The KCA is Sound

Introduction I'm pleased to note that Con doesn't really object at all to the argument! Rather he focuses his case on terminology and clarification points, which is like a backhanded compliment to the KCA by its own right. My opening round had some technical difficulties, but the case easily stands. First, recall my claim that plausibly, a First Cause exists as a supernatural Personhood. Second, this argument takes place against the backdrop of what the best explanation of the cosmos seems to be. The space-time reality with which we find ourselves is endowed with a beautiful mathematical structure that allows for embodied moral agents and physical regularity together with the reliability of that regularity. The kCA can be summarized as follows - Argument Outline P1, The cosmos began Note what Con affirms, "I wholly agree: the cosmos must have a finite past … [it] began to exist." His only reservation is that I must clearly define what "began to exist" means. But that's easy! Take "begins to exist" to be synonymous with "comes into being." In this case, the cosmos comes into being just if it is finite.... well that was simple enough, what about Con’s tautology that everything in time is in time? First, Con mistakes a temporally prior state for a causally prior state of affairs. He merely posits, “that there was no previously existing state of affairs before the cosmos existed.” Clearly he means there was no state of affairs temporally prior, not causally prior, and I agree. But the KCA demonstrates a causally prior state of affair, to think otherwise is to beg the question against the mutakallim. We’ll need to know why there can be no causally prior state. (No one’s arguing there was a temporally prior state, indeed I'm arguing against it). The KCA therefore successfully argues that there must be a causally prior state of affairs since, as Con already agrees, being cannot arise from a state of non-being. A cosmos can’t arise from a state of non-cosmos, otherwise it faces the Parmenidean Reductio that Con totally failed to address! Con has simply done nothing to eliminate the possibility that the cosmos is in fact contingent, he’s just mistaken the CP (see below). And so the BOP is on him to show that there was no state of affairs causally prior to the cosmos' beginning. Second, Con complains that the definition of contingency appears inadequate, he says this because it seems that temporal talk is equivocated with causal talk. This just takes an easy clarification. When we speak of things beyond space and time, we use misnomers to describe such things, but that does not imply that what these misnomers are attempting to describe or convey is therefore incoherent or false. At worse we would just have to revise our provisional definitions. For instance, taken in terms of the two criteria for contingency that Con derived from our provisional definition, (i) there must be a time T in which X exists, and (ii) there must be a time prior to T, -T, in which X does not exist. … We can revise it thusly, (i') there must be a state in which X exists, and (ii') there must be a state in which X does not exist … the definition for contingency therefore becomes, By this definition, Con get around there having to be a cause. For we can state the first tensed fact, that at t=0 the cosmos comes to be, as well as stating it tenselessly, the cosmos began. So in addition to tenseless facts, there also appear to be tensed facts, but if there are tensed facts, then time itself is tensed, therefore, temporal becoming is real- there is a dynamism about reality, a constant becoming of reality in time! What could be more obvious that the cosmos is contingent? [13] So by his own stripes Con must admit that the cosmos, including time itself, must have come to be, it must have been generated. As if this point weren’t solidified enough, consider the following argument that renders time itself contingent- Grim Reaper Paradox Empirical Confirmation Other than the cited work done by Vilenkin and Mithani, cosmic expansion and thermodynamics provide empirical confirmation of a cosmic beginning. Cosmic Expansion The big bang name is misleading since the singularity didn't occur at some point in a preexisting empty space like a superdense pellet exploding. The theory is more radical than that, since space and time as well as matter and energy came into being. For as we trace the expansion back in time, distances between any two points equals zero- space and time can't be extended any further back than this. P2, If the cosmos began, then it has a transcendent cause Parmenidean Reductio [Argument Extended] Lack of Empirical Defeaters [Argument Extended] Modal Argument Theistic ImplicationsConceptual Analysis of a First Cause Ultramundanity [Argument Extended] Personal Again, Con offered no argument here that the cause is more plausibly personal. He complains that “agency” wasn’t defined. But I already said that a necessary condition for agency or Personhood is freedom of the will. And the existence of such a cause is the conclusion of the KCA as well as the conceptual analysis of the first cause I give below. It argues first that the only things which exist immaterially or at least timelessly are either abstract ideas or a mind. But since abstract ideas by definition are causally impotent, then it follows that a mind is the best candidate for the first cause. This is argued under, “Noncontingent First Cause.” Second, under “Personal Over Scientific” it was argued that only two types of explanation exist, personal or scientific, and since it can't be scientific because whatever created the universe is causally prior to it, then the cause of the universe must therefore be personal. Then the personhood of the first cause was argued for under “Temporal Effect from a Non-temporal Cause” and then “Cosmic Properties” of the universe was shown to indicate the plausibility of a personal cause over a non-personal one. Let’s look at each in turn. Noncontingent First Cause [Extend Arguments] Personal Over Scientific Here it was argued that there are two types of known explanations sufficient for any cause, scientific or personal. But the universe cannot be given a scientific explanation since it is the cause of space-time. There is no spatiotemporal thing before or beyond space and time so it couldn't be accounted for in terms of laws operating on initial conditions. It can only be accounted for in terms of personal explanation in terms of volition, a personal explanation wherein something new is created spontaneously by an immaterial timeless being. Temporal Effect from a Non-temporal Cause Here we saw that there are three known classes of causation, state-state, event-event, and agent causation. Recall that the first cause of space-time cannot be the former two, thus the cause must be a free agent since in state-state and event-event causality, the cause is sufficient to produce its effect, meaning that the cause must be coeternal with the effect. But if the cosmic cause is timeless and so exists permanently, why isn’t the effect also timeless and permanent as well? I argued that the best answer remains to be found in agent causation wherein a free person spontaneously creates a new thing! (This is what agency is defined by). Cosmic Properties Con doesn’t at all reply to this point however, other than just asserting that the cosmos with these collective properties is necessary. But that doesn’t at all seem possible, first because of the KCA, and second because we could just as easily imagine a possible world in which the cosmos doesn’t have these properties. The cosmos by definition therefore is not only contingent, but plausibly willed. Argument Map Summary Citations 13. http://www.reasonablefaith.org...14. http://www.abc.net.au...15. Wersinger, “Genesis: the Origin of the Universe,” 1996