Why is there anything at all? (Introduction)

by Curtis , Sunday, June 22, 2008, 00:38 (5997 days ago) @ dhw

Sorry for being away so long. Work caught up to me. - You are correct in your summary of the Kalam Cosmological Argument as:
Premise 1: The universe had a beginning
Premise 2: The beginning event of the universe was caused
Premise 3: The cause for the beginning event was personal - I see that premise 1 and 2 seem acceptable. Note that there are many legs supporting each of these. - I would like to address premise 3 since that is where some uncertainty is. I have recently uploaded a more refined presentation of premise 3 which seems much clearer (see http://www.sincereanswer.com/eternity/files/doc/Cosmological.ppt). It uses the impossibility of crossing an actual infinite as its basis which is established earlier in the presentation. - Dlw you have the following reservations which you may need to clarify for me. Let me identify and address them with my numbering. - 1.1) "We can't know if there is a prime cause." I think this is the point of the Kalam. The conclusion of the Kalam is the prime cause is personal, eternal (outside time), all powerful and all knowing (It created everything), is a spirit being (exists outside of our Universe, non-spatial and immaterial), supremely intelligent, and immutable. I will presume that this is closed. - 1.2) "Evidence of design (agreed) could be the result of accident plus natural laws." This is a separate topic by itself and should be covered elsewhere. - 1.3) "Difficult to believe, but no more difficult than a supreme, conscious intelligence that sprang from nowhere or, alternatively, has always been there and we shouldn't ask how it got there." The first part of this ("sprang from nowhere") is illogical and not part of my position. The latter part ("has always been there and we shouldn't ask how it got there") is a straw man argument. An actual infinite regress of first causes is an impossibility (see slide 52). It is not that we cannot ask "how it got there": the question is itself illogical. This is one of the reasons I like the Kalam is that it uses logic to see what really is: according to the Kalam, we can ask "how it got there" but the answer is that "logic says your question is invalid and so there is no answer." - 2.1) "If there is/was a designer that "willed the creation event", what is its nature?" See the answer to 1.1. - 2.2) "By this I mean two things: its form (material, what we call "spirit", some kind of life totally unknown to us?) and its character (does it have feelings, does it care etc.?)." See 1.1. It has a will so it has a personality (i.e., a character). Its form outside our Universe is not material but that is not to say that it could not intrude in our space/time continuum and take a physical form. Surely if a being can create all that is, it can step into what it has created. - 2.3) "There is a huge gap between the concept of intelligent design and that of a "personal" God" If we agree that premise 3 is valid, then we can move on to the next thread of evidence. - Now, here is my challenge. Where is the logic of the Kalam wrong? Do you grant the three premises?