possible for the universe to have caused itself to come into being. This may seem absurd at first glance. As popular reasoning goes, "If something causes itself, doesn't it exist before it begins to exist?" I would agree that this type of self-causality is absurd. Something cannot cause itself to begin to exist before it begins existing. However, there is a different type of self-causality which does not fall into this absurdity. Suppose that the universe brings itself into being at an instantaneous moment; In other words, it causes itself at the same time it comes into being. One cannot object to this scenario on the basis that the universe exists before it causes itself, because there is no temporal gap in the scenario I am describing. Therefore, there is a logically possible situation where the universe brings itself into being. As we can see, Pro’s arguments for premise one are questionable, his defense of premise two relies on an incomplete cosmological theory, and his defense of premise three ignores equally plausible naturalistic explanations. Thus, the resolution is not affirmed. Back to Pro!