firstcauseargument | How NOT to Argue Against the Kalam Cosmological Argument - William Lane Craig, PhD @firstcauseargument | Uploaded August 2012 | Updated October 2024, 9 minutes ago.
This is probably one of the most entertaining lectures [titled "Objections So Bad I Couldn't Have Made Them Up (or, the World's Ten Worst Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument)] Dr. William Lane Craig has given. He deals with the top 10 worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Many of these arguments were made by unsophisticated and uneducated (at least uneducated in philosophy or science) people on the Internet and youtube. Here's the Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the unvierse has a cause.
Here's the list of the worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Craig says that he believes in God on the basis of the self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart, not on the basis of the kalam cosmological argument. In fact, he says that even if the argument were refuted, he would still believe in God. This is blatant hypocrisy on Craig's part.
2. The kalam cosmological argument is question-begging. For the truth of the first premise presupposes the truth of the conclusion. Therefore the argument is an example of reasoning in a circle.
3. The argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. In the first premise "cause" means "material cause," while in the conclusion it does not.
4. The first premise is based upon the fallacy of composition. It fallaciously infers that because everything in the universe has a acause, therefore the whole universe has a cause.
5. If the universe began to exist, then it must have come from nothing. That is quite plausible, since there are no constraints on nothing, and so nothing can do anything, including producing the universe.
6. Nothing ever begins to exist! For the material of which something consists precedes it. So it is not true that the universe began to exist.
7. The argument equivocates on "begins to exist." In (1) it means to begin "from a previous material state," but in (2) it means "not from a material state."
8. The argument is logically self-contradictory. For it says that everything has a cause, yet concludes that there is a first uncaused cause..
9. The cause mentioned in the argument's conclusion is not different from nothing. For timelessness, changelessness, spacelessness, etc. are all purely negative attributions which are also true of nothingness. Thus, the argument might as well be taken to prove that the universe came into being from nothing.
10. (From Richard Dawkins:) If "god" is the "terminator" of an infinite regress, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts.
This is probably one of the most entertaining lectures [titled "Objections So Bad I Couldn't Have Made Them Up (or, the World's Ten Worst Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument)] Dr. William Lane Craig has given. He deals with the top 10 worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Many of these arguments were made by unsophisticated and uneducated (at least uneducated in philosophy or science) people on the Internet and youtube. Here's the Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the unvierse has a cause.
Here's the list of the worst objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument:
1. Craig says that he believes in God on the basis of the self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart, not on the basis of the kalam cosmological argument. In fact, he says that even if the argument were refuted, he would still believe in God. This is blatant hypocrisy on Craig's part.
2. The kalam cosmological argument is question-begging. For the truth of the first premise presupposes the truth of the conclusion. Therefore the argument is an example of reasoning in a circle.
3. The argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. In the first premise "cause" means "material cause," while in the conclusion it does not.
4. The first premise is based upon the fallacy of composition. It fallaciously infers that because everything in the universe has a acause, therefore the whole universe has a cause.
5. If the universe began to exist, then it must have come from nothing. That is quite plausible, since there are no constraints on nothing, and so nothing can do anything, including producing the universe.
6. Nothing ever begins to exist! For the material of which something consists precedes it. So it is not true that the universe began to exist.
7. The argument equivocates on "begins to exist." In (1) it means to begin "from a previous material state," but in (2) it means "not from a material state."
8. The argument is logically self-contradictory. For it says that everything has a cause, yet concludes that there is a first uncaused cause..
9. The cause mentioned in the argument's conclusion is not different from nothing. For timelessness, changelessness, spacelessness, etc. are all purely negative attributions which are also true of nothingness. Thus, the argument might as well be taken to prove that the universe came into being from nothing.
10. (From Richard Dawkins:) If "god" is the "terminator" of an infinite regress, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts.
