The KCA is Sound

Introduction Cosmologists Audrey Mithani and Alexander Vilenkin argued that the mathematics of eternity (eternalism) prove that all the current models of space and time require a beginning, they say “None of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal.” [7-9] Mithani and Vilenkin’s latest scientific paper was titled with a question, “Did the universe have a beginning?” … Their professional answer was a univocal yes. This conclusion is staggering, for if all space, time, matter and energy began then it couldn’t have sprang into being from nothing! The causal principle that out of nothing, nothing comes, is prima facie justified. For this is a metaphysic not based on the shifting sands of sense experience, but rather based on critical rationality and direct insight, and since this principle is always verified and never falsified, then within the absence of any empirical defeaters; one is warranted in believing its truth. I shall call this causal principle, CP hereafter.Now the question is not whether things exist, rather it is how: contingently or necessarily? If something exists necessarily, then it does not come to be or pass away and so cannot be said to have a cause. But contingent things on the other hand do come to be and pass away. Parmenides argued that what is cannot come to be or perish: If it comes to be, then it was not, if it perishes it will not be … to begin, it first had to not be and to end, it has to stop existing: it must become what is not. However if it were not, what would impel it to come into being? Parmenides thus argued that “from what does not exist nothing can come into being.”So the only way out of this dilemma is to affirm that contingent things have a transcendent cause of their beginning from some pre-existing reality (whether contingent or necessary). Thus if we are to avoid a Parmenidean contradiction, then the causal principle, CP ought to be affirmed; contingent things have causes! This has been an enduring principle in metaphysics ever since the 5th century BCE philosopher of Elea graced us with its discovery, and it doesn’t seem to be defeated anytime soon.Furthermore, since the cosmos itself had a beginning, then one cannot logically appeal to merely an ex materia cause, for that would be alteration, not a true beginning. And anyone who says the CP is true in the universe of but not of it, is simply mistaken- recall the CP is prima facie justified given the alternative of a contradiction. As Sherlock Holmes once said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." It just remains to be the case that nothing in the universe falsifies the CP. So to charge against this principle by demanding evidence for it is to miss the rational point! It is a truth we assent to without the need for proving it true by more basic assumptions, just as 2+2=4 is intuitive and cannot be proven by more basic assumptions or by less basic evidence.What then of the cosmos? We know that this beautiful space-time reality (richly endowed with all of her properties and near unlimited creative potential) not only has a finely-tuned structure that allows for that creative potential, but also permits the possibility of conscious, embodied moral agents capable of reasoning. But is it plausible that something inherently Rational is responsible for the rationality we find in the universe? We summarize this kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) as follows - Argument Outline P1, The cosmos began Grim Reaper Paradox The greek philosopher Zeno waged against the idea of the existence of many things in place of a unity. He demonstrated how ontological pluralism lead to absurdity. For example, suppose the distance on a large ruler were measured in half, then half of that half was halved, and so on. As the argument goes, one could never measure a first unit! For there would exist always one more to halve! Zeno assumed an actual infinite in the paradoxes that would later be graced by solutions from Aristotle: only potential infinity is found in nature, otherwise we are stuck with an impossibility. Now suppose if time were like that ruler - if this were the case, then Zeno-class dilemmas can apply just as much to space as it does to time (whether A or B theories), so that any objection to P1 faces a Grim Reaper death by a reductio ad absurdum (or proof against it by contradiction). Consider the following argument. P2, If the cosmos began, then it has a transcendent cause Theistic ImplicationsConceptual Analysis of a First Cause Ultramundanity Because it is impossible for the cosmos to cause itself (for in order to do so it would have to exist before it existed- which is incoherent), the cause must be transcendent and therefore uncaused since an infinite causal series reduces to the absurd as we have seen. It must also transcend space and time since it created it. And lastly it must be unimaginably powerful since it created all matter and energy. Personal Noncontingent First Cause Since the first cause is the cause of all causes, it must be an end in itself. Therefore, the first cause must be a necessary reality with certain essential properties (like personhood and omnipotence). But, as mentioned by Craig, the only things which exist necessarily or at least timeless are either abstract ideas or a mind (plausibly with those ideas, if so, then it would be an omniscient mind). But since abstract ideas by definition are causally impotent, then it follows that a necessarily existing, plausibly omniscient mind is the best candidate for the first cause. I say "plausibly omniscient for sake of parsimony, for it may even make sense to consider abstract objects as perhaps the way God thinks, thereby allowing us to affirm one necessary reality rather than many. (For what it’s worth, this is a step in the advancement of simplicity at its best! Occam smiles on the KCA). Personal Over Scientific Explanation As WLC mentioned, only two types of explanation exist, personal or scientific, and since it can't be scientific, the cause of the universe must be personal. [11] Temporal Effect from a Non-temporal Cause Again as mentioned by WLC, out of state-state, event-event, and agent causation, the first cause of space-time cannot be the former two, thus the cause must be a free agent since the effect isn’t coeternal with the cause. Of course this free act would be simultaneous with the origin of the cosmos, nevertheless God was still changeless (though obviously not immutable) without the creation event. In this way, God is timeless and unchanging without creation but enters into time at the moment of undertaking in his creation. God is therefore causally prior to the big bang, not temporally prior. Cosmic Properties The First Cause is an entity that has produced a finely tuned cosmos, containing beauty and creatures attuned to beauty, containing moral obligations and creatures aware of them, a universe containing conscious beings with free will, a universe some of whose contents have objective functions (eyes are for seeing, and so on). Thus the the idea that the first Cause is more plausibly a extremely intelligent and very powerful person acting purposively is highly plausible given all this data. [12] I invite Con to give a more plausible explanation than what theists have always affirmed, until he does so, it would seem more reasonable to affirm an intentional personal creator of the cosmos, given the truth of a first cause. Argument Map Summary Citations7. http://arxiv.org...8. http://arxiv.org...9. http://www.debate.org...10. http://www.reasonablefaith.org...11. Swineburne, The Existence of God, (Oxford, 1991), 32-4812. Pruss, Cosmological Arguments, bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/LCA.html