Notes on Craig's Cosmological Argument

While discussing William Lane Craig’s five arguments to believe in God (here and here ... originally at Faux News ), I said:

...you can’t conclude that god is the best explanation for any of the proposed “mysteries” that Craig lists, because God does not exist independently of his arguments.

I’ve always felt that the argument from first cause was the single most interesting approach for a believer to claim the existence of God, simply because the questions of existence - Why? For what purpose? How? - are unsettling in their enormity and implication. Not knowing is scary. It is a great human endeavor - individually and as a species - to overcome that fear, and replace ignorance with knowledge. Where we can’t obtain knowledge, we can at least try to identify what qualifies as “not knowledge” so that we don’t clutter up our heads unnecessarily. Thus this post.

My personal summary of the argument from first cause is that it can conclude that there was a cause to the universe, but that’s all. The argument **as stated** does not even attempt to support the claim that God exists or of how God might create a universe. It doesn’t add to our knowledge, thus we can’t make judgements about what the possible cause could be. We don’t have the tools and techniques to address it yet. It could be that it’s the wrong question, we just don’t know.

Assuming it is the right question, then the argument is laid out in either of the following forms:

• Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
• A causal loop cannot exist.
• A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
• Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.

In light of the Big Bang theory, a stylized version of argument has emerged (sometimes called the Kalam cosmological argument, the following form of which was created by Al-Ghazali and then strongly supported by William Lane Craig):

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
• The Universe began to exist.
• Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

There is, of course, lots of discussion to be had about both forms of this argument, some of it to the effect that

1. our concept of causation is incomplete or incorrect;
2. the idea that the universe is “contingent” may be wrong - it may be impossible for the universe to not exist;
3. what we call “the universe” may just be part of a larger (or even infinite) ensemble;
4. the claims about causal loops and actual infinities might be wrong;
5. it could be chance - the ways that things could exist are nearly infinitely more numerous that the way that things wouldn’t exist;

There are probably other lines of discussion to follow, as well. Regardless, let’s compare what Craig said in his article to the second form of the argument listed at Wikipedia (and also often attributed to Craig).

Craig most recently said (I paraphrase for clarity):

1. The universe cannot be uncaused.
2. The cause must come from a transcendent reality
3. There is an entity (assumed to exist in that transcendent reality) that is enormously powerful (assumed that it can create universes)
4. The entity is an unembodied mind
5. (assumed) this entity is God
6. (assumed) this God is the Christian God.

If we grant premise 1, what reason do we have to believe that premises 2 through 6 are true?

None.

He gives no reason to accept any of what he says.

As many folks have pointed out over the years, Craig is not attempting to persuade non-believers, he’s really just giving a pep talk to believers.

Just for the fun of it, though, we can annotate Craig’s argument a bit, for future reference.

1. The universe cannot be uncaused.
   • as I stated in an earlier paragraph, our concept of causation could be incomplete or incorrect ...or...
   • the idea that the universe is “contingent” may be wrong - it may be impossible for the universe to not exist;
   • what we call “the universe” may just be part of a larger (or even infinite) ensemble;
   • the claims about causal loops and actual infinities might be wrong;
   • it could be chance - the ways that things could exist are nearly infinitely more numerous that the way that things wouldn’t exist;
2. The cause must come from a transcendent reality.
   • this is a bare assertion. There is no reason to believe such a claim.
   • If we assent to this claim, then we must ask “how can this reality exist prior to our reality?”
   • And “doesn’t this insert an infinite regression into the argument?”
   • And “if this transcendent reality can exist without being created, then what’s to say this reality couldn’t exist without being created?” (a.k.a. “Special Pleading”)
3. There is an entity (assumed to exist in that transcendent reality) that is enormously powerful (assumed that it can create universes)
   • Who created this entity?
4. The entity is an unembodied mind
   • This is another bare assertion. What warrant are we given to believe such a claim?
5. (assumed) this entity is God
   • This is yet another bare assertion. What warrant are we given to believe such a claim?
6. (assumed) this God is the Christian God.
   • This is still another bare assertion. What warrant are we given to believe such a claim?

If you have any doubt as to how Craig’s argument fails, you might bookmark this.

Fine-tuned putdown

I enjoy a good put down as much as anyone. Pharyngula commenter drl2 made me smile with a goodie this morning as I continued to read through the comments on PZ’s takedown of WLC Craig’s tired old list of arguments for the existence of God at Faux News.

In an exchange on why the fine-tuning argument is a sham, he summarizes with this zinger:

So while it’s true that there are probably an infinite number of universes in which we couldn’t exist, there’s a good chance there’s also an infinity of possible worlds where WLC could still be a slick-talking moron.

Nice!

What's Wrong With Arguments for God?

Those non-believers that came to their non-belief by observing what’s wrong with the world - as compared against the conjecture that it was created by God - or analyzed the arguments for God and found them fallacious, absurd, or otherwise double-plus-ungood, can probably guess what’s wrong with all of Dr. William Lane Craig's reasons to believe in God, but it doesn’t hurt to re-state it occasionally.

In a nutshell, you can’t conclude that god is the best explanation for any of the proposed “mysteries” that Craig lists, because God does not exist independently of his arguments. He can't be found by looking for him directly. He can only be imagined. If he can only be imagined, what good is he as an explanation?

Say, for instance, if Galileo had peered into the heavens and seen God staring back, you might consider that evidence that god exists. If every astronomer since Galileo peers into the heavens and sees God staring back, you might say that God most probably exists.

If Darwin had set sail on the Beagle and found that every species of plant and animal sprang into existence within the last few thousand years, you might infer that they where created simultaneously. If every biologist and botanist since Darwin found only evidence of recent creation, this might lend further credence to that inference. When the DNA of all animals is eventually found to be perfect, containing no junk and no mutations, you might further infer creation by something perfect that knew what it was doing. It could be the same entity that Galileo observed. It might be God, and that might bolster the argument further.

I could go on, but I don’t really need to - the examples become repetitive very quickly. Everything that every branch of science observes leads us to believe that our patch of existence expanded into its present form about 13.7 billion years ago. No where has a God hypothesis - any God - risen to become even a remote contender as an explanation. The imperfect - and predictable - way that the universe evolves and that life evolves indicates wholly natural origins.

God may be used as an explanation for mysteries when people like Dr. Craig speak, but he never appears independently from Craig's (or anyone else's) arguments. It’s as if apologists can’t think of plausible explanations to life's complicated questions, but the most fantastical explanation imaginable is perfectly acceptable.

It’s a mystery that believers don’t see this

An Early Christmas Present from William Lane Craig

It really is a Christmas present, this re-cycling of the same 5 arguments for the existence of God that Dr. William Lane Craig trots out for anyone who will pay him - this time at the Fox News website . What makes it a great present? Well, many of my favorite bloggers took it down, each of them in their own unique style:

• PZ Myers gives it a faux-innocent third degree at Freethought Blogs.
  
• Avicenna - also at FTB - looks at it from the cultural Hindu point of view
  
• Richard Carrier - at FTB as well - does his usual extensive deconstruction (not for the light reader!)
  
• Hank Fox at Patheos takes a swipe at the Objective Moral Values portion of the program
  
• JT Eberhard - also at Patheos - has a go at all five of Craig’s tired old arguments.

They all - and their commenters - seem to recognize that Craig continues to preach to the choir, and continues to make a darned good living at it.

In my now-dusty “Another Imaginary Debate”, I used one of Dr. Craig’s debates from 1998 as the foil for my contrived rebuttal. His schtick has not changed one bit in the 15 years since. If you’re sporting an even average bullshit detection kit, you can see right though this stuff. That doesn’t seem to stop him. As Hank Fox sez - it’s ”slippery arguments, subtle misdirection, and blatant lies.”

So bring a hot drink, a blankie, your favorite web-browsing device, and settle down for a warm read on a cold winter night.

Happy Yule y’all!