While the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) may sound complex, the premise is simple. It's quite possibly the most common argument used in debates today, and has been around since the time of St. Aquinas, however originating with the Islamic theologians of the Kalam tradition. Below you can see it in its form:
The Kalām cosmological argument:
- Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;
- The universe has a beginning of its existence;
- Therefore:
- The universe has a cause of its existence.
- Since no scientific explanation (in terms of physical laws) can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be personal (explanation is given in terms of a personal agent)
I'd like to explain for those who aren't familiar with the argument the paths that can be taken when moving through the premises, and what it shows us.
Premise one states that "Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence." This, at first glance, seems about as trivial as it gets. When applied to the universe, it is most commonly thought of as the Big Bang. The Big Bang in itself would not be thought of as the cause, since we have no reason to believe a 'Big Bang' could cause itself. Oftentimes the definition of causality is brought up here as an objection, since typically a cause comes before the effect, and since the Big Bang is believed to be the beginning of both space and time, it is argued, there is no 'before,' per say, in reference to the Big Bang. This seems to dodge the point however. If one believes that the Big Bang doesn't need a cause, and just happened, we have no reason to believe another universe couldn't just spontaneously appear at any time.
Furthermore, the first premise does not say, "Everything that exists has a cause," as is sometimes summarized in atheist-theist debates by the atheist side. The objection of, "What caused God?" inevitably comes up then, and this as seen as a never-ending argument showing nothing. But this is not how it is worded, since God, if he does indeed exist, does not have a beginning. Furthermore, it is worded carefully to say that everything that begins to exist has a cause, avoiding this oft brought up dilemma.
Premise two also seems trivial if one is to accept the Big Bang theory as correct, but it could be that we are just seeing a small fraction of the entire universal history if the Big Bang is a reoccurring thing. I would reword premise (2) to state: The universe, or any form of the universe, has a beginning of its existence. Since the universe is defined as everything that exists this would encompass any other aspects, such as some pre-universal minefield of explosive ready-to-spawn universes, a cyclical model, where the universe is an oscillating from Big Bang to Big Bang, waves of energy that are eternally moving around, waiting to explode, aliens who learned how to create universes, etc, etc, till your imagination cannot think of any other way.
The most important part of this argument, however, is to note the logical and philosophical impossibility of an actual infinite regress of past events. This is exceedingly important, because it shows us that at some point time had to have begun. The typical example used for this is called Hilbert's Hotel, which I will illustrate like this. Say we choose to represent time in the past as persons in a hotel. If we want to represent ten years in the past, we would place ten people in the hotel. In order to get back to zero persons, or the present, we would take out person by person till we're back to zero. Makes enough sense. So if we are to represent an infinite regress, we would have to place an infinite many people in the hotel. Logistics of the analogy aside, you would never be able to reach the present, because you would always have an infinite amount of people still remaining in the hotel. No matter if you took out 1, 10 or a million people, you'd still by the definition of infinity still have an infinite amount of people in the hotel. The analogy is meant to show an actual infinite like this can't exist in nature.
You can also show this point many other ways, like lining up an infinite stack of dominoes, and picking one to be the 'present.' If you knocked down the first domino, you would have to traverse infinitely many dominoes to reach the present, and you'd never reach it.
Or, if you want to prove it to someone you don't like - ask them to prove it for you by counting from negative infinity to zero. I'm sure they'll figure out soon enough it can't be done.
This is used to show why any form of the universe cannot be infinite, and at some point must have had a cause. However we need a very special type of circumstance to explain this. We need something that is powerful enough to create a universe, and able to interact within time, in fact, to create time. However, we need this cause to not actually be a event in time itself, because then we would lead to a regress. For example, the cause itself cannot be some 'waves of energy' as it was put by someone at my work. If the waves are finitely old, then they still just push back our need for a cause, but if they are infinity old, they violate the infinite progression.
In terms of what we know of how things work, we need something that is more-or-less impossible to find. Something that is outside of time, yet able to interact with it, and immensely powerful, if not omnipotent. Whatever happened needed to decide to begin the universe in the finite past.
What I find most compelling is the lack of good responses to this, in my opinion. I've seen it refuted, but not by addressing the lack of an infinite regress. Some will maintain an infinite regress is possible, and if that's the case, then Kalam isn't that hard. But somehow you need to go from the infinite, or endless vat of time to the finite. It is argued that there is no time before the Big Bang - very well, that makes it easier. But if it is argued there was something happening, it would be causal, because something exists. I have a hard time seeing how to create time, at some point in the past, unless this was done intentionally, by something unhindered by time. I really can't see a way to avoid the problem of avoiding an infinite regress in any scenario, but perhaps i'm just naive.
After arriving at the conclusion of this argument, if you do accept those to premises as unavoidable,we can see that any possible universe would need an uncaused first cause, and no universe could exist without it. From this, the argument becomes somewhat like the Ontological Argument, something Kant addresses as to why he doesn't find the cosmological argument convincing (Kant was a theist though, but for other reasons). Kant, like others, will balk at the idea of a being being necessary. It's a hard concept to wrap one's head around, that God is in fact a necessary being.
Furthermore, the first premise does not say, "Everything that exists has a cause," as is sometimes summarized in atheist-theist debates by the atheist side. The objection of, "What caused God?" inevitably comes up then, and this as seen as a never-ending argument showing nothing. But this is not how it is worded, since God, if he does indeed exist, does not have a beginning. Furthermore, it is worded carefully to say that everything that begins to exist has a cause, avoiding this oft brought up dilemma.
Premise two also seems trivial if one is to accept the Big Bang theory as correct, but it could be that we are just seeing a small fraction of the entire universal history if the Big Bang is a reoccurring thing. I would reword premise (2) to state: The universe, or any form of the universe, has a beginning of its existence. Since the universe is defined as everything that exists this would encompass any other aspects, such as some pre-universal minefield of explosive ready-to-spawn universes, a cyclical model, where the universe is an oscillating from Big Bang to Big Bang, waves of energy that are eternally moving around, waiting to explode, aliens who learned how to create universes, etc, etc, till your imagination cannot think of any other way.
The most important part of this argument, however, is to note the logical and philosophical impossibility of an actual infinite regress of past events. This is exceedingly important, because it shows us that at some point time had to have begun. The typical example used for this is called Hilbert's Hotel, which I will illustrate like this. Say we choose to represent time in the past as persons in a hotel. If we want to represent ten years in the past, we would place ten people in the hotel. In order to get back to zero persons, or the present, we would take out person by person till we're back to zero. Makes enough sense. So if we are to represent an infinite regress, we would have to place an infinite many people in the hotel. Logistics of the analogy aside, you would never be able to reach the present, because you would always have an infinite amount of people still remaining in the hotel. No matter if you took out 1, 10 or a million people, you'd still by the definition of infinity still have an infinite amount of people in the hotel. The analogy is meant to show an actual infinite like this can't exist in nature.
You can also show this point many other ways, like lining up an infinite stack of dominoes, and picking one to be the 'present.' If you knocked down the first domino, you would have to traverse infinitely many dominoes to reach the present, and you'd never reach it.
Or, if you want to prove it to someone you don't like - ask them to prove it for you by counting from negative infinity to zero. I'm sure they'll figure out soon enough it can't be done.
This is used to show why any form of the universe cannot be infinite, and at some point must have had a cause. However we need a very special type of circumstance to explain this. We need something that is powerful enough to create a universe, and able to interact within time, in fact, to create time. However, we need this cause to not actually be a event in time itself, because then we would lead to a regress. For example, the cause itself cannot be some 'waves of energy' as it was put by someone at my work. If the waves are finitely old, then they still just push back our need for a cause, but if they are infinity old, they violate the infinite progression.
In terms of what we know of how things work, we need something that is more-or-less impossible to find. Something that is outside of time, yet able to interact with it, and immensely powerful, if not omnipotent. Whatever happened needed to decide to begin the universe in the finite past.
What I find most compelling is the lack of good responses to this, in my opinion. I've seen it refuted, but not by addressing the lack of an infinite regress. Some will maintain an infinite regress is possible, and if that's the case, then Kalam isn't that hard. But somehow you need to go from the infinite, or endless vat of time to the finite. It is argued that there is no time before the Big Bang - very well, that makes it easier. But if it is argued there was something happening, it would be causal, because something exists. I have a hard time seeing how to create time, at some point in the past, unless this was done intentionally, by something unhindered by time. I really can't see a way to avoid the problem of avoiding an infinite regress in any scenario, but perhaps i'm just naive.
After arriving at the conclusion of this argument, if you do accept those to premises as unavoidable,we can see that any possible universe would need an uncaused first cause, and no universe could exist without it. From this, the argument becomes somewhat like the Ontological Argument, something Kant addresses as to why he doesn't find the cosmological argument convincing (Kant was a theist though, but for other reasons). Kant, like others, will balk at the idea of a being being necessary. It's a hard concept to wrap one's head around, that God is in fact a necessary being.
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