The KCA is Sound

I dedicate this debate to Typhlochactas, that legend among mortals, that formidable foe and friend. May he rest in peace, yet remain in haunting vigil throughout the DDO empire. Vale... IntroductionsThis debate premiers the widely anticipated tournament for the DDO champion. In the words of its orchestrator, Pennington, this series determines "who is the best debater on DDO, period."http://www.debate.org...I welcome Dakota as my first opponent as well as his insight into the argument we'll be debating, the kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA, hereafter). This is a simple argument (though not simplistic) with a rich history in the minds of brilliant philosophers throughout thousands of years dating back to Plato's Timaeus, circa 360 BCE. DefinitionsFirst Cause - The aggregate of all first causesEternalism - all points in time are equally "real," as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.[1]Contingent Existence - dependent for existence [2] ... such things are generated and later corrupted. A thing is generated just if there is a time when it exists and an earlier time when it does not. On the other hand, these things are corrupted just if there is a time when it exists and a later time when it does not. These things are therefore temporally contingent, for since they come into and go out of being, then they are possibly generated or possibly corrupted. And so every temporally contingent being begins to exist at some time and ceases to exist at some time. Such beings, then, seem to exist for a finite period of time.[3]cosmos - all of space and time, matter and energy to include whatever multi-verse, etc.Reductio ad absurdum - an argument from absurdity demonstrates that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial. a priori & a posteriori Reasoning -A given proposition is knowable a priori if it can be known independent of any experience other than the experience of learning the language in which the proposition is expressed, whereas a proposition that is knowable a posteriori is known on the basis of experience. For example, the proposition that all bachelors are unmarried is a priori, and the proposition that it is raining outside now is a posteriori.[4]Personhood - a non-naturalist identification of agency, a substance endowed with free will and self-awareness. Charles Taylor writes, "What is crucial about agents is that things matter to them. We thus cannot simply identify agents by a performance criterion [contra-naturalist], nor assimilate animals to machines... [likewise] there are matters of significance for human beings which are peculiarly human, and have no analogue with animals."[5]Burden of ProofsThe resolution states that the KCA is sound and so that is what I must defend first and foremost. However, since the KCA is part of a larger cumulative case against atheism, then it would seem that no one who accepts its conclusion should be able to genuinely maintain his atheism. This is because the KCA seeks to prove a personal creator of the cosmos, and no one who accepts that the universe was created by a personhood out of nothing would seriously call themselves an atheist! This brings me to my central claim of which I bear the burden, and it is also the claim that Dakota must defeat.Central Claim: "Plausibly, a First Cause exists as a supernatural Personhood"Historical BackgroundEarly Christian fathers, convicted with the longstanding biblical tradition of creatio ex nihilo, sought to combat the Aristotelian notion of an eternal cosmos. With the advent of Muslim conquest over north Africa, these cosmological arguments became development into the KCA by the Sunni philosopher Al-Ghazali before later transmission back into the embrace of Christian scholastic theology.The word kalam is Arabic for ‘speech’ and according to the 14th century theologian al-Idji, kalam is the "science which is concerned with firmly establishing religious beliefs by adducing proofs and banishing doubts."[6] Now a scholar of this science is known as a mutakallim (plural mutakallimiin), and as a proud defender of the kalam, I hope to cast light on the origin of the cosmos while, hopefully, admitting Dakota and the good people of the jury to see a little further into reality by standing atop the shoulders of giant mutakallimiin.Citations1. Kuipers, General Philosophy of Science, p.3262. http://dictionary.reference.com...3. http://philosophy.lander.edu...4. http://www.iep.utm.edu...;5. Taylor, "The Concept of a Person", Philosophical Papers, 1985, 98-1026. al-Idji, 1971