The Kalam Cosmological Argument

I'm not really sure if Con is trying to be serious or not. Assuming they are, I will continue... == Response == Con's first critique is that "you cannot assume there was nothing in the beginning." Actually, you can. It is logically necessary that before something existed, nothing existed. There is no alternative. You cannot say that before something existed, something else existed, because that "something else" would still be considered "something." Therefore, that would be like saying "before something existed, something existed." This is absurd. It becomes more obvious if you space the word "nothing" out into two words - "no thing." The statement therefore is "before a thing began to exist, no things existed." Con has not demonstrated why this is an incorrect assumption. Con then says that if nothing existed at the beginning, then god didn't exist either. This is irrelevant, as I have never mentioned god in this debate, and I do not plan to. I merely listed the attributes that the first cause of the universe (whatever it was) must have had. When we say "nothing existed at the beginning" we mean no time, no space, no material. However, we also know the universe still had a beginning, which means it had a cause. Since time, space, and material cannot create themselves, then we know this cause must have been not time, not space, and not material (timeless, spaceless, immaterial). This is precisely what the Kalam Argument concludes. The only other alternative is if the universe is eternal, which I will get to next... Con asks "if the universe exists then how do you know it didn't always exist?" The answer is simple: logic and science. Logically, I have already demonstrated why an infinite past is metaphysically absurd. I could never actually be in this present moment typing if an infinite sequence of past events needed to happen first, because an infinite sequence is never complete. As another example, pretend you have an infinite number of apples. I come and take every other apple. How many apples do you have left? Infinity! So infinity - infinity = infinity. Then, let's say I come and take all your apples except three. Now how many do you have? Three. So infinity - infinity = 3. This makes no sense. Infinity is, within the confines of space and time, impossible. Science too confirms this. The vast majority of scientists and scholars acknowledge that the universe had a beginning. Specifically, the theorem developed in 2003 by cosmologist and professor of evolutionary science Alexander Vilenkin mathematically proves that the universe "cannot have an eternal past" and therefore must have had a finite beginning [1]. The renown physicist Stephen Hawking has also confirmed, "All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago." [2] So in terms of Con's "ball in a box" scenario, the only alternative to a cause is that the ball has existed inside the box for eternity. But this is impossible, since we have already established that space, time, and material had a beginning. Since the ball exists within the space of the box, in time, and is made of material, then it too had a beginning, and everything that begins to exist has a cause. In the next section of their rebuttal, Con issues a string of questions. Unfortunately, questions are not arguments, so once again Con has failed to actually rebut anything. I'll still engage the questions though... Con says this is akin to saying a strong man pulled a car up a hill, when in reality it was a tow truck. The implication here is that it doesn't take something "strong" to cause the car to move. This is a terrible example, because obviously a tow truck is more powerful than even a single, strong human! And even if the world's strongest man was more powerful than a tow truck, this still doesn't help Con, because the comparison is now between a very powerful thing and a very, very powerful thing. It only severs as a double confirmation that moving massive objects requires incredible power. If Con believes that a cause which brings all space, time, and matter into existence is not impressively powerful, then I challenge them to demonstrate how. Con then asks what if the universe is uncaused? I have already addressed this - the only way this can happen is if the universe (space, time) is eternal. We know this cannot be the case, as confirmed by logic and science. Con wonders if the universe could have just "popped" into existence. Since I have already established that there must have been nothing before the universe, this is impossible. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothingness has no properties - no creative potential, no mass, no energy. These are all "things," and we are discussing "no things." Nothing cannot create something - if it could, why do we not observe this happening all the time? Why do we not also see money, and trees, and race cars popping into existence out of nothing? Why would noting only be able to create universes? Again, this idea takes us into absurdity, so we are forced to logically accept that there was a cause to the universe, and that cause must have been timeless, spaceless, immaterial, uncaused, and very powerful. This confirms the Kalam Argument. Finally, Con asks how something can be uncaused if everything must have a cause? Here we must clarify - when we say "everything" we mean every observable thing - space, time, matter, etc... (aka, the universe). Since the universe cannot create itself, then the cause was necessarily OUTSIDE the universe. This means it was outside time, space, matter, etc... The Kalam Argument only says that everything within time has a cause (everything that BEGINS to exist, "begin" indicates time). So, it is totally plausible that the first cause, which transcends time, can exist eternally and requires no cause. Con has yet to present a rebuttal that dismantles the Kalam Argument. Looking forward to the next round. [1] http://arxiv.org... [2] http://www.hawking.org.uk...