Saturday, August 24, 2013

The KCA continues to fail

I keep seeing debates on the existence of God that contain the Kalam Cosmological Argument as support for the contention that God exists. In case you forgot, it takes this general form:



1 – Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2 – The universe began to exist.

3 – Therefore, the universe had a cause.



Over and over, the glaring, fatal defect in the KCA is that, unless God's existence is independently proven, and he/she/it can be independently established as that cause, the conclusion can only be 3, "Therefore, the universe had a cause" - nothing else. The KCA does neither of those things. It only takes you a third of the way. All of the lip-flapping and arm-waving about actual infinities being impossible, and actual things popping into existence uncaused also being impossible, are irrelevant. They're irrelevant because God's existence has always been hypothetical, and no real ability to cause actual things can even begin to be confirmed until he stops being hypothetical.



So STOP ALREADY! The Kalam Cosmological Argumen just doesn't work as an argument for the existence of God!