Introducing the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

I have decided to do several posts going into detail on William Lane Craig's version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). This post will outline what the argument is, and the most common scholarly objections to date.

First a little background. The KCA is currently very popular with Christian apologists, particularly Evangelicals, but it wasn't always this way. The argument was originally formulated by Islamic scholars within the Kalam tradition, hence the name. It is William Lane Craig that popularized it with Christian audiences in his 1979 book on the subject.

The argument, as Craig originally put it, goes like this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
4. Since no scientific explanation (in terms of physical laws) can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be personal (explanation is given in terms of a personal agent)

Craig also provides two other arguments subsumed within these premises.

For premise 2, he argues:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

Along with:

1. A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite.
2. The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
3. Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

There have been oceans of ink spilled over this argument. Most of those oceans focus on premise two, though premise one has also seen its share of comments from the likes of Stephen Hawking.

Craig, along with physicist James D. Sinclair, published the definitive version of the argument in 2009. You can find it in its 101 page glory here. I am going to be relying on that paper for my quotations of Craig in future posts on this topic.

For a very good mapping of Craig's arguments, his main criticisms, and his answers to his critics in his 2009 article, I point you to some of the wonderful work by Luke over at Common Sense Atheism.

The most recent version of the argument that we will be discussing goes as follows (from Luke):

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

But this says nothing about God, so Craig & Sinclair add:

4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.
5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.

Next, we will look at one particular weakness with the KCA as it currently exists, and why we can't rely on it.