Resolved; quantum mechanics do not refute the first premise of Kalam

My opponents opening argument seems to amount to this. The first premise of the KCA equates to it is necessarily true that everything that begins to exist must have a cause. In other words, it is logically incoherent to suggest that something which began to exist did not have a cause. Thus if it is even possible for indeterministic interpretations to be true then it follows that it is not necessarily true that everything which begins to exist has a cause. There are at least two major problems with this assessment. Problem 1; First of all it is simply not true that the firs premise of the KCA must be necessarily true. How can this be? Enter Saul Kripke. Kripke is regarded by many philosophers to have established that broadly logically possible may not be metaphysically possible. Kripke uses the example of water to demonstrate this. The proposition; H20 is not water contains no logical contradiction, and yet given what we know from experience water equivalent to H20. In other words we know a-posteriori that water is equivalent to H20. This implies that while it is logically possible for water to not be H20 it is metaphysically impossible for water to be H20. Thus the proposition "water is not equal to H20" could never be instantiated. This is generally what proponents of Kalam mean when they say that everything which began to exist must have a cause. Such a statement is not logically necessary but it is metaphysically necessary. [1] So it can still be logically possible for such indeterministic interpretations to be true, but it may not be metaphysically possible. Therefore I do not have to show a logical incoherence in the idea of indeterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics to show that they do not refute premise 1 of the KCA. Another way to view this is that simply because an idea or statement is logically consistent, it does not follow from that that there are logically possible worlds in which that idea or statement is true. Philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Saul Kripke have defended this principle. Plantinga, for example, points out that simply because an idea is consistent according to first order logic, does not mean that there is a possible world in which that statement obtains. For example; 1 1= 7 or some prime numbers weigh more than Jackie Gleason contain no formal contradictions, and yet it seems that they do not obtain in any possible world.[2] Now one might object at this point that the reverse might be true, it may be logically possible but not metaphysically possible for deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics to be true. This would be correct but even given this information my assertion still stands. What this leaves us with is that given our current information quantum physics does not require one to abandon the first premise of the KCA, even though some future discovery could require us to do so. Problem 2; I would also like to reiterate that even if my opponent is correct and indeterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics are metaphysically possible it does not show that things which begin to exist can come into being without any cause whatsoever. William Lane Craig makes this same point in the following way, "...if an event requires certain physically necessary conditions in order to occur, but these conditions are not jointly sufficient for its occurrence, and the event occurs, then the event is in principle unpredictable, but it could hardly be called uncaused in the relevant sense. In the case of quantum events, there are any number of physically necessary conditions that must obtain for such an event to occur, and yet these conditions are not jointly sufficient for the occurrence of the event. (They are jointly sufficient in the sense that they are all the conditions one needs for the event's occurrence, but they are not sufficient in the sense that they guarantee the occurrence of the event.) The appearance of a particle in a quantum vacuum may thus be said to be spontaneous, but cannot be properly said to be absolutely uncaused, since it has many physically necessary conditions. To be uncaused in the relevant sense of an absolute beginning, an existent must lack any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions whatsoever. Now at this juncture, someone might protest that such a requirement is too stringent: "For how could anything come into existence without any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions?" But this is my point exactly; if absolutely nothing existed prior to the Big Bang--no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no deity--, then it seems impossible that anything should begin to exist."[3] Finally my opponent proposes quantum tunneling as an indeterminate theory as to how the universe could come into being. Well for one thing this theory isn't without its problems; http://www.reasonablefaith.org.... But this theory doesn't get you a universe from nothing, there still was a quantum vacuum causally prior to it. Supporting Argument; I suppose I'll end with an argument for the metaphysical impossibility of something coming into existence without a cause. Suppose we say that something simply popped into existence. To suggest this immediately implies that there was the potential for that something to exist prior to it existing. This is where the problem arises, because nothingness by definition has absolutely no potential. So to suggest that something came from it would be to give it the property of having the potential to allow something to exist. Obviously this could never occur. 1. http://plato.stanford.edu... 2. http://www.reasonablefaith.org... 3. http://www.reasonablefaith.org...