Rather than make an effort, I'm just throwing up an old essay, record it for posterity. It's about the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God. Not entirely sure who'd really be all that interested in following it, but who knows, maybe someone stumbling across it would get a kick out of it. Enjoy!
The Kalam Cosmological Argument, as commonly used and especially as advocated by William Lane Craig, seeks to establish a proof of the existence of God as a First Cause of the Universe. Arranged in standard form, the basic argument is as follows:
- That which begins to exist must have a cause.
- The Universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the Universe has a cause.
From here, the argument as normally advocated turns to the necessary nature of this First Cause of the universe, stating that characteristics that follow necessarily from the arguments given in support of the initial premises, dictate that the First Cause must be a personal agent. The logical form of this initial argument is sound; if everything that begins to exist must have a cause, and the universe began to exist, the universe then must have a cause. However, a number of philosophers have expressed doubt about this argument, taking issue with either the premises, or with the extension of the argument to actively promote a personal agent as the established ‘cause’ of the universe.
On the face of it, Premise 1, that anything which begins to exist must have a cause, seems simple enough. Indeed, in the many articles in which William Lane Craig can be found promoting the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God as First Cause of the universe, or defending his position from counter-arguments, Craig puts great faith in the metaphysically intuitive force of the premise because it seems so unlikely to conceive of an uncaused event. Many examples such as spontaneously present and actualized tigers are employed to illustrate the seeming absurdity of something which may begin to exist without any cause whatsoever. However, that something seems counter-intuitive is far from being the strongest argument in support of a stated point, especially in regards to something as unique, remote or generally perplexing as the beginning of the universe, the initial temporal moment (in other words, the creation of time), and in regards to the quantum mechanics that plague this argument and cause so many sleepless nights for those Philosophy majors who believed their lives as Arts students would be mercifully free of complex scientific theories. By way of illustrative example, as seems an inevitable component of discussion surrounding the Kalam Cosmological Argument in regards to ‘intuition’, at various stages in history the general consensus view of the world was that it was overall flat (mountains, valleys, hills and crevices notwithstanding, these being features of an otherwise flat earth) and it would seem counter-intuitive to these people that the ground beneath their feet was instead spherical, more so that there would be a university on the under-side of the world where people could study philosophy and argue natural theology without falling ‘down’ into the abyssal night sky, and likewise it could be conceived that those living in the most tropical climates of the Pacific Islands, without the technological marvels of fridge-freezer units and communication with the less-than-tropical regions of the world, would consider the idea that water could take on a solid form (rather than liquid) to be utterly unbelievable, even if perfectly intelligible. We cannot discard out of hand the possibility of something beginning to exist uncaused, simply on the basis that it is counter-intuitive or troubling to our conscience. Nor can we easily dismiss it as a matter of empirical fact as Craig would have it, as we are applying it to the supposed beginning of the universe itself, which is a state of affairs quite markedly different from all the history of direct human experience, and therefore not as subject to our anecdotal experience of causation in physical law as Craig would have us believe.
Before we can accept the truth of the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which we may reasonably grant is at least plausible given our normal experience of the world at large, we have to define what exactly the claim is. What does it mean for something to begin to exist? There are a number of ways of interpreting this claim, each running into difficulty in regards to the argument. One take on the definition of ‘beginning to exist’ is that something begins to exist if there is a time prior to this beginning at which that thing did not exist, which would certainly seem to complicate matters if there is no time before the universe existed. There is at least some merit in thinking that the universe, having existed at and from the first moment in time (by many accounts, at least), may be a special case in regards to ‘beginning’ that this definition of beginning to exist seems to support. Needless to say, this is not the view of ‘beginning to exist’ that advocates of the Kalam Cosmological Argument follow, and it is certainly not a silver bullet with which to shoot down the Kalam. The definition argued by the Kalam Cosmological Argument advocates is that something begins to exist if and only if it comes into being at a given time, and there is no time before this given time at which this thing existed (discounting here discontinuous events, which would otherwise constitute an entirely unnecessary level of pedantry), and by this definition the universe existing at the first moment of time does constitute a beginning. The problem here is that it is not clear that the definition of ‘beginning to exist’ advocates of the Kalam Cosmological Argument argue for should be any more definitive than the counter-claim raised by respondents to the Kalam. On the one hand, the Kalam advocates could argue that the universe ‘began’ when time ‘began’, but this runs into serious problems as we normally picture causation within a temporal context, and the counter-argument could very well hold that so long as time has existed, the universe also has existed, having at no point in time not existed or come into being. Especially if one were to consider ‘beginning’ to be a change from a state of not-being to a state of being, which must be reckoned within a temporal context as time is required for alteration of contradictory states, as traditionally espoused by philosophical schools of thought that have argued for the absolute reality of time even if conceding or arguing for the non-reality of space. This would suggest that causation may be a rule that applies within the universe, but not necessarily to the universe itself. Again, it must be noted, that appeal to metaphysical intuition will not help here, as both options (beginning if no time prior contained the object/event that is beginning, or beginning if there is a time prior that does not contain the object/event that is beginning) are equally conceivable and make as much ‘common’ sense, so to rearrange the wording of the definition to suit your emphasis should apply as much to those in favour of the Kalam as to those who oppose it. Given the differing definitions, there is no logical necessity that the universe itself must have a cause of its beginning by virtue of the definition of beginning, irrespective of which definition is more likely to be applicable to the beginning of the universe. As to what constitutes a ‘cause’ in regards to premise 1, I will touch upon this shortly.
Another criticism of the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument comes from the observation that certain events on the sub-atomic level show that it is at least logically possible for things to begin to exist uncaused, relying on our far from exhaustive and still growing knowledge of Quantum Mechanics to offer potential counter-examples to the idea that all things that begin must necessarily have a cause. It could be argued that the unpredictable behavior of sub-atomic particles and Quantum events throws doubt on causal necessity, as the ‘effects’ cannot be predicted by antecedent cause, and there are scientific theories (of which I am not fully educated in regards to, but trust that the unnamed physicists William Lane Craig and Wes Morriston allude to have a respectable understanding of) that claim certain particles and energy states do literally pop into existence without apparent cause. Craig’s response to these arguments is to claim that although the sub-atomic particles and Quantum events may lack an apparent cause, they arise because necessary material conditions allow them to do so, and that because of this fact, the examples of Quantum and sub-atomic physics cannot prove that things can come to exist, uncaused, of nothing. However, it may be more appropriate to state that Quantum and sub-atomic physics cannot yet prove definitively that something can come from nothing and spontaneously pop into existence, and at the very least the spontaneity of Quantum and sub-atomic events, and the complex behavior of these events running counter to the physical laws that apply to the larger-scale view of the physical world, does cast some doubt on the anecdotal certainty Craig and others regard the Kalam’s first premise with.
A minor consequence of proclaiming there is no proof that something can come to be, uncaused, from nothing, is that it reminds us also that this claim seems every bit as unlikely even if we remove the ‘uncaused’ clause, and stating that something cannot come from nothing even if we can conceive of a ‘cause’ for it, that it is unlikely that the universe could have an efficient cause and yet lack a material cause is still a problem that the Kalam Cosmological Argument does not explain. By phrasing the first premise somewhat ambiguously in regards to what constitutes a ‘cause’ allows the Kalam Cosmological Argument to conveniently ignore the material cause that is every bit as ‘metaphysically intuitive’ in our common consideration of the premise that everything which begins has a cause as the efficient cause that is normally implied by Kalam advocates, and which is absolutely catastrophic to the argument that the universe has a beginning and necessarily has a cause of that beginning if there was no material spatiotemporal existence prior to the beginning of the universe. William Lane Craig does at least acknowledge this difficulty in comprehending a universe with an efficient cause yet lacking a material cause (a universe that pops into existence out of nothing simply because God wills it to be so), but counters that the alternative of a universe that merely begins to exist without any cause whatsoever, having an absence of both efficient and material cause, is doubly troubling and therefore far less likely. Needless to say, this is an unconvincing argument in the affirmative for creation ex nihilo. That there are fewer problems to resolve does not mean these problems can simply be ignored.
In support of the second premise, that the universe has a beginning, proponents of the Kalam Cosmological Argument offer supporting arguments dealing with the philosophical consideration of infinity, specifically whether or not an actual infinite is possible, and arguments based on Big Bang Cosmology and laws of thermodynamics. Both the ‘philosophical’ arguments about infinity and the scientific cosmological and thermodynamic arguments rest on claiming that the universe cannot exist in a temporal regress of events, and therefore must have a beginning.
The two philosophical, deductive arguments Craig gives for the second premise deal with whether the universe has a temporal beginning point, or whether time or the universe exists in an infinite regress. If a temporal infinity is possible, it isn’t necessary that the universe have a beginning point, nor the first cause the Kalam Cosmological Argument seeks to establish. The supporting argument states that an actual infinite cannot be instantiated in the real world, and that an infinite temporal regress (time stretching endlessly into the past, without a beginning) is an actual infinite, and therefore an infinite temporal regress cannot exist (there must be a beginning of time). Although it is true that, for example, Hilbert’s Hotel with its infinitely many occupied rooms that can accommodate an infinite number of new arrivals by shifting the infinite housed guests to a the room number corresponding to double the number of their previous room (guest from room 1 is moved to room 2, guest from room 2 to room 4, room 13 to room 26, room n to room 2n) to free up an actual infinite number of rooms for the infinite number of new arrivals, would be physically impossible in our world despite being quite useful mathematically, as Graham Oppy notes in one of his responses to Craig, this counter may not apply to the question of whether or not the universe is spatially or temporally actually infinite. Even if it is possible that an actual infinite can exist, Craig extends his argument to claim that a temporal series of events is not an actual infinite, as a temporal series of events is formed by successive addition, and successive addition cannot be an actual infinite. Essentially this is stating that in order to arrive at the present moment, time had to traverse an infinite series of events, which would take literally forever to achieve as the temporal series reaches back forever, effectively that we are trying to count to infinity. This need not be the case, as we are conceiving the possibility of an infinite temporal regress as well as a potential infinite future, there is no fixed infinitely distant point that we are counting from.
The physical sub-arguments for the beginning of the universe, as detailed in William Lane Craig’s essay ‘The Cosmological Argument’, appeal to Big Bang Cosmology and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Craig’s appeal to Big Bang Cosmology states that the theory itself, as initially proposed, represents an original beginning point for the universe, about 15 to 20 billion years in the past, beyond which there was nothing. Although counter arguments have been raised about the fact that despite the acceptance and utility of the Big Bang model, the scientific community does not have a comprehensive and conclusive, agreed-upon understanding of the Big Bang, and there are several versions of the Big Bang cosmology that posit something existing before the Big Bang, Craig claims that these theories by and large still have a fixed beginning point. It should be noted here that Big Bang Cosmology serves almost exclusively to describe the initial ‘singularity’ state of the universe and its subsequent expansion, rather than say anything about whether there was a ‘beginning’ to this state or what may have existed prior to the cosmic singularity. Again, the weakness of the argument is not that it is logically inconsistent, but rather that the supporting claims are uncertain, as Oppy notes the field of cosmological physics is one of the most speculative of the sciences. The Thermodynamic supporting argument claims that, as the universe is a ‘closed system’, the universe will eventually suffer an entropic ‘heat death’, and that if the universe has no beginning, if it has existed for eternity already, then it should have already suffered its entropic heat death. This argument, although puzzling, does still fall into the same trap as the previous sub-argument in that applying these theories to the long view of the universe is still problematic in regards to cosmological physics, and differing views are still being voiced without an obviously clear winner.
The two premises of the Kalam Cosmological Argument are only seemingly simple, and when examined more closely they, and their supporting sub arguments, turn out to be controversial claims, which raises doubts about a logically reasonable argument. The counter arguments and the problematic issues raised are a problem that must be addressed for the Kalam Cosmological Argument to be accepted, but they do not do away with the Kalam entirely, the doubt in regards to the premises goes both ways, so we should not simply discard the Kalam Cosmological Argument, even if it has yet to prove itself definitively true.
There is, of course, the further consideration of what precisely the cause is that the Kalam Cosmological Argument, if true, is endeavoring to prove. As Craig describes it, the cause of the universe is a personal creator that exists uncaused prior to the beginning of the universe, that is timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. This cause would have to be timeless and changeless, spaceless and immaterial, as it must transcend space and time in order to be their cause, and as Craig argues that scientific explanations cannot explain the cause of the universe as there was nothing before it that our scientific laws could apply to, he is left with only a personal agent to explain the cause of the universe’s beginning. There is a further distinction to make, that if the universe had a material cause to its existence that existed timelessly for eternity, then it would’ve created the universe from an eternity ago, so the universe would have always existed, as only a personal agent can choose to create or not at a given point. Morriston has a reasonable counter to this in stating that if God is timeless and eternal, His willing to create the universe is also timeless and eternal (occurring prior to the creation of the universe, and therefore space and time), and His willing to create the universe is causally sufficient, then the universe has existed from eternity just as if a material cause had been the ‘sufficient first cause’ as noted above. This then raises the contradiction that things which are eternal have no beginning, and therefore the universe both does and does not have a beginning. The way to resolve this mess, is to argue that the universe that has a temporal beginning point has existed eternally, which is certainly a counter-intuitive response but not necessarily false, dealing as we are with a peculiar application of time and timelessness. It does, however, shoot down the necessity of a personal cause of the universe, as there is no meaningful difference between a personal and non-personal cause that timelessly creates a universe with a temporal beginning.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is an enduring example of natural theology, due largely to its direct logical strength. It struggles to maintain its integrity when the two premises are closely examined, relying strongly on the fact that the first premise ‘feels’ right and the second draws on popular empirical evidence, but losing this sense of certainty in light of the controversial or speculative nature of the premises and sub-arguments. Any breakthrough in this argument will likely come from the physicists and Quantum mechanics by virtue of a better understanding of cosmology itself. Nevertheless, even taking the argument to be true does not prove that there is a personal creator serving as the Sufficient First Cause of the Universe.
Bibliography:
Craig, W.L., ‘The Cosmological Argument’, in Paul Copan and Paul K. Moser, (eds.), The Rationality of Theism, Routledge, 2003, pp.112-131.Craig, W.L., ‘Must the Beginning of the Universe have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder’, Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2002, pp.94-105.
Morriston, W., ‘Must the Beginning of the Universe have a Personal Cause?: A critical examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument’, Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2000, pp.149-169.
Morriston, W., ‘Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument: Reply to Craig’, Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2002, pp.233-244.
Oppy, G., ‘Cosmological Arguments - 3.8 Craig and the Kalam Arguments’, Arguing About Gods, Cambridge, New York, 2006, pp.137-154.
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