On the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God-libre

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On the Kalam Cosmological Argument for Gods Existenceby Nathan Dickey*

That natural reality is assumed rather than explained, is not proof for the existence of a creator.

Introducing god as an explanatory notion only shifts the locus of the question: why would such a god

exist? And, it is possible that the universe just happens to exist, without explanation.

~Willem B. Drees

No time says the clock, the clock says no time.

~Bill Nelson, No Time Says the Clockfrom the album Clocks & Dials (Discs of Ancient

Odeon, 2008)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a philosophical and scientific defense of theism that many

theistic apologists have found to be relevant and useful in recent years. It is especially favored by

Christian apologist and philosopher William Lane Craig, who has been primarily responsible for

its popularization in the debate circuit. The argument is deceptively simple, yet very involved

with deep philosophical implications. Entire books have been written on the subject.

Consequently, my treatment of the argument in this essay touches only briefly upon its basic

components and describes some of its more common criticisms. If my reader is interested in

learning more about the subject, more objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument than is

presented in this brief examination can be found through a simple Internet search.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument originated with the kalmtradition of Muslim

dialectics engaged in by medieval Arabic theologians such as al-Ghazl, al-Kindi and ibn

Rushd.1In recent years, William Lane Craig has resuscitated and revised the argument, rescuing

it from the obscurity of esoteric orientalist journals and breathing new life into it as an argument

for theism that he claims holds relevance in light of modern developments in philosophy,

theology, mathematics and science.

Before discussing the Kalam argument itself, it will be useful to clarify what cosmological

arguments are in general. This genre of philosophical argumentation essentially attempts to

1A useful historical overview of the origins of the kaltradition is found in William Lane Craig, The Cosmological

Argument from Plato to Leibniz(London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1980), pp. 48-126.


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address the question, Why is there something rather than nothing?Why is there a universe at

all, and how did it come to exist? What was the initial cause of everything, if there was in fact a

cause? Obviously, theologians and apologists for various religions want to argue that there was a

cause for the existence of the universe, and that this cause was necessary. Apologists such as

William Lane Craig then attempt to make the case that this cause is necessarily the Christian

God, despite the fact that arguing philosophically or scientifically toward establishing a causal

agent says nothing about the nature or identity of that agent, or even that it must be intelligent.

Another term for this rhetoric is the First Cause Argument.In this more generic non-

kalmform, it is claimed that everything that exists had an initial cause, with the special

exception of one thing that has no cause. This uncaused agent that is asserted is then given the

attribute of intelligence without evidence and called God. Such First Causearguments contain

its own refutation; it first states that everything that comes into existence has to have been

caused, but then posits something for which there was no cause. In a footnote in his book on the

kalm cosmological argument, Craig writes, [T]he causal principle concerns only what begins

to exist, and God never began to exist, but is eternal.2These two claims cannot both be true.

The moment we grant that something exists for which there was no cause, then we are simply no

longer burdened with the need to describe why anything has a first cause, and such an attempt is

rendered unwarranted. The first premise at that point becomes no longer applicable. Theists

attempt to bypass this problem by invoking the Argument from Contingency, which we will

presently see is also highly implausible.

Additionally, Craig is demonstrably and grossly misguided when he states that Objections

to a First Cause of the universe hardly merit refutation .3Because Craig assumes that the First

Cause argument is a self-evident principle that requires no justification other than ubiquitous

experience, he does not develop as elaborate a defence of it in his book as he does for the second

premise (that the universe began to exist). He delivers his justification for not elaborating fully

on the causal principle in the following way:

The causal proposition could be defended as an empirical generalisation based on the widest

sampling of evidence . . . To reject the causal proposition is therefore completely arbitrary.

2William Lane Craig, The Kal Cosological Arguet(London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1979), p.

170.3Ibid., p. 170.


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Although this argument from empirical facts is not apt to impress philosophers, it is nevertheless

undoubtedly true that the reason weand theyaccept the principle in our everyday lives is

precisely for this very reason, because it is repeatedly confirmed in our experience.4

But it is just this type of everyday and common experience that gives us the impression that theworld is flat. Thus, according to Craig's logic, it would be just as completely arbitraryto reject

the proposition that the world is flat. The fact is that physical events at quantum levels are

observed to have no evident cause. Scientists find no evident or observable cause for excited

atoms dropping to a lower energy level and emitting photons, for example. A similar example is

found in the decay of a radioactive nucleus, for which a cause is not at all evident or observable.

Quantum mechanics has on numerous occasions successfully predicted that individual events are

not pre-determined and countless experiments indicate that the emission of photons and nuclear

radiation occur spontaneously and without precedent. Such quantum principles can be applied on

a macroscopic level, to the universe as a whole, for quantum mechanics transition smoothly into

classical Newtonian mechanics when the systems parameters approach that classical regime. In

what may be a vague anticipation of this objection, Craig makes another crucial blunder in the

same footnote when he writes, unobservable entities such as cosmic rays cause observable

effects. And could not an unobservable spirit being like an angel or demon, if there be such,

cause observable effects, such as the levitation of an object? Why then could not God cause the

world?5

Craig is here effectively admitting that the causespoken of in his first premise could

just as likely be an entirely natural one.

Examining Kalam

The Kalam Cosmological Argument derives from a comprehension of weighty notions of time

and causality. This is not to say that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is any more correct than

other less sophisticated formulations of theistic cosmological assertionsand it does utilize a

great deal of obfuscation to make the matter seem more confusing than it really is but it

nevertheless tackles high concepts and weaves premises from them that are not readily accessible

to those unversed in philosophy or in science. Ultimately, however, the Kalam Cosmological

Argument contains the seeds of its own refutation as well. A notable number of critics have

4Ibid., p. 145.

5Ibid., p. 170.


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pointed out several devastating logical problems, both philosophical and scientific, that plague

the argument. One of the most prominent problems, and the one I shall focus on in this essay, is

the contradictory models of time that William Lane Craig invokes in attempting to vindicate the

argument.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is posed by Craig syllogistically as follows:

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.6

After proposing this formulation, Craig writes, The point of the argument is to demonstrate the

existence of a first cause which transcends and creates the entire realm of finite reality. Having

reached that conclusion, one may then inquire into the nature of this first cause and assess its

significance for theism.7For the purposes of this critique, we may set aside the obvious point

that at no point in the argument are we informed as to why the proposed first cause necessarily

has to be the Islamic or Christian God, or any intelligence for that matter. Even if the argument

itself held up under scrutiny (which we will see does not) there is nothing in the argument that

can inform us as to the nature of the cause.8

One of the most pressing problems in the way Craig structures the argument is one that has

been pointed out by many philosophers of a mathematical bent, which is that the argument

depends on two incompatible ideas of time. The crux of Craigs thesis is his contention that the

existence of an actual infinite is impossible, including the formation of an actual infinite by

successive addition. He maintains that if the series of events in the past is infinite, the present

moment could never be reached.9This underlying contention comes as a consequence of the

6Ibid., p. 63.

7 Ibid., p. 64.

8It is ironic that when the Big Bang model was first proposed in 1927 by Catholic priest and astronomer Georges

Lematre, the most outspoken critics of the theory were those whose philosophical commitment to naturalism

rendered the theory singularly uncomfortable. Astronomer Fred Hoyle, who was the most well-known critic of

Lematre's findings, proposed the Steady State model of the universe as an alternative to the Big Bang model for

this er reaso. Craig rites, [A]ccording to Hoyle's own admission, the steady state model sought to bypass the

conceptual difficulties of the origin of the universe . . . Hoyle, unlike the vast majority of scientists, realises the

metaphysical and theological implications of such a beginning, and he recoils fro these iplicatios(Craig,

Kal, p. 120). This is extremely ironic given the fact that in modern times, anti-scientific rejections of the Big Bang

theory almost always come from religious fundamentalists.9This idea plays a central role in Zeno's Paradoxes, which Craig comments upon in an appendix to his book as a

basis for drawing a distinction betweenpotentialinfinity and actualinfinity. Zeno's Paradoxes address infinite


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implications involved in a Newtonian concept of absolute time. In the Newtonian understanding,

time is viewed as a linear chain of causal events, a substratum within which all states of affairs

occur. In absolute time, time exists ontologically distinct from and independently of all states of

affairs. Absolute time can perhaps be best conceived of as a stage across which objects move; the

stage (representing absolute time) exists independently of the presence of motion across it. By

arguing that the idea of actual infinity is untenable due to the impossibility of the past being

composed of an infinite chain of events leading to the present, Craig is assuming that the model

of absolute time is untenable. This assumption is needed in order for Craig to argue convincingly

for his second premise, namely that the universe began to exist.

On the other hand, the concept of relational time stands opposed to Newtonian absolute

time. The concept of relational timeas first advanced by philosopher and mathematician

Gottfried Leibniz and later elaborated upon by Einsteinstates that time cannot exist in the

absence of bodies in motion. On this view, time is ontologically nothing without objects relating

to other objects and states of affairs acting on other states of affairs in space. Time and motion

are thus understood to be interdependent; one cannot exist without the other. Time is a measure

of motion in space, hence the concept of spacetime.

In his analysis of the kalam cosmological argument, freelance philosopher James Still

points out that Craig seems to agree with the notion of relational time, simply because his entire

premise is based on the impossibility of actual infinity and thus, by implication, the concept of

absolute time. But then, in order to argue that the cause of the universe was a creator God, he

flips the switch:

Craig seems to agree with the relational view of eternity. However, when he discusses the

problem of an actual infinite, he slips into an absolute view of time to use the principle of

determination in the kalam argument's conclusion. He argues that the universe began to exist

because of thermodynamic considerations and the impossibility of an actual infinite. However, if

eternity is a timeless void, then the universe is eternal in the sense that there were no moments in

which the space-time continuum did not exist. Yet in order to effectively employ the argument for

a particularizer who decides a course of action at a given moment, Craig finds it necessary to

subdivisions of finite length, and asks whether a finite distance that is infinitely divisible can actually be traversed.

In contrast to this concept of potential infinity, speaking of time as infinite is to speak of actual infinity, in which

time extends an infinite distance backwards.


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revert to an absolutist view of time . . . Craig wrongly presupposes an ontological view of time

that conflates timeless eternity with temporal infinity - an infinity that is supposed to be a priori

impossible in the kalam argument . . . [T]he kalam argument becomes entangled in this conflated

notion of eternity when it argues that God was a particularizer who freely chose to create the

universe in time.10

The conflation of timeless eternity with temporal infinity that Craig commits is seen most clearly

when he invokes the Islamic principle of determination and the related Leibnizian principle of

sufficient reason to support his claim that the agent responsible for creating the universe is a

personal being. He writes,

[W]hy did the universe begin to exist when it did instead of existing from eternity? The answer . .

. was carefully explained by al-Ghazl and enshrined in the Islamic principle of determination.

According to that principle, when two different states of affairs are equally possible and one

results, this realisation of one rather than the other must be the result of the action of a personal

agent who freely chooses one rather than the other. Thus, Ghazl argues that while it is true that

no mechanical cause existing from eternity could create the universe in time, such a production of

a temporal effect from an eternal cause is possible if and only if the cause is a personal agent who

wills from eternity to create a temporally finite effect. For while a mechanically operating set of

necessary and sufficient conditions would either produce the effect from eternity or not at all, a

personal being may freely choose to create at any time wholly apart from any distinguishing

conditions of one moment from another. For it is the very function of will to distinguish like from

like.11

We will see later on why it makes no sense to speak of God choosingfrom eternity to create,

given that choice is always a temporal decision. For now, it is enough to point out that the

question Craig poses at the beginning of the quoted passage above can only make sense in the

absolute view of time, a view that he argues against at great length in his book. But this principle

of determination is implausible in and of itself as well. The existence or non-existence of the

universe encompass two possibilities mutually exhaustive one of the other. As such, one of the

two states will occur even in the event that the causal agent chooses neither option. This means

that either the universe could have arisen without a cause, or that something else was responsible

10Jaes till, Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig's Kala Cosological Arguet,Internet Infidels1998,

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/kalam.html(accessed 27 March 2010).11

Craig, Kal, pp. 150-1.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/kalam.htmlhttp://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/kalam.htmlhttp://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/kalam.html


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for causing the universe. The former possibility stands contrary to the kalam argument's first

premise, and the latter possibility contradicts the principle of determination (i.e., that the non-

existence of the universe was equally possible).

Craigs surreptitious flip-of-the-switch strategy is very similar in nature to what Christian

apologist Matthew J. Slick resorts to in his Transcendental Argument for God, in which he

argues at length to establish that logical absolutes cannot be contingent upon minds, then turns

around in the conclusion and arbitrarily makes a special exception for one mind. 12This

inconsistency is enough to dismantle Slicks case completely, without even raising the additional

objection that the only minds that we have direct experience with are the result of physical

processes. Minds occur in brains, and sometimes they occur in microchips (which entail a very

loose definition of mind). But we are not aware of any mindthat exists in the absence of a

space infrastructure to support it, and in fact groundbreaking developments in neuroscience

strongly indicate that such infrastructure-independent minds are very likely impossible.

In like manner, scrutiny reveals Craigs argument to be an elaborate exercise in proposing

a special exception. One need only wade past the sophisticated obfuscation to see this. Creation

is a causal activity. Thus, in order to argue for the existence of a creator of the universe, Craig

must appeal to absolute time, contradicting the relational time upon which he earlier depended to

argue against the possibility of infinity. Craig devotes the majority of his book to arguing against

the possibility of infinity in order to make the case for a sentient, creative First Cause in the first

case! This aligns with a pattern of non-reasoning noticeable in a great many arguments for

theism and creationism can be summed up as follows: There is a rule X which must and always

does apply in order for our case to make sense. But it cannot always apply, because we have

proposed something that has permission to break the aforementioned rule and have called it

God.The Kalam Cosmological Argument is no exception; it is an extremely elaborate and

ornate structure that in the end simply couches another special-pleading fallacy.

Craig wants the causal agent of the universe to be a personal Creator of the universe who

exists changelessly and independently prior to creation and in time subsequent to creation.13But

in order to engage in the causal activity of creating a universe, this agent has to create within

time. Nothing can be timeless and contingent upon time simultaneously, and Craig contradicts

12Matthe lick, The Transcendental Argument for the Eistece of God, Christian Apologetics & Research

Ministry,http://www.carm.org/transcendental-argument(accessed 27 March 2010).13

Craig, Kal, p. 152.
http://www.carm.org/transcendental-argumenthttp://www.carm.org/transcendental-argumenthttp://www.carm.org/transcendental-argumenthttp://www.carm.org/transcendental-argument


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his statement that the creator exists changelessly at one point and relationally at another point.

Something that is changelessand eternal by definition cannot change! If time exists in the

Newtonian absolute sense, a being that exists outside of what we recognize as spacetime is still

not separated or outside of time. There are therefore pronounced difficulties in positing a being

that does not work within causality.

Another problem with Craigs argument is that it necessitates the assuming of knowledge

of conditions that precipitated the beginning of the universe. We do not currently have that

knowledge, and it is possible that we never will. Our current scientific knowledge concerning the

origin of the universe extends back impressively far. We can trace the origins of the universe

back to the time at which the entire known universe was an extremely hot and dense state that

expanded and inflated rapidly. But we cannot currently progress beyond that point in order to

inquire further, and we do not know what manner of physical conditions applied that caused the

universe to arise. When apologists such as Craig begin positing a God who created the universe

and who is not subject to the physical rules implied by that selfsame causal activity and who is

outside of spacetime, the same problem arises. How can anyone presume to say anything about

how God operates if this God is outside of nature? In order to presume upon such matters, the

apologist is forced to admit that his argument does not derive from empirical observations, which

they often like to claim.

Besides, the nature of space and of time is tied very closely to the nature of matter in

relativity theory, which Craig admits is empirically confirmed. As a consequence, if there is

anything outsideof spacetime that is exerting an influence on this universe, such an influence

is still contained within the concept of the universe, or the totality of all that exists. This is a

common problem frequently encountered in cosmological arguments for theism: they rely on a

very vague and ambiguous definition of universe.We can consider the universe to be the sum

of all things that exist, in which case God would in actuality be a part of the universe, and any

notion of existing outside the universe is reduced to absurdity. One can also use "universe" in the

sense characteristic of a science-fiction story, in which there are a vast number of parallel

universes. In this usage, one can make reference to this universeas one particular universe

among many. It is this latter concept that apologists usually seem to fall back on when they speak

of creation from outside. In the formulations common to cosmological arguments for theism,

there is a universe, but there is also stuff outside this universe to account for the creative acts.


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However, the stuff outsidethis particular universe can also be encompassed by the single word

universein the sense of a mathematically complete set. As philosopher Nicholas Everitt points

out, [T]here could not have been an event preceding the universe and bringing it about, for the

simple reason that there was no time before the start of the universe in which that event could

have occurred. The first moment of time was the first moment of the universe. If per

impossibile there had been any event before the supposed start of the universe, that would simply

show that the universe had in fact begun earlier than we had assumed.14If Craig is to remain

consistent in his appeal to relational time against the possibility of the infinity of past events, it

would seem he is forced to concede this point. This is the problem that I find inevitably emerges

when apologists talk about that which is outside the universe,or that which is not reliant upon

spacetime. In the course of his kalam cosmological argument, Craig arrives at a God who is

given permission to break any and all rules because he exists outside and beyond all physical

laws. In this case, how can he say anything meaningful about this God at all? How can he really

know how a being of that nature operates, and bring the news of it to us? And how is it sensible

to posit a being that transcends spacetime and yet carries out causal activity such as universe-

creating within spacetime?

In responding to Craigs invocation of the Islamic principle of determination and of the

Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason to account for why the causal agent must be personal,

Everitt succinctly reveals the inconsistency inherent in arguing for a timeless being that chooses

to create a universe:

[N]ecessary beings are thought of as being in some way outside time. But although this picks up

on the traditional idea that God is timeless, it threatens to render unintelligible the conception of

the God/universe link in terms of choice. For choosing is something that takes place at a time, and

if Xs choices are toexplain Xs actions, then the choices must precede the action: X must be a

temporal being . . . Suppose we grant for the sake of argument that the creator could have a

thought of the form I will a universe of such-and-such a kind to exist. Since the creator is

outside time, this willing does not occur before (nor of course after) the start of the universe

which it is supposed to create. It occurs, but occurs at no time at all. Already it sounds a very

suspicious sort of cause. But worse is to follow. The hypothesis of the creator is supposed to

explain why the universe began to exist when it did, rather than earlier or later. This requires that

14Nicholas Everitt, The Non-Existence of God(London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 70.


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the creator should be able to have thoughts of the form I will the universe to start existing now

(or in a million units of time from now, etc.). But a being who is outside time can attach no sense

to terms like now (or a million units of time from nowetc.). They can be used and understood

only by beings who exist at a time and who persist through time.15

These self-contradicting notions that we find batted back and forth within the structure of the

same argument create devastating problems for the conclusion that the universe necessarily had

to come into existence as a result of a Creator. Craigs argument fails to establish that God is a

name for something that can meaningfully be commented on, in much the same way that

arguments from design fail to demonstrate that a personal First Cause is an inherently consistent

and meaningful concept demanded by the structure of nature. Intelligent Design advocates such

as Michael Behe and William Dembski invoke a being which in principle is infinitely more

complicated than the universe in order to account for complicated things, which they at the outset

insisted needs an explanation as the aperture to proposing a God! This internal inconsistency is

aided and abetted by Craig, who comes along to posit a God who does not need an explanation,

who exists outside of time and space and yet creates regardless.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Kalam Cosmological Argument comes burdened with a variety of logical

inconsistencies, and the premises contained within it are not rooted in anything as solid asapologists seem to think they are. Not only does the argument assume knowledge of conditions

that nobody can have at our current scientific state, but the argument also juxtaposes two

irreconcilable models. Most of Craigs argument sides with the notion of relational time over

absolute time. But then, once Craig comes to the point where he needs a God to be the cause

responsible for creating the universe, there is a sudden shift to absolute time. This is because,

according to the argument, God had to have been engaging in a causal activity in order to bring

forth the universe, necessitating a model of time that is not relational, not interdependent with the

bodies in motion and states of affairs that is allegedly being created. Such is the self-refuting

difficulty with Craig's entire premise. Apologists for theism want a God that has the capacity to

carry out causal deeds, who necessarily utilizes a causal process to create a universe. But at the

same time, this God avoids the very rules they claim necessitate his existence; in Craigs

15Ibid., p. 76.


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argument, he gets to be a creator who exists within absolute time only at the junctures in the

argument that call for an absolute over a relational time model. Again, how can such a being be

both timeless and eternal and contingent upon time simultaneously? An irrational and unjustified

belief in magic is what theistic arguments such as these boil down to in the end.

If the interested reader wants to delve deeper into this subject (seeing as this critique has

only just scratched the surface) there are a number of critiques that can be found in many

interesting articles and papers online. The subject makes for very worthwhile and fascinating

reading, especially when reading Craigs rebuttals to his critics and their subsequent counter-

rebuttals.16I highly recommend Infidels.org as an excellent starting point for broaching the many

involved issues surrounding this as well as other theological arguments, such as the

Transcendental Argument.

*March 27, 2010

16For a sustained back-and-forth written debate between Craig and atheist Quentin Smith concerning the

cosmological argument, see William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

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