The Kalam Cosmological Argument
Abstract: The kalam cosmological argument is a profound argument for the existence of God, based on the beginning of the universe. It has been my experience that all of philosophy folds into itself in this one argument. Theories of time, the nature of infinity, scientific models of the universe, quantum fluctuations, and the nature of personhood arise in the narrative of this cosmological argument. Below is a presentation of the argument, in general outline.
Written: December 29th, 2014 - January 13th, 2015.
No argument for the existence of God is as intuitively plausible, frustratingly resilient, and ultimately persuasive as the kalam cosmological argument. “It has”, in the words of atheist Quentin Smith, “an attractive core of plausibility that keeps philosophers turning back to it and examining it once again.” [1] What is this attractive argument?
Despite the decrying of internet atheists, premise (1) is so obviously true as to require little justification. Given their complaints, however, we may furnish two lines of evidence for (1).
A. Scientific Justification – The sun comes up and the Earth spins on, and in all our experience of the world, everything that begins to exist has a cause. A child has parents, the egg, a chicken, the black holes, a star. From this experience, we can make an inductive generalization to the causal principle. Though some may find this as rather weak grounds for (1), science works primarily through inductive reasoning, so the complaint backfires on the atheist, the supposed champion of science.
B. Philosophical Justification – We know through mere reflection that something cannot come into being out of nothing. Consider the following. When a wooden boat comes into being, the potentiality for the boat first has to exist in a heap of wood. Only then can that potentiality be turned into actuality by a carpenter. The boat, then, has two causes: (1) a material cause (the heap of wood), and (2) an efficient cause (the carpenter). But for a boat to come into being without any cause whatsoever (either efficient or material) entails its coming into being without even the potentiality of its existence in place, a feat nearing contradiction. Accordingly, boats cannot begin to exist without a cause. We may extend our thought experiment to all things, thereby vindicating premise (1).
Given these considerations, premise (1) may not be certain, but it is certainly more plausibly true than false.
Premise (2) is not so obvious. Be that as it may, the beginning of the universe, once thought to be in the realm of the empirically unsupported or even the empirically falsified, has today been vindicated by both philosophical argument and scientific evidence.
A. Philosophical Justification – If all the stars in the universe were numbered, would they total infinity? It seems not. Nothing can be infinite; all things must be finite. But this immediately entails that the universe cannot be infinite in the past.
The implication? An infinite train cannot exist. We can, through similar means, generalize this conclusion to all collections of things. Accordingly, all things must be finite, including the collection of past events. We must reach a first event - the beginning of the universe.
B. Scientific Justification - Modern Big Bang cosmology supports the conclusion that the universe came into being at some point in the past. The argument has two steps: (1) demonstrating that the standard Big Bang model predicts a beginning to the universe, and (2) demonstrating the Standard Model is indeed correct.
In the first place, the Standard Model predicts a beginning to space and time. As cosmologist P. C. W. Davis has written,
Even if the universe has a cause, how does God enter the picture? To begin, the cause of the universe must be transcendent (i.e., beyond space and time) because it created space and time. But now a problem arises: the only two entities conceived of by philosophers that could be timeless and spaceless are (1) abstract objects (like numbers, sets, and properties) and (2) unembodied minds. Unfortunately for abstract objects, though, they cannot cause anything, much less all of space and time. Their causal impotence is part of the very definition of abstract. Therefore, the cause of the universe must be an unembodied Mind.
Theism, then, is vindicated. There is a being beyond the universe that stands above it as its Creator. Powerful stuff!
[1] Smith, Quentin. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, M. Martin (ed.), 183.
[2] P. C. W. Davies, "Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology," in The Study of Time III.
[3] For an overview and critique of numerous attempts to undercut the Standard Model, see: James D. Sinclair, and William Lane Craig, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, 101-201.
[4] A. Borde, A. Guth, A. Vilenkin, “Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions,” http://arxiv.org...;(accessed December 29, 2014).
[5] Vilenkin, Alexander, "Did the Universe Have a Beginning?", http://arxiv.org...
[6] Aron Wall, "Did the Universe Begin? I. Big Bang Cosmology", http://www.wall.org..., accessed June 20, 2015.
Written: December 29th, 2014 - January 13th, 2015.
No argument for the existence of God is as intuitively plausible, frustratingly resilient, and ultimately persuasive as the kalam cosmological argument. “It has”, in the words of atheist Quentin Smith, “an attractive core of plausibility that keeps philosophers turning back to it and examining it once again.” [1] What is this attractive argument?
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
- If the universe has a cause, there exists a transcendent, personal Creator.
- Therefore, there exists a transcendent, personal Creator.
I. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
Despite the decrying of internet atheists, premise (1) is so obviously true as to require little justification. Given their complaints, however, we may furnish two lines of evidence for (1).
A. Scientific Justification – The sun comes up and the Earth spins on, and in all our experience of the world, everything that begins to exist has a cause. A child has parents, the egg, a chicken, the black holes, a star. From this experience, we can make an inductive generalization to the causal principle. Though some may find this as rather weak grounds for (1), science works primarily through inductive reasoning, so the complaint backfires on the atheist, the supposed champion of science.
B. Philosophical Justification – We know through mere reflection that something cannot come into being out of nothing. Consider the following. When a wooden boat comes into being, the potentiality for the boat first has to exist in a heap of wood. Only then can that potentiality be turned into actuality by a carpenter. The boat, then, has two causes: (1) a material cause (the heap of wood), and (2) an efficient cause (the carpenter). But for a boat to come into being without any cause whatsoever (either efficient or material) entails its coming into being without even the potentiality of its existence in place, a feat nearing contradiction. Accordingly, boats cannot begin to exist without a cause. We may extend our thought experiment to all things, thereby vindicating premise (1).
Given these considerations, premise (1) may not be certain, but it is certainly more plausibly true than false.
II. The universe began to exist
Premise (2) is not so obvious. Be that as it may, the beginning of the universe, once thought to be in the realm of the empirically unsupported or even the empirically falsified, has today been vindicated by both philosophical argument and scientific evidence.
A. Philosophical Justification – If all the stars in the universe were numbered, would they total infinity? It seems not. Nothing can be infinite; all things must be finite. But this immediately entails that the universe cannot be infinite in the past.
- If the universe never began to exist, then there have been an infinite number of past events.
- An infinite number of things cannot exist.
- Therefore, the universe began to exist.
The implication? An infinite train cannot exist. We can, through similar means, generalize this conclusion to all collections of things. Accordingly, all things must be finite, including the collection of past events. We must reach a first event - the beginning of the universe.
B. Scientific Justification - Modern Big Bang cosmology supports the conclusion that the universe came into being at some point in the past. The argument has two steps: (1) demonstrating that the standard Big Bang model predicts a beginning to the universe, and (2) demonstrating the Standard Model is indeed correct.
In the first place, the Standard Model predicts a beginning to space and time. As cosmologist P. C. W. Davis has written,
“An initial cosmological singularity . . . forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. . . . On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.” [2]The initial cosmological singularity is part and parcel of the Standard Model. Indeed, in textbook exposition of the model, the universe can be represented as follows:
In the second place, the Big Bang theory is correct in its prediction of a beginning to space and time. First, alternative models proposed to avert the standard model have all failed. The steady-state theory, for example, crumbled with the discovery of the cosmic background radiation. Oscillating universe models were largely abandoned due to (a) observations of mass-density much lower than that predicted by the model, and (b) contradiction with the second law of thermodynamics. Vacuum fluctuation models went out the window when theorists realized that such models predict the existence of an infinite observable universe. [3] As each alternative to the Big Bang model fails, the Standard Model is reinforced.
Second, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that any model of the universe (whether the Standard Model or otherwise) that features the universe as expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past. [4] This is extraordinarily significant because all models that do not meet this one condition fail on independent grounds. Take theemergent universe model, for instance. Here, the universe is like a cosmic egg lying dormant for infinite past time, only to "emerge" 13.7 billion years ago. Further, the universe's average expansion is zero, so the BGV theorem does not apply. However, Alexander Vilenkin has pointed out a devastating objection to the emergent universe: the universe in its dormant state is subject to quantum fluctuations, and is therefore radically unstable. Given any finite amount of time, the universe in stasis will collapse. A static universe therefore cannot endure for infinite past time. [5] All other eternal universe models meet similar fates.
For all these reasons, contemporary cosmological discussion indicates that the universe began to exist. Indeed, when asked the question, "Did the universe begin to exist?", Aron Wall, postdoctoral researcher studying quantum gravity and black hole thermodynamics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, writes, "I think that Modern Cosmology gives a fairly clear answer: probably" [6].
Second, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem demonstrates that any model of the universe (whether the Standard Model or otherwise) that features the universe as expanding throughout its history cannot be eternal in the past. [4] This is extraordinarily significant because all models that do not meet this one condition fail on independent grounds. Take theemergent universe model, for instance. Here, the universe is like a cosmic egg lying dormant for infinite past time, only to "emerge" 13.7 billion years ago. Further, the universe's average expansion is zero, so the BGV theorem does not apply. However, Alexander Vilenkin has pointed out a devastating objection to the emergent universe: the universe in its dormant state is subject to quantum fluctuations, and is therefore radically unstable. Given any finite amount of time, the universe in stasis will collapse. A static universe therefore cannot endure for infinite past time. [5] All other eternal universe models meet similar fates.
For all these reasons, contemporary cosmological discussion indicates that the universe began to exist. Indeed, when asked the question, "Did the universe begin to exist?", Aron Wall, postdoctoral researcher studying quantum gravity and black hole thermodynamics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, writes, "I think that Modern Cosmology gives a fairly clear answer: probably" [6].
III. Therefore, the universe began to exist.
IV. If the universe began to exist, there exists a transcendent, personal Creator
Even if the universe has a cause, how does God enter the picture? To begin, the cause of the universe must be transcendent (i.e., beyond space and time) because it created space and time. But now a problem arises: the only two entities conceived of by philosophers that could be timeless and spaceless are (1) abstract objects (like numbers, sets, and properties) and (2) unembodied minds. Unfortunately for abstract objects, though, they cannot cause anything, much less all of space and time. Their causal impotence is part of the very definition of abstract. Therefore, the cause of the universe must be an unembodied Mind.
V. Therefore, there exists a transcendent, personal Creator
Theism, then, is vindicated. There is a being beyond the universe that stands above it as its Creator. Powerful stuff!
Notes
[1] Smith, Quentin. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, M. Martin (ed.), 183.
[2] P. C. W. Davies, "Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology," in The Study of Time III.
[3] For an overview and critique of numerous attempts to undercut the Standard Model, see: James D. Sinclair, and William Lane Craig, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, 101-201.
[4] A. Borde, A. Guth, A. Vilenkin, “Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions,” http://arxiv.org...;(accessed December 29, 2014).
[5] Vilenkin, Alexander, "Did the Universe Have a Beginning?", http://arxiv.org...
[6] Aron Wall, "Did the Universe Begin? I. Big Bang Cosmology", http://www.wall.org..., accessed June 20, 2015.
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