The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Sound

(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause Let’s turn straight to Con’s objections: I’m not concerned with change as such, but about what has changed – This is the best I can do to understand my opponent’s response to my charge that on indeterministic interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, you have uncaused events, but not uncaused things. A thing is a substance; an event is a change within a substance. For example, in particle-pair production, the event at which particle-antiparticle production occurs is uncaused, even though the particle and antiparticle themselves are not uncaused. William Lane Craig says the following:“Now in fact particle pair production furnishes no analogy for this radical ex nihilo becoming, as Davies seems to imply. This quantum phenomenon, even if an exception to the principle that every event has a cause, provides no analogy to something's coming into being out of nothing. Though physicists speak of this as particle pair creation and annihilation, such terms are philosophically misleading, for all that actually occurs is conversion of energy into matter or vice versa.” [1]Paul Davis himself says, “The processes described here do not represent the creation of matter out of nothing, but the conversion of pre-existing energy into material form.” [2] Nevertheless, not even indeterminacy in QM has been shown, for there are still many other deterministic interpretations which are empirically equivalent to indeterministic interpretations. Thus, QM gives no exception to the causal premise. On all interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, things do not come into being without causes. On indeterministic interpretations, you do have uncaused events, but not uncaused things. Even uncaused events have not been shown, for deterministic interpretations on QM exist which are empirically equivalent to indeterministic interpretations. As for non-local variables damaging premise (1), I’m not even going to respond to this objection, because it was given in a single line of text with no explanation whatsoever. The link he provides takes you to an article which argues that things cannot travel faster than the speed of light. What’s the argument supposed to be? I’m not going to do the guess work here. (2) The universe began to exist Again, let’s turn directly to my opponent’s objections: “I'm uncertain why Pro thinks this is an argument against premise 2. This is again, a straw man fallacy. I even said I wouldn't dispute premise 2, so I have no clue why Pro is defending it. I said we don't know if time, space, or matter existed before. Pro gives evidence that it didn't exist at the big bang. I conceded that that's probably true, but this doesn't mean these things didn't exist before. All Pro can prove is that it didn't exist at the start, but before, it can't be known.” I’m finding it difficult to understand the above quote. I don’t mean that as an insult in any way, but as brutal honesty. If my opponent thinks that space, time, matter, and energy might’ve existed before the Big Bang, then he disputes premise (2), because the definition of the word “universe” I’m using is “any connected space-time.” If our connected spacetime began to exist, then nothing existed prior to the Big Bang (for there can’t be anything prior to the beginning of time), let alone preexisting matter or energy. If there was matter and energy prior to the Big Bang, then in what sense did the universe begin to exist? I hope the reader can see my point. So it seems my opponent is really saying that we can’t know whether the universe began to exist, when we understand the definition of the word “universe.” But then I ask him to reread the quote I gave by cosmological Alexander Vilenkin. (4) If the universe has a cause, there exists an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe who sans the universe is beginningless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, changeless, and enormously powerful. In his opening statement, Con says the following: “Pro tries to prove God is the cause. However, at best he only showed an abstract object can't be the cause. He just asserts that an unembodied mind is the cause. This is the argument from ignorance and a bare assertion fallacy...” In order to answer this charge, I showed that inference to an unembodied Mind as the cause of the universe was based on a disjunctive syllogism, where showing that an abstract object cannot be the cause of the universe logically implies that an unembodied Mind is the cause. Far from successfully extending his arguments, my opponent completely ignored my response to those arguments. I ascribe the properties of being immaterial, causeless, eternal, powerful, spaceless, timeless, uncaused, and non-sentient to a force – It’s clear that force is normally understood to be a physical thing. If we remove this attribute, then “force” becomes literally an empty term which doesn’t mean anything. It’s like saying the cause of the universe is a non-physical rock. If we respond that a rock is by definition physical, you could remove “being physical” from the definition of “rock.” Well then what in the world is a rock, other than an empty term? What my opponet is reduced to saying is that the cause of the universe is an entity with the above preperties. When asked what this entity is, he cannot tell us, because there just is no conceivable entity to which this description could refer. I’m not arguing that because I can’t understand the above entity, therefore it doesn’t exist. Rather, I’m saying that our modal intuitions tell us that only an abstract object or an unembodied Mind can be timeless and spaceless. In the absence of any reason to deny our modal intuitions, we are rational in holding that they are veridical. I’m not guilty of argument from personal incredulity. Retro-causality could explain the origin of the universe – I pointed out that this view presupposes a B-Theory of time, and that our experience of tense and temporal becoming favor an A-Theory of time. My opponent rightly points out that on the B-Theory, these experiences are illusions. The problem though is that in the absence of powerful arguments for the B-Theory, we should hold that our experiences are veridical, that is, objective. Therefore, in the absence of powerful arguments for the B-Theory, we should prefer the A-Theory. Quantum Mechanics does not show retro-causality, for on epistemic interpretations of QM (such as Bohemian Mechanics) this feature is not real. I’ve already responded to the claim that Bell’s inequalities show Bohemian mechanics to be false, and by abopting an instrumentalist interpretation of aspects of QM, Legget's inequalities are not violated. Simultaneous causation can explain the origin of the universe – As I said before, my opponent needs more than mere simultaneous causation. He needs circular simultaneous causation in order for the argument to go through. So it’s not enough to give examples of simultaneous causation in general; he needs to give examples of circular simultaneous causation, and this he just can’t do. In my argument I was talking about explanatory priority, not chronological priority. I leave it up to the reader to judge whether my opponent has responded to my argument. A timeless mind is incoherent – Sadly, I do not have the space to respond to this objection. Please read the article I cited by William Lane Craig for an adequate response. God has a timeless intention to create a universe with a beginning. By actualizing this intention, God creates the universe and is drawn in to time. “Deciding” needn’t mean changing one’s mind. Notes [1] William Lane Craig, “The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe,” Reasonable Faith. (4 August 2013). < http://www.reasonablefaith.org... > [2] ibid, “Objections to the Causal Principle,” ibid. Ibid. < http://www.reasonablefaith.org...; >