The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound

Let me first begin by noting that Con has effectively dropped every single one of his scientific arguments (Dedicating very little room to them) and has completely dropped his historical analysis of the KCA along with his pragmatic argument against the KCA, choosing to focus only on the type of deity entailed by my argument (Which I have already stated to be irrelevant). These concessions on my Con's part strongly warrant a vote toward Pro. If Con's only major contention is with with the type of deity entailed by my argument, then Con has all but conceded away the entire debate. The fact that I personally am a Christian does not mean that all of my arguments ought to prove the existence of the Christian God. "The topic is that "The Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God is Sound." For reasons discussed in my previous argument "God" through it's capital letter means the proper name of a particular deity." Con has repeatedly failed to realize that in my OP, I explicitly stated that I would _not_ be using the KCA to prove a specific conception of deity. Instead, I stated my goal was to demonstrate the existence of a "personal cause with attributes that closely resemble a monotheistic conception of God." "Pro claims that he capitalized the term out of reverence because he is a Christian. I find it difficult to believe that pro is willing to show reverence to a vague and general concept by sharing with it the honor normally reserved for his own God. In fact, it would probably be a violation of the first, third, and arguably second commandments were he to do so. It's clear that Apologician reveres God, not a featureless first cause, and that is what he meant by the term." Con's argument here seems to be ad hominem. I have already stated that I do not believe the conception of deity entailed by this argument to be fully that of the Christian God. Con simply is obvious to this point, concentrating on my usage of God as a proper noun. I happen to use a proper noun in place for a common noun because I do believe the Christian God exists. However, this does not mean that I also believe that the KCA entails the existence of the Christian God. My belief that it is the Christian God who exists is irrelevant to what I believe can be entailed by the KCA, so my opponent continually attacks a straw man on this point. The KCA only proves the existence of God insofar as his being a personal cause. I simply happen to believe that the identity of God demonstrated by the KCA is the Christian God, but I emphatically denied that this was an essential part of the argument. "This is not a definition... He is not attempting to define God here, he is offering reasons to believe." Where or not it was a definition in the strict sense is irrelevant. I used that clause to state in advance the type of deity that was proven by the KCA. What I offered there was a clarification of the type of deity implied by my argument. Basically, what I said was alone the lines of "Some say that the KCA proves Y, but there are good reasons for believing that the KCA demonstrates the existence of an X type of being." "If you are willing to grant pro a change of definition of God to "a personal cause with attributes that personally resemble a monotheistic conception of God," that still doesn't excuse him from choosing which, singular, conception of God he is referring to and proving that the KCA does indeed resemble the attributes of that conception." Con apparently still doesn't see the point. I never stated to begin with that the KCA is applicable to any singular and specific conception of God. I have only claimed that it is successful insofar that it demonstrates the existence of _a deity_, not _which deity_. People who think the argument is successful can make what they think of it, I never claimed that the argument entailed a specific type of deity. The fact that I personally am a Christian does not mean that all of my arguments ought to prove the existence of the Christian God. "However, since the existence of time zero has been granted and its significance debated in depth, pro has still failed to connect the impossible infinities argument to any points actually being debated." One of Con's minor contentions is that the universe might have existed eternally, to which the two arguments I gave are immediately relevant to. Their goal is to demonstrate, contrary to my opponent, that the past duration of the universe is finite. As such, Con still needs to respond to the argument from the impossibility of an actual infinite and the thermodynamics argument. "As a point of fact, pro's formulation of the KCA relied on the initial conditions including "no prior determining conditions." Indeed! But Con is confusing initial conditions with prior determining conditions. I have stated that standard big bang cosmology does tell us what the _initial conditions_ to the big bang were. But the fact that the singularity constituted the boundary to the space-time manifold does tell us that there could not have been any prior conditions. Expressed in layman's terms, big bang cosmology tells us that the universe had an absolute beginning (no prior determining conditions) and that the initial conditions were unknown. That is, it states that the universe had an absolute beginning, but we cannot know what _took place_ during that initial moment. It does not tell us what the initial conditions were, but that there was nothing "before" these initial conditions. "However, he agrees that the analogy assumed the existence of a causal physics, which may or may not have existed. That is the point of my criticism of the analogy, that it makes unfounded assumptions in order to demonstrate its point." The existence of physics in the analogy is completely irrelevant. It would still work even if we took out physics. Let us say that X is a necessary and sufficient condition for causing Y. If X has been eternal, then this entails that Y must have been eternal too. If the causal conditions for the bringing about of an effect are eternally existent, then the effect must be too. The cause must be co-eternal with the effect. "Pro has not engaged my arguments about how agency is not a counter to timelessness. His response claims that a personal cause would be a free agent and thus timelessness would not hinder him. Pro uses the example of a sitting man in a state of timelessness who freely wills to stand up." This is simply not true. I responded to Pro by stating that he confused essential properties with accidental properties. Timelessness is not an essential property -- a type of property that God is "locked" into. Rather, it is an accidental property -- a type of property that God may freely choose to have or not. So, a timeless God could freely choose to enter into temporal relations. "In a state of timelessness the sitting man could not will to stand up. Willing involves a change of state" That's not a problem analogy -- it's precisely the point of it. As soon the the man willed something, then he would have entered into time. That illustrates the very point of the analogy -- that timelessness is not an essential property, but an accidental property. Hence, a free agent in a timeless state can simply will to enter into temporal relations. "However, it is fallacious to then change that understanding of 'free' to mean free from logical and physical constraints, as the agent would have to be to perform any action of thought or deed in a period of timelessness." My opponent attacks a strawman, I never used the term "free" to mean being unrestrained by logical constraints. As regard to physical constraints, God is obviously free to violate physical constraints, since they are contingent truths.