The Kalam Cosmological Argument is Invalid

Beginning of Existence, RevisitedMy opponent says:"Everything in this case refers to literally everything. There is no added distinction, such as, 'everything in the Universe', or 'everything that we see'. The word 'everything', in context, literally means everything."This is simply incorrect. There is an added distinction: "that begins to exist." The clause "that begins to exist" is a restrictive clause[1] that modifies the noun "everything," limiting its scope within the context of the sentence. With it in place, the scope of the sentence is not literally everything, but everything that begins to exist. Only things that begin to exist are within the scope of this argument.The scope further depends on what is meant by "beginning of Existence" or, as my opponent has phrased it "begins to exist."My opponent says:"Whether something comes into being from a material state, or not from a material state is irrelevant since both came into being"Ah, but it does. As my opponent has noted, something can come into existence ex materia and something can come into existence ex nihilo. These are two important and distinctions.So, what is the scope here in the first premise? ex materia, ex nihilo, or all encompassing? My opponent has chosen to invoke William Craig, so let's go to him:"Let me first review three reasons I have given for believing the first premiss of the kalam cosmological argument. First and foremost, the causal premiss is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing. To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing serious metaphysics and to resort to magic. Second, if things really could come into being uncaused out of nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything and everything do not come into existence uncaused from nothing. Finally, the first premiss is constantly confirmed in our experience, which provides atheists who are scientific naturalists with the strongest of motivations to accept it."[2]Let's highlight the key points here:1. "The causal premiss is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing"2. "[T]he first premiss is constantly confirmed in our experience"And now, to refresh, the points from my opening argument:"The tree, as a material object, doesn't begin to exist [out of nothing], but rather the abstract concept tied to that material object, does.""And that is all we have, relying merely on observation: we have existing matter and energy that is in constant motion."Craig himself states that the first premiss is rooted in the concept that things just don't come out of existence! He dismisses ex nihilo himself!My opponent says:"Craig further elaborates on this by defining 'begins to exist' as 'x begins to exist if and only if x exists at time t and there is no time t* prior to t at which x exists'."Indeed, nothing I have said contradicts this. Rather, all I have done is explicitly identified that, as far as the first premise is concorned the candidates for x are not the material objects themselves, coming into existence from nothing, but the abstract concepts we assign to patterns in preexisting matter.Based on Craig's on words regarding the first premise, it seems that we have to accept this interpretation.CausesAt no point in my argument did I restrict the types of causes that can bring things into existence. All I did was to identify the differences in types of beginnings between P1 and P2. For all I care, in terms of the argument, the cause could be David the Gnome waving a magic wand. It's irrelevant and my case does not depend on limiting the types of causes in play here. To restate:The type of beginning in P1 is limited in scope to the beginning of patterns (to which we assign labels) of preexisting matter.The type of beginning in P2, however, revers to the beginning of matter itself, from nothingness.The beginning in P2 is not within the set of beginnings set forth in P1, thus the implication statement in P1 does not apply to P2, and the argument is invalid.The Alleged Straw ManMy opponent says:"One of the defenses of P1 is to show how literally everything we see in the world has a cause. KCA supporters will argue that we intuitively know that everything requires a cause....But this is merely a defense of P1, it does not necessarily follow that because one defends P1 by appealing to creatio ex materia, P1 is only referring to creatio ex materia."The first section reaffirms the quotes by Craig I stated. Since Con agrees with these quotes, then it appears we are operating under the same interpretations of the same argument which questions the accuracy and motivation for saying I am performing a Straw Man.The second section is right out. It reveals that P1 is rooted in induction: P1 is valid because all of our experiences attest to it! But, the key here is the limits to induction. While we can certainly generalize from our experiences, we have to be careful not to overgeneralize!Consider the following:1. Everything we observe beginning to exist ex materia is also observed to have a cause (whatever that cause may be).2. Generalization: Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a cause.3. Generalization: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.4. Generalization: Everything has a cause.Now, clearly #4 is out of the scope of the argument. Proponents of the argument are careful to limit the necessity of causes to things which have beginnings. Yet, #4 is a generalization of the preceding statements. So why is that generalization dismissed?It may seem arbitrary for me to draw the line at #2, for Con to draw the line at #3 and for no one to draw the line at #4. But it isn't. My defense of drawing the line at #2 (for P1) has been stated and reaffirmed by Con. It is not merely the fact that all of our observations are only within the realm of the material, but the fact that this is brought up in direct contrast to beginnings ex nihilo, to restate:Craig: "The causal premiss is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing"You can't say that the first premise (the "causal premiss") is rooted in the notion that something cannot come into being from nothing, and then say it applies to things which come into being from nothing!SummaryI have provided support for the notion that "beginnings" in the first premise of the argument is limited in scope to beginnings ex materia (as my opponent has labeled it). My opponent did not address, and thus implicitly concedes, the fact that the beginning of the universe is NOT a beginning ex materia. These are the only points of my argument, and I make no statements about limiting the types of causes. Given that the beginning of the universe is out of the scope of beginnings defined in P1, the conclusion does not follow from P1 or P2, and the argument is a form of equivocation, and invalid.[1]Consider the example "The store honored the complaints that were less than 60 days old" (http://www.kentlaw.edu...) and then interpret Con's response as saying the scope is complaints, with no added distinction.[2]http://www.reasonablefaith.org...