Why the kalam cosmological argument fails

[bada94]

Everybody knows the famous kalam cosmological argument. I know that a version of it has been/is being used by numerous religious apologetics to "prove" the existence of god (William Lane Craig for example).

This is absurd. At least, the argument is totally unconvincing to me. I will try to show you exactly how this argument isn't only unconvincing, but is also impossible, and a contradiction in itsself. If I am wrong, I invite anyone to show me how/why I'm wrong, I'm open for anything.

First of all, to be clear, what does the argument say ?

- The basic KCA -
1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore
3. The universe has a cause.

- The apologetic extension of it -
4. The cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and all-powerful.
Therefore
5. The cause is either something abstract, like a number, or a person, those are the only things that can exist out of space and time.
6. The only thing that fits this description is god.

Now, many of you may think I will refute this argument based on 1 to 3. But this is not the case, as it has been done too many times. The even bigger problem that I see with this argument, is in number 4 to 6.

The apologetics who use this argument claim that the cause has to be a person, because something abstract cannot create anything. Obviously the logical fallacy they are making is assuming that a person is something immaterial. Maybe I have been deceived, maybe I am missing something, or maybe I'm just not understanding the argument. If any of those things is true, feel free to point it out for me.

As long as I'm concerned, and as long as science is concerned, there has never been any evidence of a personality being something immaterial. On the contrary, science has come up with overwhelming evidence that a personality is in fact nothing but material, synaptic firings in the brain. Alzheimer is a perfect example.

I say therefore, this argument fails and contradicts itsself.

And even if it would be proven that a personality is something that transcends space and time, even then, nothing about the cause of the universe is proven. The only thing that is proven then is that the only thing we know that can exist outside of space and time is a personality. The cause of the universe could still always be something that we do not know, or do not comprehend.

[Satt]

I am right in saying that matter can neither be created nor destroyed? If this is true, doesn't that mean that number 1 is an invalad argument because nothing really has a beginning?

[bada94]

I am right in saying that matter can neither be created nor destroyed? If this is true, doesn't that mean that number 1 is an invalad argument because nothing really has a beginning?

The truth is nobody can be certain about it.

Scientists say the universe had a beginning with the big bang, and i personally think it makes more sense that way, but there is ofcourse always a chance that the big bang theory is wrong, science will always be open for better explanations.

But even considering numbers 1 to 3 to be true, the apologetics will ALWAYS lose the argument by contradicting themselves in numbers 4 to 6.

[GurrenLagann]

The Big Bang theory speaks to a temporal beginning, not a material one. The BBT describes an expansion event, which obviously necessitates something already existing to do the expanding.

Also, it's not exactly true that apologists like William Lane Craig proves God exists. What he says is that it is part of a cumulative case for God's existence, and what that the KCA does is that it proves that "the universe has a cause for its existence, and using 'conceptual analysis' we can determine that said cause was a spaceless, timeless and immaterial being of unfathomable power."

Now, there are some obvious problems with that "conceptual analysis", as well as with the argument. Like the fact that while composite things begin to exist, that from which they're composed precede it (leading to the conclusion of an eternal existence of some sort), or that the argument requires the A-theory of time vs. the more supported B-theory.

[Colanth]

The universe had a beginning, but space, time and energy (and by extension, matter) may or may not have had a beginning.  (The universe may just be the current phase of existence which, itself, had no beginning.)

I had a beginning,  I haven't always existed (although it seems that way some mornings), but the matter that constitutes "me" didn't come into existence when I did.  The KCA fails on the first assumption, that the entirety of the universe - in any form, as the universe, or as something else, had a beginning.

We can also counter the "argument" (it really isn't one, it's just a misapplication of logic) with the assertion that, since God had a beginning, he had to have a creator too.  They can't prove their claims that God is "the uncaused cause" - it doesn't even hint at that in the Bible, it's just an assertion, and less believable than the claim that everything including God had a beginning.  After all, have you ever seen anything that objectively exists that had no beginning?  Asking us to believe that something actually exists, but had no beginning, is asking more than sane people can accept.  (Which goes back to my very old assertion that religious belief is a form of mental illness.)

I always counter any "God existed before the universe did" claim with

Remembering that "the universe" means "everything that exists", WHERE was God when he was creating the universe?  There was no "where" yet.  "God created the universe" is logically nonsense.  It's impossible to exist "before" (since there was no "time" yet either) anything exists in which you can exist while you're doing the creating.

[bada94]

The universe had a beginning, but space, time and energy (and by extension, matter) may or may not have had a beginning.  (The universe may just be the current phase of existence which, itself, had no beginning.)

I had a beginning,  I haven't always existed (although it seems that way some mornings), but the matter that constitutes "me" didn't come into existence when I did.  The KCA fails on the first assumption, that the entirety of the universe - in any form, as the universe, or as something else, had a beginning.

We can also counter the "argument" (it really isn't one, it's just a misapplication of logic) with the assertion that, since God had a beginning, he had to have a creator too.  They can't prove their claims that God is "the uncaused cause" - it doesn't even hint at that in the Bible, it's just an assertion, and less believable than the claim that everything including God had a beginning.  After all, have you ever seen anything that objectively exists that had no beginning?  Asking us to believe that something actually exists, but had no beginning, is asking more than sane people can accept.  (Which goes back to my very old assertion that religious belief is a form of mental illness.)

I always counter any "God existed before the universe did" claim with

Remembering that "the universe" means "everything that exists", WHERE was God when he was creating the universe?  There was no "where" yet.  "God created the universe" is logically nonsense.  It's impossible to exist "before" (since there was no "time" yet either) anything exists in which you can exist while you're doing the creating.

Yes, you can totally destroy the argument that way too. But I've purposely picked numbers 4 to 6 to make clear what I've never seen anyone make clear before (at least, not in detail), so that, even if we grant them numbers 1 to 3, they will still be making a fallacy in numbers 4 to 6.

[josephpalazzo]

- The basic KCA -
1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore
3. The universe has a cause.

The Big Bang Theory is derived from General Relativity. We know that GR has a singularity, that is, a mathematical object that is NOT physical. Whenever this is the case, we know that the physical theory either is being misapplied or is invalid at some scale. In particular, GR is invalid at Planck scale as it ignores quantum effects. So until we have a quantum theory of gravity that can describe reality at Planck scale, we don't know much in that regime.

Secondly, much theoretical work is going on in the inflation phase of the BBT. We don't know how this inflation took place, what triggered it, and how it stopped. But it needs to be put in by hand in order to explain homogeneity, the horizon problem, and the lack of magnetic monopoles. The input by hand is viewed by many theoreticians as highly unsatisfactory.  Given initial and boundary conditions, a complete theory should derive everything from first principles.

Thirdly, there are many theories that are modelled to predict pre-Bang activities, notably, Smolin's Fecund Theory, Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology Theory, Reinhardt-Turok' Cyclic theory, to name a few. It's a question of gathering more data by satellite telescopes, which will eventually allow which of those models is closer to the real world.

So whenever apologists use the BBT as a starting point, as if that point has been settled by science, they are rushing to judgment. We can only safely say that the BBT describes the universe in its present phase. What happened before the BBT is still very undetermined.

[LikelyToBreak]

Well, you have to admit, it is a better argument than, "Here is a banana.  Therefore there must be a God, who became a man, who was crucified, rose from thedead and left an empty tomb."

Same reasoning process, just much more sophisticated.   :-s

[leo]

Disproving a god is very easy . Believers are too brainwashed to see theist arguments are very weak and pathetic .

[bada94]

Disproving a god is very easy . Believers are too brainwashed to see theist arguments are very weak and pathetic .

That's the sad thing. You can disprove their arguments as much and as sophisticated as you want, and instead of admitting their loss, they give you the famous "it's all about faith".

[Colanth]

I've purposely picked numbers 4 to 6 to make clear what I've never seen anyone make clear before (at least, not in detail), so that, even if we grant them numbers 1 to 3, they will still be making a fallacy in numbers 4 to 6.

But you can't even get to 4, because 1, 2 and 3 are assertions we can't know the truth of.  If the word "if" were in front of each of them you could start at 4, but if 1, 2 and 3 are stated as proven fact, you're still at 0.

[bada94]

I've purposely picked numbers 4 to 6 to make clear what I've never seen anyone make clear before (at least, not in detail), so that, even if we grant them numbers 1 to 3, they will still be making a fallacy in numbers 4 to 6.

But you can't even get to 4, because 1, 2 and 3 are assertions we can't know the truth of.  If the word "if" were in front of each of them you could start at 4, but if 1, 2 and 3 are stated as proven fact, you're still at 0.

That is true, and that is also why the argument fails in all points.