Kalam Cosmology Theory

[Vodmeister]

This is the ultimate knock-down of the Kalam that I have been working on.

The Kalam Cosmological argument makes 3 pre-assumed claims;

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. God is timeless
3. Infinities cannot exist.

Now let me explain to why I think that these three are contradictory.

Let's start by pre-assumption #2.

1. God is timeless
2. Timeless equals changeless
3. Therefore, God is changeless

4. God is changeless
5. Anything that is changeless cannot cause a change
6. Therefore, God cannot cause a change

7. God cannot cause a change
8. The beginning of our universe was a change occurring.
9. Therefore, God did not create the universe.

The only way the theist apologetic can get out of this one, is by claiming that God is not timeless, but exists and acts within time, and instead is infinite.

But this is even more problematic, because one of the other claims made by the Kalam is that actual infinities cannot exist, otherwise the cause of our universe could have just as easily been an infinite multiverse.

Also, if God is infinite, then the universe would never begin to exist, because the past number of thoughts within God's mind must have been infinite. Now, infinity by definition is "never ending" or "endless".

This means that the past number of events within God's mind before the Big Bang must have been never ending, which means that we would never had been able to reach this point in time, as there would have been an endless run of events preceding "now".

This argument can be summarized as follows:

Big Bang = 0
Thoughts in God's mind preceding = - ?

1. If God is eternal, the universe never began to exist
2. The universe does exist.
3. Therefore, God is not eternal.

If God cannot be either infinite nor timeless, God must have began to exist. If God began to exist, then by the very nature of the Kalam, God must also have had a cause.

If God also had a cause, then his cause could not have been either timeless nor infinite either. Therefore, God's cause must have had a cause.

All the way until infinity...

But then the Kalam contradicts itself again, because it claims that actual infinities cannot exist. This is a claim I not only agree with, but also provided further evidence for. If the past number of events/causes are infinite, then we could never have reached this point in time.

The final argument can be summarized as following;

1. If the three claims made by the Kalam were true, then we cannot exist.
2. We do exist.
3. Therefore, the Kalam is fallacious.

Thoughts?

[coherentsheaf]

Sept 29, 2013 12:22:02 GMT 5 Vodmeister said:

This is the ultimate knock-down of the Kalam that I have been working on.

I will go through it point by point.

The Kalam Cosmological argument makes 3 pre-assumed claims;

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. God is timeless
3. Infinities cannot exist.

These claims are not assumed but argued for. Entire books have been written to justify them. Doesn't mean they are correct

Let's start by pre-assumption #2.

1. God is timeless
2. Timeless equals changeless
3. Therefore, God is changeless

A nitpick here: timeless is not the same as changeless. But since change is a temporal act, timelessness implies changelessness. So if we accept that god is timeless, it follows that it is also changeless.

4. God is changeless
5. Anything that is changeless cannot cause a change
6. Therefore, God cannot cause a change

Premise 5 is vitally dependent on the definition of causation. Example: Gauss law in electrodynamics is changeless. It nevertheless causes a boatload of phenomena under some definitions of causation. You have to be more precise here. You need a strong ad rigorous definition of causation. So does Craig btw: one could argue that his argument vitally rests on our conflated notions of causation, and philosophers like Quentin Smith have done so.

7. God cannot cause a change
8. The beginning of our universe was a change occurring.
9. Therefore, God did not create the universe.

Here you run in the problem that Craig might claim some bullshit that change is the difference between two states while there was no state at all before the universe.

The only way the theist apologetic can get out of this one, is by claiming that God is not timeless, but exists and acts within time, and instead is infinite.

But this is even more problematic, because one of the other claims made by the Kalam is that actual infinities cannot exist, otherwise the cause of our universe could have just as easily been an infinite multiverse.

The problem therein is that the Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem does not allow spacetimes extending in an infinite past.

Also, if God is infinite, then the universe would never begin to exist, because the past number of thoughts within God's mind must have been infinite. Now, infinity by definition is "never ending" or "endless".

This means that the past number of events within God's mind before the Big Bang must have been never ending, which means that we would never had been able to reach this point in time, as there would have been an endless run of events preceding "now".

This is just a variant of the argument hat traversing an infinite is impossible. I think these arguments are nonsense: If there was an event a, in the past the the time from a, to ow is always finite distance to the presence, even with a infinite past. There ever is an actual infinity of events traversed even in a past infinite universe.

This argument can be summarized as follows:

Big Bang = 0
Thoughts in God's mind preceding = - ?

This is the central fallacy in this argument: Every thought in gods mind is not at - ? but at some finite point in the past. There is no point - ?, even in a past infinite universe. The rest seems to follow from here, so it is not helpful. However I think your argument can be saved.

[creature386]

Sept 29, 2013 18:40:14 GMT 5 coherentsheaf said:

A nitpick here: timeless is not the same as changeless. But since change is a temporal act, timelessness implies changelessness. So if we accept that god is timeless, it follows that it is also changeless.

So, even if all stars in the universe become black holes, time would still exist?

[coherentsheaf]

Sept 29, 2013 18:49:24 GMT 5 creature386 said:

Sept 29, 2013 18:40:14 GMT 5 coherentsheaf said:

A nitpick here: timeless is not the same as changeless. But since change is a temporal act, timelessness implies changelessness. So if we accept that god is timeless, it follows that it is also changeless.

So, even if all stars in the universe become black holes, time would still exist?

This is a difficult question to answer. As log as there is no future all encompassing spacetime singularity, yes it would.

[Vodmeister]

Listen to Peter Millican's response.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=35WVf6Uvk8U

[creature386]

I just stumbled across this:

[…] while we can’t say with certainty that it will never come to an end — it’s likely the universe extends forever in space and will go on forever in time. Our results are consistent with an infinite universe.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/scale-of-universe-galaxy-map_n_4567445.html
While it doesn't talk about an infinite age of the universe, it is at odds with Craig's claim that actual infinities cannot exist.