
The Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore the universe has a cause
Analysis of the cause shows it to be timeless and spaceless (since its outside time and space), powerful enough to cause a universe, uncaused, eternal and personal since personal agency is the only thing we know of which can be an uncaused cause and opt to cause things at one point in eternity.
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I haven’t gone into how they come to the first two premises. I think premise two has some good support, at least so far as the observable universe is concerned. My problem with the argument is not in the argument itself but in the leap from a cause to a personal cause.
If the cause is able to go from a state of not creating a universe to a state of creating a universe then it exists within time and is therefore within a larger universe outside of our observable universe and is not a first cause. In order for a first cause uncaused to exist outside of time, whatever it does to create a universe, it must always be doing that… or something to that effect. A heavily tense specific language like English is a bit of a handicap when trying to explain the actions of something that exists outside of time.
If there is a first cause creator, this argument more strongly suggests a Panentheism style ground-of-all-being style first cause than a personal designer creator cause.
(30-11-13 edit: spelling)
I guess the argument for personal, designer creator terminology is the consideration that for the universe to have not existed and then to begin to exist, there must be an act of will and a design involved. If this is not the case – for instance the idea that the universe is a natural expression of a panentheistic deity with no decision of will or design involved – then it seems far more reasonable just to assert that the second premise is invalid – the universe has always existed, as it’s not distinguishable from the panentheistic deity.
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“If there is a first cause creator, this argument more strongly suggests a Panantheism (sic.) style ground-of-all-being style first cause than a personal designer creator cause.” From what I understand, a Panentheist deity and a personal designer creator are not necessarily mutually exclusive – if I’m wrong about this, I’d be interested to know why
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I do not think the two are mutually exclusive. My point is that one does not necessarily follow the other. A successful argument for a probable first cause does nothing to describe the nature of said cause. A personal designer creator can be a Panentheist deity, but the likelihood of a Panentheist deity does not suppose said deity to be a personal designer creator.
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This is useful: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam
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