Your views on the Kalam Cosmological Argument

[Colanth]

I would suggest that modern physics (AFAIK, I follow it but I'm no physicist) has not settled on a definite answer to the question of an infinite past.

Actually it has - a definite, but not a permanent, one.  It's an answer that science considers perfectly acceptable, but theists don't, unless they reword it as "God did it".  Science's phrases it "we don't know".

[Cheerful Charlie]

Hello,

What are your views on Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? Is there any short and effective response to it?

Craig;s argument uses one basic claim, that an  infinite chain of cause and effect cannot exist. so God must have started everything.
From here he tries to prove that by stating that there cannot be an actual infinity.  We can imagine a library with infinite books,  but since on cannot count to infinity, a real infinite series of anything is logically impossible.

Not true.    God created heaven and hell where souls  will spend infinite time in one or the other experiencing an infinite series of either painful experiences or experiences of ecstasy.  Infinite things, infinite experiences.  So his basic kingpin to his argument, there cannot be a set of infinite things is false.

Before omniscient God created hell,  which being omniscient he'd know he'd do, he  would think  'In a year, I will create hell, "In a hundred years I will create hell",  "In a billion years I will create hell" and so on, an infinite series of thoughts in time,  a thought is a thing and he'd have infinite series here of  real things.

His own belief in a God that creates all and is omniscient guts his logical argument of why there cannot be a infinite series of cause and effects.  This effectively defeats his "proof".

Cheerful Charlie

[Colanth]

Hello,

What are your views on Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? Is there any short and effective response to it?

Craig;s argument uses one basic claim, that an  infinite chain of cause and effect cannot exist. so God must have started everything.
From here he tries to prove that by stating that there cannot be an actual infinity.  We can imagine a library with infinite books,  but since on cannot count to infinity, a real infinite series of anything is logically impossible.

Not true.    God created

Etc., is much more than is required.  The series of integers is an infinite series.  It's that trivial to disprove "an infinite series is impossible".

[josephpalazzo]

Hello,

What are your views on Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? Is there any short and effective response to it?

Craig;s argument uses one basic claim, that an  infinite chain of cause and effect cannot exist. so God must have started everything.
From here he tries to prove that by stating that there cannot be an actual infinity.  We can imagine a library with infinite books,  but since on cannot count to infinity, a real infinite series of anything is logically impossible.

Not true.    God created

Etc., is much more than is required.  The series of integers is an infinite series.  It's that trivial to disprove "an infinite series is impossible".

Craig overcomes this but distinguishing "potential" and "actual" infinities: a mathematical infinite series is a "potential" infinite, that's okay according to his proposal, but an infinite chain of cause and effect cannot be an "actual" infinite. From a scientific POV, his proposal is not falsifiable. Nothing is really resolved, though Craig believes it is.

[Colanth]

God created

Etc., is much more than is required.  The series of integers is an infinite series.  It's that trivial to disprove "an infinite series is impossible".

Craig overcomes this but distinguishing "potential" and "actual" infinities: a mathematical infinite series is a "potential" infinite, that's okay according to his proposal, but an infinite chain of cause and effect cannot be an "actual" infinite. From a scientific POV, his proposal is not falsifiable. Nothing is really resolved, though Craig believes it is.[/quote]His proposal has about as much merit as "God did it" or "it was a miracle".  When theist apologists go down this path ("we don't know" worded differently), they actually, IMO, tip over their king.

[Cheerful Charlie]

Hello,

What are your views on Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? Is there any short and effective response to it?

Craig;s argument uses one basic claim, that an  infinite chain of cause and effect cannot exist. so God must have started everything.
From here he tries to prove that by stating that there cannot be an actual infinity.  We can imagine a library with infinite books,  but since on cannot count to infinity, a real infinite series of anything is logically impossible.

Not true.    God created

Etc., is much more than is required.  The series of integers is an infinite series.  It's that trivial to disprove "an infinite series is impossible".

Craig resorts to some fancy phrases, potential vs  actual infinities, but at bottom, his claim is that actual infinities are impossible, that you cannot count to infinity, that you cannot add numbers to arrive at infinity.  That thus one cannot have actual infinite collection of actual things.  Thus any real collection of things  in an infinite series of cause and effect is impossible, logically.

But as I demonstrate,  this simply is not so.  

Another example debunking all of this is the multi-universe, which if physicists are right is infinite in time and extent.  People like Alan Guth, Andrei Linde and others astrophycists  know their maths, and if Craig was right about his claims about actual vs potential infinities would have ruled out the Multi-Universe on mathematical grounds.  I trust the mathematical knowledge of scientists like these far more that the abilities of Craig.

For WCL's slippery reply to this dilemma, read here
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/omniscie ... l-infinity

Cheerful Charliee

[GurrenLagann]

You can't "deduce" unknowable conditions (and the "whatever" that existed before the universe did is probably, but certainly at this time, unknowable to us.

An argument against the possibility of an actual infinite past has nothing to do with unknowable conditions, but with whether or not a particular concept is actually coherent.

It's not deductive reasoning, it's bald assertion, which is argument from ignorance.  The only difference from the classical condition is that this isn't "we don't know, so" it's "we can't know, so".

I think Craig and the like can be pretty shameless, but here he defends it well I think, and doesn't just assert it but (sometimes) gives compelling arguments for it.

Huh?  Because A, therefore 3?  One has nothing to do with the other.

That has nothing to do with what I said...

Then there is a problem with a future infinite, since there can't be one.

Read that again. What Craig and co. are talking about is simple. There's no problem with time unendingly progressing from an 'absolute' beginning because there is no point in time after the beginning from which an infinite amount of time will have passed.

If the universe always existed (we don't know that it didn't), the problem is eliminated.  But the universe could have created itself ex nihilo, as Joseph explained.  Ex nihilo isn't an argument for the KCA, any more than the SLoT is an argument against evolution - it just sounds "scientificy" to the illiterati.

As far as I can tell (and Joe can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am), but what Joe was talking about wasn't creation ex nihilo, but creation from something that clearly could be said to already have existed (fields).

[GurrenLagann]

Actually, with an infinite amount of time, not only is every particular moment possible but that infinite series would have multiple versions of that same moment.

If there was an infinite series of events, you're saying that before EVERY moment and EVERY event there was an infinite number of time and actions. If you can explain how an infinite number of time and events can happen, I'm all ears.

And infinite series not only would have something happening during it, but would have everything happen during it an infinite number of times. This argument of reaching this particular point places undo value on that particular point, usually referring to the here and now when the speaker is alive. It is therefore an argument from egotism. But the speaker has been alive an infinite number of times already on an infinite timeline and been an insufferable twit in every single one of them.

You're really just assuming it is possible and then questioning why that assumption is being questioned. Also, that's not egotism, all it is, is questioning whether talking about prior temporal infinities is sensible.

[Solitary]

If one considers our universe to be part of the Universe which is including an infinite amount of universes, they could all be along with ours an eternal Universe with no beginning or end that just keeps changing and growing.  :shock:  Solitary

[josephpalazzo]

Y

If the universe always existed (we don't know that it didn't), the problem is eliminated.  But the universe could have created itself ex nihilo, as Joseph explained.  Ex nihilo isn't an argument for the KCA, any more than the SLoT is an argument against evolution - it just sounds "scientificy" to the illiterati.

As far as I can tell (and Joe can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am), but what Joe was talking about wasn't creation ex nihilo, but creation from something that clearly could be said to already have existed (fields).

It all hinges on what is meant by "nothing". In QFT, we define the vacuum as the absence of all known fields. We also define a creation operator, a[sup:3nzjh5yr]+[/sup:3nzjh5yr][sub:3nzjh5yr]k[/sub:3nzjh5yr] and annihilation operator a[sup:3nzjh5yr]?[/sup:3nzjh5yr][sub:3nzjh5yr]k[/sub:3nzjh5yr]. So the vacuum, symbolized by l0>is defined as,

a[sup:3nzjh5yr]?[/sup:3nzjh5yr][sub:3nzjh5yr]k[/sub:3nzjh5yr] l0> = 0

IOW, destroying the vacuum with an annihilation operator gives zero. A lot of calculations are done using this definition. And many results of QFT which have been confirmed by experiments dependent on this principle.

You can also show that if you have a region of space with varying energy (energy is a function of time), particle production can occur in the vacuum itself, even though we started out that it contained "nothing" - Hawking radiation is one of those calculations. So what Krauss has proposed - the universe springing out of quantum fluctuations - is a possibility. However, the fields are assumed to exist and permeating all space. So is this creation ex nihilo? That is debatable.

[Colanth]

Craig resorts to some fancy phrases, potential vs  actual infinities, but at bottom, his claim is that actual infinities are impossible, that you cannot count to infinity

He's correct, since infinity isn't a number.  (He's conflating 'infinite' and 'infinity' [as a number].)

that you cannot add numbers to arrive at infinity.

See above.

That thus one cannot have actual infinite collection of actual things.

One can, since infinite isn't the same as infinity.  (There's no 'this', since there's no prior argument about 'infinite'.)

Thus any real collection of things  in an infinite series of cause and effect is impossible, logically.

So the series of positive integers ISN'T infinitely long?  We have to redo math from the beginning.  Or Craig's wrong.  I know where MY money is.

Another example debunking all of this is the multi-universe, which if physicists are right is infinite in time and extent.

Well ...

Remember, the universe is finite.  The multiverse, if it exists, could also be finite.  Since the multiverse is only conjecture at this point, assigning definite properties to it is a bit premature.

I trust the mathematical knowledge of scientists like these far more that the abilities of Craig.

I trust scientists, who say things like "could be" or "probably", more than I trust people like Craig, who say "is".

For WCL's slippery reply to this dilemma, read here
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/omniscie ... l-infinity

What a load of male-bovine-digested grass.

[Colanth]

However, the fields are assumed to exist and permeating all space. So is this creation ex nihilo? That is debatable.

As is God creating the universe out of "nothing" when God existed.  (Just another Christian disproof of itself.)

[12Monkeys]

My objections are simple: Whilst our local universe had a beginning at the Big Bang there could be a global universe. There could be an infinite amount of universes in the multiverse, there could be an infinite energy source, the universe could have come from nothing or another naturalistic explanation could be possible. Also see this site for why all theistic arguments fail:  http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854

[josephpalazzo]

My objections are simple: Whilst our local universe had a beginning at the Big Bang there could be a global universe. There could be an infinite amount of universes in the multiverse, there could be an infinite energy source, the universe could have come from nothing or another naturalistic explanation could be possible. Also see this site for why all theistic arguments fail:  http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854

Yes, that would be a counter-argument to the second proposition, "2.The universe has a beginning of its existence". There is also a counter-argument to the first proposition, "1.Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence", and that is, "cause and effect" applies within the universe. We have no way of knowing if "cause and effect" applies outside the universe. So the whole KC argument is based on two questionable propositions, hence one cannot make any logical deduction.

[RobbyPants]

Hello,

What are your views on Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? Is there any short and effective response to it?

I see several problems with it. If you want to get really technical, the first premise should be "everything that we've observed thus far that exists has a cause". No one has observed the beginning of the universe, so it's impossible to definitively say that there was a cause. That being said, it does seem like a reasonable assumption. Still, I feel a valid answer to "what was the cause?" if "I don't know".


Now, I always hear this argument in context with proving that God was that cause, so based on that, here are my problems with that assertion:

The theist basically plugs God in as the root cause to win the argument. At that point, I'll ask "what was God's cause?". No one wants to argue infinite regression, so instead of saying something like "God's dad" they'll say "God doesn't have a cause". Of course, this is special pleading. So, they'll have to give a reason. It's typically something like God being "timeless" or "eternal". That raises two important questions:

1) How do you know God is timeless or eternal?

2) How do you know the universe isn't?


At the end of the day, they have to make three assumptions to be able to prove that God is the cause:
1) God exists, despite being nonfalsifiable.
2) God has the power to create universes.
3) God is timeless or eternal.

I can posit any nonfalsifiable thing I want that satisfies those three criteria and make the same type of baseless claim. I mean, can you prove the universe wasn't created by tiny, undetectable, eternal, universe-creating particles called fleems? It doesn't mean we have to take the claim seriously!