Trivial Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is the most hotly debated argument for the existence of God in the philosophy of religion literature. The argument has gained its current level of popularity because it has recently received scientific confirmation that space itself began to exist. Here is a short introduction to the argument.


1. If something begins to exist, it has a cause of its existence
2. The universe (or multiverse) began to exist
3. Therefore the universe (or multiverse) had a cause

This has generated a lot of press, and with the introduction of the DrCraigVideos YouTube channel, it has taken a lot of criticism by YouTube atheists. Because the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe is so powerful, Internet atheists have resorted to attacking Premise 1 of the argument.

There are two kinds of objections that I have noticed: non-trivial and trivial, at least in the way I am categorizing it. The philosophy of space and time gives arguments for different views of things like time and beginning to exist. The Kalam argument can be modified fairly easily in order to accommodate different theories. Objections that cannot be defeated by these accommodations are non-trivial. They affect any build of the argument, and hence need to be addressed. Trivial objections, on the other hand, can be handled pretty easily.

This is different than what Dr. Craig calls "stupid" objections to the Kalam argument, which are not in the professional literature but are on YouTube.



The objections addressed in this article are not "stupid" in that sense. They do not betray an amateurish misunderstanding of what is needed to understand Dr. Craig's argument. Instead, trivial objections are pretty easily defeated my modifying non-essential assumptions made by the argument. These trivial objections all have one thing in common: they presuppose the truth of one theory of time, while critiquing a version of the Kalam argument which holds to the opposite view.

Reductionism vs. Platonism
What if one day things everywhere ground to a halt? What if birds froze in mid-flight, people froze in mid-sentence, and planets and subatomic particles alike froze in mid-orbit? What if all change, throughout the entire universe, completely ceased for a period of, say, one year? Is such a thing possible? The answer depends on whether time is reductionist or Platonist. On a reductionist view, time is simply events. This position has been held by Aristotle and others, who have argued that time does not exist independently of the events that occur in time. There is no such thing as time without events or time without changes in the state of affairs. On Platonism, time is like an empty container. Platonism is something closer to the view of Richard Swinburne or Brian Leftow.

Dr. Craig's version of the argument assumes a reductionist view of time, in the tradition of Aristotle and Augustine, as well as Alvin Plantinga. On this view, the universe does not exist within time, but instead, time exists within the universe. This means that time does not contain events. Time does not have to exist in order for an event to occur. Instead, the event and the change in the state of affairs creates time. It is not possible, on reductionism, to argue that time has to exist first in order for an event to occur.

On this view, "x Begins to exist" can be defined as "x exists at time t, and there is no time immediately prior to time t when x exists, and there is no state of affairs when x exists timelessly." That last part is important because until events occur, the state of affairs would be timeless.

So on this model, God exists timelessly, and the existence of time emerges from his act of creation.

Objections to the idea that God could create time assume a Platonic view of time, but the Kalam argument is easily modified to accommodate a Platonic theory. On the Platonic view, time either has a beginning or it does not. If it does, then time does not have to exist in order for events to occur, since the beginning of time would be an event, whether or not it is created. Skeptics may argue that it is incoherent to say that time has to exist in order for God to create time. If that is true, then it is equally true to say that time cannot have a beginning, since the beginning of time is just as much an event as the creation of time.

On Platonism, we can re-define "x Begins to exist" as "x exists at time t, and there is no time immediately prior to time t when x exists."

The definition is simpler. There is only one caveat with this theory of time. Since general relativity describes time according to the reductionist view, (1 second is defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.) we then have to posit a metaphysical time within which physical time exists. This metaphysical time cannot be defined in terms of seconds or minutes, and therefore apart from a physical world, it would be meaningless to talk about the passage of minutes and seconds. There would be nothing to differentiate minutes from seconds from centures, and hence it would be gibberish to say something like "why didn't God create the physical world sooner?"

In this view, God creates physical time from within metaphysical time. Since the past does not contain an infinite number of events, but instead only contains an undifferentiated and changeless existence, it is compatible with the arguments against the existence of an actual infinite.

Hence, the Kalam argument is compatible with both the reductionist and the Platonist theories of time.

A-Theory vs. B-Theory
One of the naive theories of time describes time as a train (the present) running along a set of tracks (the timeline). If we pick a point on the timeline, and ask "is this point in the past, present or future."One can answer "When the present has not yet reached that point, it is future. When the present has reached that point, it is present. When the present has passed the point, it is past." The problem with such an answer is that no point can be past and then be present and then be future, since we are talking about the same point in time!

This means that time has to be viewed either as the train, in which case only the present exists (A-Theory), or as the tracks, in which case the passage of time is not an objective feature of reality (B-Theory). Time, on the latter view, is more like space.

The Kalam argument, contra Dr. Craig's claims, is fully compatible with either theory of time. On the A-theory, objects begin to exist in exactly the way we think they do. There is no object, and then there is an object.

The B-Theory is the trickier part. A ruler does not really come into being at a certain point in space. It has a front edge to it. On the B-Theory, time is more like a fourth dimension of space, and objects that are not eternal in the past would have a front temporal edge.

We can then restate the argument:
1. If something has a temporal front edge, it has a cause of its existence
2. The universe (or multiverse) has a temporal front edge
3. Therefore the universe (or multiverse) had a cause

On this view, the denial of premise 1 would have exactly the same wacky consequences as it would on the original version of the argument. The B-Theory has to explain why there is continuity in the timeline. It has to explain why the configuration of reality at one point on the timeline depends on the configuration of reality at previous points on the timeline. There has to be some sort of connection that allows the past to cause the future to happen. In short, the B-Theory needs to explain why the timeline is like a single broomstick and not like pieces of different broomsticks glued together. A denial of premise 1, even on the B-Theory, would violate these explanations.

Hence, the Kalam is just as effective an argument on the B-Theory as it is on the A-Theory.

Continuous vs. Atomistic Time
Time is divisible. We can divide hours into half-hours, and minutes into half-minutes, and so on. The question is: can we continue to divide time, or is there a minimum unit of time? If time is infinitely divisible, then time is continuous. If there is a minimum unit of time, then time is atomistic (or discrete).

Victor Stenger objected to Dr. Craig's view of the big bang singularity because Craig holds that time is continuous, while Stenger's objection assumes that time is atomistic. Dr. Craig rightly noted that the objection is irrelevant to the Kalam argument.

In general relativity, it is assumed that space and time are continuous. Because of this and only because of this can we talk meaningfully about singularities. As space approaches a singularity, its curvature increases without limit. A singularity is not considered part of the spacetime but is considered an edge to the spacetime.

On the standard Big Bang model, one can trace time backwards, approaching the singularity as a backward edge, or stopping point. On atomistic views of space and time (e.g. loop quantum gravity), there can be no singularities. Instead, one simply traces time backward to the first unit, which serves as the beginning of time. As an aside, loop quantum gravity cannot rescue an infinite past, due to an effect called BKL chaos.

The arguments for the beginning of the universe are just as effective on atomistic time as they are on continuous time. The only difference is that the definition of a beginning has a very slight, but ultimately irrelevant difference.

Hence, the Kalam is just as sound an argument on atomistic time as it is on continuous time.

Conclusion
In conclusion, critics of the Kalam argument need to first recognize where they stand on these issues before beginning their critique. An objection to the reductionist version of the Kalam argument from the perspective of a Platonist isn't an objection to the Kalam argument at all. It is an objection to reductionism. Similar principles apply to other areas discussed here.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a much stronger argument than one might first think, since it is compatible with so many different views of space and time.

An Empiricist Objection to the Kalam Argument 
Additional Objections to Kalam