The Kalam cosmological argument is a modern formulation of the
cosmological argument
A cosmological argument, in natural theology, is an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe o ...
for the
existence of God
The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorized ...
. It is named after the ''
Kalam
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
'' (medieval Islamic
scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translate ...
) from which its key ideas originated.
William Lane Craig
William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American analytic philosopher, Christian apologist, author and Wesleyan theologian who upholds the view of Molinism and neo-Apollinarianism. He is Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist ...
was principally responsible for giving new life to the argument, due to his ''
The Kalām Cosmological Argument'' (1979), among other writings.
The argument's key underpinning idea is the
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
impossibility of
actual infinities and of a temporally past-infinite universe, traced by Craig to 11th-century Persian Muslim scholastic philosopher
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian polymat ...
. This feature distinguishes it from other cosmological arguments, such as
that of Thomas Aquinas, which rests on the impossibility of a
causally ordered
infinite regress
An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified beca ...
, and those of
Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...
and
Samuel Clarke
Samuel Clarke (11 October 1675 – 17 May 1729) was an English philosopher and Anglican cleric. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley.
Early life and studies
Clarke was born in Norwich, ...
, which refer to the
Principle of Sufficient Reason
The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by Arthur Schopenhau ...
.
Since Craig's original publication, the Kalam cosmological argument has elicited public debate between Craig and
Graham Oppy
Graham Robert Oppy (born 1960) is an Australian philosopher whose main area of research is the philosophy of religion. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University and serves as CE ...
,
Adolf Grünbaum,
J. L. Mackie
John Leslie Mackie (25 August 1917 – 12 December 1981) was an Australian philosopher. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, and is perhaps best known for his views on m ...
and
Quentin Smith
Quentin Persifor Smith (August 27, 1952, Rhinebeck, New York – November 12, 2020, Kalamazoo, Michigan) was an American philosopher.
He was professor emeritus of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked ...
, and has been used in
Christian apologetics
Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity.
Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
. According to
Michael Martin, the cosmological arguments presented by Craig, Bruce Reichenbach, and
Richard Swinburne
Richard Granville Swinburne (IPA ) (born December 26, 1934) is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a proponent of philosophical arguments for t ...
are "among the most sophisticated and well argued in contemporary
theological
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
philosophy".
Form of the argument
The most prominent form of the argument, as defended by William Lane Craig, states the Kalam cosmological argument as the following
syllogism
A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
...
:
#Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
#The
universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...
began to exist.
#Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a philosophical analysis of the properties of the cause of the universe:
-
- If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who ''sans (without)'' the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
- Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who ''sans'' the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.
Referring to the implications of
Classical Theism
Classical theism is a form of theism in which God is characterized as the absolutely metaphysically ultimate being, in contrast to other conceptions such as pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, deism and process theism.
Classical theism is a for ...
that follow from this argument, Craig writes:
:"... transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ''
ex nihilo
(Latin for "creation out of nothing") is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to ''Ex nihilo ni ...
'' ... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."
Historical background
The Kalam cosmological argument is based on the concept of the
prime-mover, introduced by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
, and entered early Christian or
Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...
philosophy in Late Antiquity, being developed by
John Philoponus
John Philoponus (Greek: ; ; c. 490 – c. 570), also known as John the Grammarian or John of Alexandria, was a Byzantine Greek philologist, Aristotelian commentator, Christian theologian and an author of a considerable number of philosophical tre ...
. Along with much of
classical Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empir ...
, the concept was adopted into medieval Islamic tradition during the
Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...
, where it received its fullest articulation at the hands of Muslim scholars, most directly by Islamic theologians of the
Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...
tradition.
Its historic proponents include
Al-Kindi
Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (; ar, أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; la, Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician ...
,
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian polymat ...
, and
St. Bonaventure.
One of the earliest formulations of the Kalam cosmological argument in the
Islamic philosophical tradition comes from Al-Ghazali, who writes:
:"Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a being which begins; therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning."
[ Craig, 1994: 80]
Between the 9th to 12th centuries, the cosmological argument developed as a concept within Islamic theology. It was refined in the 11th century by Al-Ghazali (''
The Incoherence of the Philosophers
''The Incoherence of the Philosophers'' (تهافت الفلاسفة ''Tahāfut al-Falāsifaʰ'' in Arabic) is the title of a landmark 11th-century work by the Persian theologian Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazali and a student of ...
''), and in the 12th by
Ibn Rushd
Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an
Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, ...
(Averroes). It reached medieval Christian philosophy in the 13th century and was discussed by Bonaventure, as well as
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
in his ''
Summa Theologica
The ''Summa Theologiae'' or ''Summa Theologica'' (), often referred to simply as the ''Summa'', is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholasticism, scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all ...
'' (I, q.2, a.3) and ''
Summa Contra Gentiles
The ''Summa contra Gentiles'' (also known as ', "Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers") is one of the best-known treatises by St Thomas Aquinas, written as four books between 1259 and 1265.
Whereas the '' ...
'' (I, 13).
Islamic perspectives may be divided into positive Aristotelian responses strongly supporting the argument, such as those by Al-Kindi, and
Averroes
Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an
Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psycholog ...
, and negative responses critical of it, including those by Al-Ghazali and
Muhammad Iqbal
Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...
. Al-Ghazali was unconvinced by the first-cause arguments of Al-Kindi, arguing that only the infinite ''per se'' (that is an essentially ordered infinite series) is impossible, arguing for the possibility of the infinite ''per accidens'' (that is an accidentally ordered infinite series). He writes:
:"According to the hypothesis under consideration, it has been established that all the beings in the world have a cause. Now, let the cause itself have a cause, and the cause of the cause have yet another cause, and so on
ad infinitum
''Ad infinitum'' is a Latin phrase meaning "to infinity" or "forevermore".
Description
In context, it usually means "continue forever, without limit" and this can be used to describe a non-terminating process, a non-terminating ''repeating'' pro ...
. It does not behove you to say that an infinite regress of causes is impossible."
Muhammad Iqbal
Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...
also stated:
"To finish the series at a certain point, and to elevate one member of the series to the dignity of an uncaused first cause, is to set at naught the very law of causation on which the whole argument proceeds."
Contemporary discourse
According to the atheist philosopher
Quentin Smith
Quentin Persifor Smith (August 27, 1952, Rhinebeck, New York – November 12, 2020, Kalamazoo, Michigan) was an American philosopher.
He was professor emeritus of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked ...
, "a count of the articles in the philosophy journals shows that more articles have been published about Craig's defense of the Kalam argument than have been published about any other philosopher's contemporary formulation of an argument for God's existence."
The Kalam cosmological argument has received criticism from philosophers such as
J. L. Mackie
John Leslie Mackie (25 August 1917 – 12 December 1981) was an Australian philosopher. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, and is perhaps best known for his views on m ...
,
Graham Oppy
Graham Robert Oppy (born 1960) is an Australian philosopher whose main area of research is the philosophy of religion. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University and serves as CE ...
,
Michael Martin, Quentin Smith, physicists
Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute ...
,
Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now cal ...
and
Victor Stenger
Victor John Stenger (; January 29, 1935 – August 25, 2014) was an American particle physicist, philosopher, author, and religious skeptic.
Following a career as a research scientist in the field of particle physics, Stenger was associat ...
, and authors such as
Dan Barker
Daniel Edwin Barker (born June 25, 1949) is an American atheist activist and musician who served as an evangelical Christian preacher and composer for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor are the current c ...
.
Modern discourse encompasses the fields of both philosophy and science (e.g. the fields of
quantum physics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...
and
cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...
), which Bruce Reichenbach summarises as:
:"... whether there needs to be a cause of the first natural existent, whether something like the universe can be finite and yet not have a beginning, and the nature of infinities and their connection with reality".
Since the temporal ordering of events is central, the Kalam argument also brings issues of the nature of time into the discussion.
Premise one: "Whatever begins to exist has a cause."
Craig and Sinclair have stated that the first premise is obviously true, at least more plausibly true than its negation.
[''The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology'', Edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, Wiley-Blackwell, The Kalam Cosmological Argument, p. 182, by William Lane Craig and James D. Sinclair] Craig offers three reasons why the first premise is true:
[ Craig, 1994: 92]
#
Rational intuition
Logical Intuition, or mathematical intuition or rational intuition, is a series of instinctive foresight, know-how, and savviness often associated with the ability to perceive logical or mathematical truth—and the ability to solve mathematical ch ...
: Craig states that the first premise is
self-evidently true, being based upon the
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
intuition that "something cannot come into being from nothing", or
"Ex nihilo nihil fit", originating from
Parmenidean philosophy. He states that for something to come into being without any cause is to come into being from nothing, which he says is "surely absurd."
#
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absu ...
: if false, it would be inexplicable why just anything and everything does not randomly come into existence without a cause.
#
Inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which a general principle is derived from a body of observations. It consists of making broad generalizations based on specific observations. Inductive reasoning is distinct from ''deductive'' re ...
from both common experience and scientific evidence, which constantly verifies and never falsifies the truth of the first premise.
According to Reichenbach, "the Causal Principle has been the subject of extended criticism", which can be divided into philosophical and scientific criticisms.
Philosophical objections
Graham Oppy
Graham Robert Oppy (born 1960) is an Australian philosopher whose main area of research is the philosophy of religion. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Research at Monash University and serves as CE ...
,
J. L. Mackie
John Leslie Mackie (25 August 1917 – 12 December 1981) was an Australian philosopher. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, and is perhaps best known for his views on m ...
and Wes Morriston have objected to the intuitiveness of the first premise. Oppy states:
:"Mackie,
dolf
Dolf is a Dutch masculine given name, often a short form (hypocorism) of Adolf, which may refer to:
* Dolf Brouwers (1912–1997), Dutch comedian, singer, and television actor
* Dolf Jansen (born 1963), comedian, presenter of the Radio 2 program ...
Grunbaum,
uentinSmith and I—among many others—have taken issue with the first premise: why should it be supposed that absolutely everything which begins to exist has a cause for its beginning to exist?"
Mackie affirms that there is no good reason to assume ''
a priori
("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...
'' that an uncaused beginning of all things is impossible. Moreover, that the Causal Principle cannot be extrapolated to the universe from inductive experience. He appeals to
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
's thesis (''
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'') that effects without causes can be conceived in the mind, and that what is conceivable in the mind is possible in the real world. This argument has been criticised by Bruce Reichenbach and
G.E.M. Anscombe, who point out the
phenomenological and logical problems in inferring factual possibility from conceivability. Craig notes:
:"Hume himself clearly believed in the causal principle. He presupposes throughout the Enquiry that events have causes, and in 1754 he wrote to John Stewart, 'But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without a cause'".
Morriston asserts that causal laws are physical processes for which we have intuitive knowledge in the context of events within time and space, but that such intuitions do not hold true for the beginning of time itself. He states:
:"We have no experience of the origin of worlds to tell us that worlds don't come into existence like that. We don't even have experience of the coming into being of anything remotely analogous to the “initial singularity” that figures in the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe."
In reply, Craig has maintained that causal laws are unrestricted metaphysical truths that are "not contingent upon the properties, causal powers, and dispositions of the natural kinds of substances which happen to exist", remarking:
:"The history of twentieth century astrophysical cosmology belies Morriston's claim that people have no strong intuitions about the need of a causal explanation of the origin of time and the universe."
Quantum physics
A common objection to premise one appeals to the phenomenon of
quantum indeterminacy
Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent ''necessary'' incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics. Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that
: ...
, where, at the subatomic level, the
causal principle; "everything that begins to exist has a cause" appears to break down. Craig replies that the phenomenon of indeterminism is specific to the
Copenhagen Interpretation
The Copenhagen interpretation is a collection of views about the meaning of quantum mechanics, principally attributed to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It is one of the oldest of numerous proposed interpretations of quantum mechanics, as featu ...
of
Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
, pointing out that this is only one of a number of different interpretations, some of which he states are fully deterministic (mentioning
David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed u ...
) and none of which are as yet known to be true. He concludes that subatomic physics is not a proven exception to the first premise.
The philosopher Quentin Smith has cited the example of
virtual particles
A virtual particle is a theoretical transient particle that exhibits some of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, while having its existence limited by the uncertainty principle. The concept of virtual particles arises in the perturbat ...
, which appear and disappear from observation, apparently at random, to assert the tenability of uncaused natural phenomena. In his book ''
A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing'', cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has proposed how quantum mechanics can explain how space-time and matter can emerge from 'nothing' (referring to the quantum vacuum). Philosopher Michael Martin has also referred to quantum vacuum fluctuation models to support the idea of a universe with uncaused beginnings. He writes:
:"Even if the universe has a beginning in time, in the light of recently proposed cosmological theories this beginning may be uncaused. Despite Craig's claim that theories postulating that the universe 'could pop into existence uncaused' are incapable of 'sincere affirmation,' such similar theories are in fact being taken seriously by scientists."
Philosopher of science
David Albert
David Z. Albert (born 1954) is Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy and Director of the MA Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University in New York.
Education and career
He received his bachelor's degree ...
has criticised the use of the term 'nothing' in describing the quantum vacuum. In a review of Krauss's book, he states:
:"Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states—no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems—are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn't this or that particular arrangement of the fields—what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple ''absence'' of the fields."
Likewise, Craig has argued that the quantum vacuum, in containing quantifiable, measurable energy, cannot be described as 'nothing', therefore, that phenomena originating from the quantum vacuum cannot be described as 'uncaused'. On the topic of virtual particles, he writes:
:"For virtual particles do not literally come into existence spontaneously out of nothing. Rather the energy locked up in a vacuum fluctuates spontaneously in such a way as to convert into evanescent particles that return almost immediately to the vacuum."
Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin has stated that even "the absence of space, time and matter" cannot truly be defined as 'nothing' given that the laws of physics are still present, though it would be "as close to nothing as you can get".
Premise two: "The universe began to exist."
Craig defends premise two using both physical arguments with evidence from cosmology and physics, and metaphysical arguments for the impossibility of
actual infinities in reality.
Cosmology and physics
For physical evidence, Craig appeals to:
#Scientific confirmation against a past-infinite universe in the form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
[The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe](_blank)
William Lane Craig
#Scientific evidence that the universe began to exist a finite time ago at the Big Bang.
#The
Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem,
a cosmological theorem which deduces that any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.
Professor
Alexander Vilenkin
Alexander Vilenkin (russian: Алекса́ндр Виле́нкин; uk, Олександр Віленкін; born 13 May 1949) is the Leonard Jane Holmes Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science and Director of the Institute of Cosmology a ...
, one of the three authors of the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, writes:
:"A remarkable thing about this theorem is its sweeping generality. We made no assumptions about the material content of the universe. We did not even assume that gravity is described by Einstein's equations. So, if Einstein's gravity requires some modification, our conclusion will still hold. The only assumption that we made was that the expansion rate of the universe never gets below some nonzero value, no matter how small."
Victor J. Stenger
Victor John Stenger (; January 29, 1935 – August 25, 2014) was an American particle physicist, philosopher, author, and religious skeptic.
Following a career as a research scientist in the field of particle physics, Stenger was associated ...
has referred to the Aguirre–Gratton model for
eternal inflation
Eternal inflation is a hypothetical inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the Big Bang theory.
According to eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever throughout most of ...
as an exemplar by which others disagree with the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem. In private correspondence with Stenger, Vilenkin remarked how the Aguirre–Gratton model attempts to evade a beginning by reversing the "arrow of time" at ''t'' = 0, but that: "This makes the moment ''t'' = 0 rather special. I would say no less special than a true beginning of the universe."
At the "State of the Universe" conference at Cambridge University in January 2012, Vilenkin discussed problems with various theories that would claim to avoid the need for a cosmological beginning, alleging the untenability of eternal inflation, cyclic and cosmic egg models, eventually concluding: "All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning."
Actual infinities
On the metaphysical impossibility of
actual infinities, Craig asserts:
#The metaphysical impossibility of an actually infinite series of past events by citing
David Hilbert
David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...
's famous
Hilbert's Hotel
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel (colloquial: Infinite Hotel Paradox or Hilbert's Hotel) is a thought experiment which illustrates a counterintuitive property of infinite sets. It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely m ...
thought experiment
A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences.
History
The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
.
#The impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition, referencing
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
's example of
Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to:
Literature
* the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne
* the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
*"Tristra ...
.
Michael Martin disagrees with these assertions by Craig, saying:
:"Craig's ''a priori'' arguments are unsound or show at most that actual infinities have odd properties. This latter fact is well known, however, and shows nothing about whether it is logically impossible to have actual infinities in the real world."
Andrew Loke
Andrew Ter Ern Loke is a Singaporean Christian theologian and philosopher. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University. He has made contributions to the fields of Systematic Theol ...
has argued against the metaphysical possibility of a beginningless universe as well as that of an actual infinite existing in the real world.
Another criticism comes from
Thomist
Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed questions a ...
philosophe
Dr. Edward Feserwho claims that past and future events are potential rather than actual, meaning that an infinite past could exist in a similar way to how an infinite number of potential halfway points exist between any two given points.
Conclusion: "The universe has a cause."
Given that the Kalam cosmological argument is a
deductive argument
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false ...
, if both premises are true, the truth of the conclusion follows necessarily.
In a critique of Craig's book ''The Kalam Cosmological Argument'', published in 1979, Michael Martin states:
:"It should be obvious that Craig's conclusion that a single personal agent created the universe is a ''
non sequitur''. At most, this Kalam argument shows that some personal agent or agents created the universe. Craig cannot validly conclude that a single agent is the creator. On the contrary, for all he shows, there may have been trillions of personal agents involved in the creation."
Martin also claims that Craig has not justified his claim of creation "''ex nihilo''", pointing out that the universe may have been created from pre-existing material in a timeless or eternal state. Moreover, that Craig takes his argument too far beyond what his premises allow in deducing that the creating agent is greater than the universe. For this, he cites the example of a parent "creating" a child who eventually becomes greater than he or she.
In the subsequent ''Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology'', published in 2009, Craig discusses the properties of the cause of the universe, arguing that they follow as consequences of a conceptual analysis and of the cause of the universe and by
entailment
Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...
from the initial syllogism of the argument:
#A first state of the material world cannot have a material explanation and must originate ''ex nihilo'' in being without material cause, because no natural explanation can be causally prior to the very existence of the natural world (space-time and its contents). It follows necessarily that the cause is outside of space and time (''timeless'', ''spaceless''), ''immaterial'', and ''enormously powerful'', in bringing the entirety of material reality into existence.
#Even if positing a plurality of causes prior to the origin of the universe, the causal chain must terminate in a cause which is absolutely first and ''uncaused'', otherwise an
infinite regress
An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified beca ...
of causes would arise, which Craig and Sinclair argue is impossible.
#
Occam's Razor
Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor ( la, novacula Occami), also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony ( la, lex parsimoniae), is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond neces ...
maintains that the ''absolute'' unity of the First Cause should be assumed unless there are specific reasons to believe that there is more than one causeless cause.
#
Agent causation
Agent causation, or Agent causality, is an idea in philosophy which states that a being who is not an event—namely an agent—can cause events (particularly the agent's own actions). Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs ...
, volitional action, is the only ontological condition in which an effect can arise in the absence of prior determining conditions. Therefore, only ''personal, free agency'' can account for the origin of a first temporal effect from a changeless cause.
#
Abstract objects
In metaphysics, the distinction between abstract and concrete refers to a divide between two types of entities. Many philosophers hold that this difference has fundamental metaphysical significance. Examples of concrete objects include plants, hum ...
, the only other ontological category known to have the properties of being uncaused, spaceless, timeless and immaterial, do not sit in volitional causal relationships.
Craig concludes that the cause of the existence of the universe is an "uncaused, personal Creator ... who ''sans'' the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"; remarking upon the theological implications of this union of properties.
Theories of time
Craig holds to the
A-theory of time
In metaphysics, A series and B series are two different descriptions of the temporal ordering relation among events. The two series differ principally in their use of tense to describe the temporal relation between events and the resulting ontolog ...
, also known as the "tensed theory of time" or
presentism, as opposed to its alternative, the
B-theory of time
The B-theory of time, also called the "tenseless theory of time", is one of two positions regarding the temporal ordering of events in the philosophy of time. B-theorists argue that the flow of time is only a subjective illusion of human consciousn ...
, also known as the "tenseless theory of time" or
eternalism. The latter would allow the universe to exist tenselessly as a four-dimensional space-time block, under which circumstances the universe would not "begin to exist": The form of the Kalam he presents in his earlier work rests on this theory:
:"From start to finish, the Kalam cosmological argument is predicated upon the A-Theory of time. On a B-Theory of time, the universe does not in fact come into being or become actual at the Big Bang; it just exists tenselessly as a four-dimensional space-time block that is finitely extended in the earlier than direction. If time is tenseless, then the universe never really comes into being, and, therefore, the quest for a cause of its coming into being is misconceived."
Craig has defended the A-theory against objections from
J. M. E. McTaggart
John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (3 September 1866 – 18 January 1925) was an English idealist metaphysician. For most of his life McTaggart was a fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an exponent of the phi ...
and hybrid A–B theorists. Philosopher Yuri Balashov has criticised Craig's attempt to reconcile the A-theory with special relativity by relying on a
‘neo‐Lorentzian interpretation' of Special Relativity. Balashov claims:
:"Despite the fact that presentism has the firm backing of common sense and eternalism revolts against it,
eternalism is widely regarded as almost the default view in contemporary debates, and
presentism as a highly problematic view."
Craig has criticised Balashov for adopting a
verificationist
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cogniti ...
methodology that fails to address the metaphysical and theological foundations of the A-theory.
It has recently been argued that a defense of the Kalam cosmological argument does not have to involve such a commitment to the A-theory. Craig has since modified his view of the A-theory being necessary for the Kalam, stating that while the Kalam would need to be reformulated, "it wouldn't be fatal" on a B-theory.
See also
*
Arguments for the existence of God
The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...
*
Cosmogony
Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe.
Overview
Scientific theories
In astronomy, cosmogony refers to the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used i ...
*
Natural theology
Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science.
This distinguishes it from ...
*
Principle of sufficient reason
The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The principle was articulated and made prominent by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, with many antecedents, and was further used and developed by Arthur Schopenhau ...
*
Temporal finitism
Temporal finitism is the doctrine that time is finite in the past. The philosophy of Aristotle, expressed in such works as his ''Physics'', held that although space was finite, with only void existing beyond the outermost sphere of the heavens, ...
*
Agent causation
Agent causation, or Agent causality, is an idea in philosophy which states that a being who is not an event—namely an agent—can cause events (particularly the agent's own actions). Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs ...
*
Kalam
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalam cosmological argument
Arguments for the existence of God
Kalam
Philosophy of religion