The Kalam Cosmological Argument

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Objection: You can't get metaphysical absolutes from our observations in our universeLets be clear here, Pros premise and any underlying hidden premises to support their argument is entirely on their own shoulders. Pro can't just defend an unsupported assumption like what ever is true of the natural world is also true of the natural world as a whole and/or true of anything and everything beyond our universe with a retort that amounts to I'm right till you prove me wrong. With all that said even if you grant that metaphysical absolutes can be justified on what we observe or don't observe in our universe this backfires for Pro which I will go into more detail later. (Pros Assumption 1: Something cannot create itself)Consider where Pro says. .. "In order for something to create itself, it must have already existed in order to take part in the creating"Sure if there is a prior state (before) where X did not exist, and later on X exists, to say in such a case X caused it's own existence runs into all sorts of contradictions. BUT, such a contradiction does not arise if time ( a before & after) is not a variable. As such even granting Pros claim here, it still leaves the possibility of X being self caused, where X had no time prior where it did not exist. (Pros Assumption 2: Nothing cannot create something)Objection: Circular reasoningRecall that even if granted that a state of nothing has no casual power, and thus in the MOST LITERAL sense, nothing can't create something, nothing also has no power to restrict something from beginning to exist, yes, even something beginning to exist without a cause. Consider Pros response to that. .. " if nothing is all there is, then nothing will be created. It matters not whether nothing can act as a restriction, because nothing will begin if nothing is all there is"This only makes sense if you already assume before hand that all things that begin to exist must have a cause, but that is the very thing Pro is trying to justify in the first place. Pros justification here is utterly circular. What are the rules for determining metaphysical possibilities/impossibilities ? Lets say in-spite of my earlier objections we take note of what we observe in our universe and from such observations this justifies the extrapolation of absolute metaphysical claims of what is possible or impossible. Say for instance that everything we observe in our universe that begins to exist has a cause, and thus we now conclude as an absolute metaphysical rule everything that begins to exist must have a cause. So under such a methodology Pros metaphysical absolute that everything that begins to exist must have a cause is justified. But if we accept such a methodology are there other absolute metaphysical rules we can like wise justify ? You betcha. Wes Morriston argues as follows. .. "It is also worthy of note that the empirical route is quite a dangerous one for thefriends of the kalām argument to take if they want to conclude that the universe was created out of nothing by the will of a timeless and immaterial person a long time ago. Here are some other well-attested empirical generalizations, each of which is incompatible with that hypothesis about the origin of the universe. (A)Material things come from material things. (B) Nothing is ever created out of nothing. (C) Nothing is ever caused by anything that is not itself in time. (D)The mental lives of all persons have temporal duration. (E) All persons are embodied. It might of course be said that while these generalizations apply within the natural order,they do not apply to the natural order as a whole or to its cause. But then, of course, one could reasonably ask why the same should not be said of the claim that whatever beginsto exist has a cause. It is also worth pointing out that prima facie, at least, quite a number of thesegeneralizations have as much claim to be metaphysical truths as Craig"s premise 1. Onemight be left with the impression that the friends of the kalām argument are picking andchoosing metaphysical principles to suit the needs of the argument they want to make" [1]I'd like to draw specific attention to the following two metaphysical claims. .. .. "(A)Material things come from material things. " And thus contradicts Pros claim that the material universe had a non material cause. "(C) Nothing is ever caused by anything that is not itself in time. " And thus contradicts Pros claim that the universe has a timeless cause. In case it wasn't obvious, I am not going to let Pro just pick and choose what metaphysical propositions should or should not be accepted as to allow them to just stack the deck in favour of their side of the argument. This is where such a non arbitrary method of justifying metaphysical absolutes gets you, it gets you to metaphysical propositions that contradict various premises that Pro needs in order for their argument to work. The universe did not began to exist1) X began to exist, if and only if X exists, and there was a time in the past where X did not exist.2) There has never been a time in the past where the universe did not existC) Therefore the universe did not "began" to exist. Contra Pro, I was more specific than Pros phrasing would have you believe as I argued that. .. "There is no point in time where the universe did not exist, this is still the case if the universe is billions of years old/has a finite past, as there is no time before the existence of the universe and thus no "prior" state in which the universe did not exist. "I grant that the universe has a finite past, and is not eternal in the sense of having an actual infinite time duration, this makes no difference to my argument here. Maybe Pro or the reader has committed the following false equivalency fallacy thinking either. ..1) The universe is eternal and has not began to exist. or2) The universe has a finite past and began to exist. The reason this is a fallacy is because there is a third option on the table. ..3) The universe has a finite past and did not began to exist. Pro has shown no fault against my argument on what it means for something to begin to exist, nor does Pro dispute that there is no prior state (speaking time wise) in which the universe was absent. Hawking writes. .. "If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe. " [2]KCA is incompatible with B theory of timeEven if my arguments for B theory of time are fatally flawed, Pro has to at least justify A theory of time as more likely true than B theory. Pro needs A theory of time for their side of the argument. I look forward to Pros reply. [1] . http://spot.colorado.edu...[2] . http://www.hawking.org.uk...