The Kalam Cosmological Argument

I keep running into this thing which theists seem to view as the holy grail. Well, you will excuse me but I’m not all that sure.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a logical argument attempting to demonstrate the existence of God. It is an argument championed by possibly the leading contemporary Christian Apologist Dr. William Lane Craig. The argument, as described by Craig, is as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

There are a whole host of objections floating around to this argument but note something interesting, even if you accept the argument as valid, it only establishes that the Universe had a cause and not what that cause was nor that the cause, whatever it was, still exists.

The objection I find most entertaining was put forward by Dan Barker. Allow me to paraphrase Barker’s argument.

The premise, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause,” implies that there are two sets of things. Set BE which contains all the things which “Began to Exist” and NBE which contains all of the things which did “Not Begin to Exist.”

Now let’s consider NBE. Where the theist is going with this argument is that NBE consists of only the Primal Cause and that this Primal Cause is God. But if that’s the case, then the first premise becomes indistinguishable from “Everything but God had a cause.” This therefore assumes the existence of God in the premise and makes the argument circular.

There are also objections to the first premise based upon counter examples that appear to exist at the quantum level. Radioactive decay appears to be a random, causeless function. Carbon 14 decays into Carbon 12, but it’s a random occurrence. There is no particular “cause” at the instant it occurs.

Note that I don’t present these objections as demonstrating the invalidity of the Kalam argument, as I’m sure Craig has counter-arguments to the counter-arguments, but simply to point out that it’s not as easy as it might first appear.

Personally I find the whole gist of the argument reeking of fun with semantics. If one considers the Universe the set of all things, then saying the Universe began to exist implies that all things began to exist. But any cause must exist prior to its effect so therefore the Universe is not the set of all things. But if the Universe is not the set of all things, then where are these things that are not part of the Universe?

Clearly the theist implies these things include God, the Angels, Heaven and Hell, but this simply addresses what they are and not where they are. There is also the issue of Time. Time is a element of the Universe. Before the Universe existed the concept of Time is meaningless so how did these things outside the Universe differentiate between events such as the fall of Lucifer and the Creation without having them all occurring simultaneously and ad-infinitum.

I’m also not personally acquainted with everything that “began to exist,” so I can’t make the definitive statement that “Whatever begins to exist had a cause.” Such a statement would require exhaustive knowledge. I don’t have it and neither does Craig.

Words are meant as descriptions of reality but have no reality of their own. They can however be used to describe non-reality. Consider every fantasy story that has ever been written. The Kalam Cosmological Argument strikes a sour note with me. It seems to be just words without any reality behind them. A thought experiment that represents the worst form of philosophy because it is not supported by any foundation beyond the words. It’s all smoke and mirrors, all sound and fury but signifying nothing.