The Kalām Cosmological Argument
The New Atheism is still holding on somehow. Despite the truly tragic death of Christopher Hitchens (I must admit, I miss his fire-and-brimstone), Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and others still carry the torch. Rather than describing and responding to atheist arguments, I will create a positive case for God’s existence that will be easy to remember and use in any conversation about this topic.
The New Atheism, despite its bombastic appearance and spokesmen, is philosophically empty. It is more of a pop-culture movement than a serious academic revolution. Thus, serious theistic arguments ought to conquer it with ease, and these arguments ought to be rooted in observable facts. Luckily, we can provide such arguments. Let us begin with the kalam cosmological argument.
As popularized by William Lane Craig, it is as follows:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe has a cause. {1}
Now, this is a simple argument that similar to Aquinas, points to a First Cause of the universe. In fact, its power lies in its simplicity, as it is logically airtight and scientifically provable. Through reason, we know that the things around us do not just pop into existence. For example, on my desk, I have a small resin replica of Rodin’s The Thinker. I know that it did not randomly appear there. Rather, its placement on my desk was caused by my ordering it from Amazon from a company that employs people (or robots) to pour the resin into molds. Just because the universe is much larger than my little statue does not remove the necessity or existence of a cause!
What about the universe beginning to exist? Is there any proof of that? There is a scientific theorem called the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem (or BGV Theorem) that “proves that classical spacetime, under a single, very general condition, cannot be extended to past infinity but must reach a boundary at some time in the finite past.” {2} That boundary in the finite past is the Big Bang. But as with most things, there are also philosophical foundational arguments. Al-Ghazali was a Muslim philosopher who preceded Thomas Aquinas. To boost the kalam argument, he provided secondary arguments, the first of which is as follows:
An actual infinite cannot exist.
An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist. {3}
I presented this to a mathematically-inclined friend, who started to tell me about infinities in calculus or some other such impenetrable (to me) topic. In the absence of my understanding of more than basic math, I will rely on the Hilbert’s Hotel analogy to prove al-Ghazali’s point. As explained by Kasper Muller, it is as follows:
“Imagine that you arrive at an infinite hotel, that is, a hotel with infinitely many rooms in it. You need a room, the only problem for the receptionist (besides perhaps having a big guest book) is that the hotel is fully occupied and now he needs to find a room for you. But the receptionist is clever. He tells the guest in room 1 to move to room 2 and the one in room 2 to move to room 3 and in general, the guest in room n moves to room n+1. We can imagine they all move rooms at the same time. When that’s done, there is a room available at room 1 and all guests are accommodated. Great! What this thought experiment shows is that ∞ + 1 = ∞.” {4}
Dr. Craig uses this analogy to differentiate between actual infinites (philosophically impossible) and potential infinites (possible). {5}
Al-Ghazali provides a second argument for the validity of the kalam, which we can understand from Hilbert’s Hotel:
A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite.
The temporal series of events is a collection formed by successive addition.
Therefore, the temporal series of events cannot be an actual infinite. {6}
Danaher proceeds to tell us that the temporal series of events might be considered a potential infinite, as from our point of view “the future is a potentially infinite sequence of events”. {7} Thus, no infinite regress model of the universe is sound. It implies no beginning, and thus no cause. This is logically and philosophically unsound.
In my next article on this topic, I will use Aristotle and Aquinas to show that the cause of the universe can be none other than the God of Christianity.
God love you!
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William Lane Craig, “In Defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument”, at Reasonable Faith (1997), at reasonablefaith.org.
William Lane Craig, “Big Bang Cosmology”, at Reasonable Faith, at reasonablefaith.org.
William Lane Craig, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”, at Reasonable Faith (2015), at reasonablefaith.org.
Kasper Muller, “Hilbert’s Hotel–An Ingenious Explanation of Infinity”, at Cantor’s Paradise (30 December 2021), at cantorsparadise.com.
John Danaher, “Hedrick on Hilbert’s Hotel and the Actual Infinite”, at Philosophical Disquisitions (28 July 2013), at philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com.
William Lane Craig, “The Kalam”, at reasonablefaith.org.
Danaher, “Hedrick on Hilbert’s Hotel”, at philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com
Michael Joseph Carzon is a junior philosophy major at Ave Maria University, and plans to do graduate work under William Lane Craig. He writes for Catholic365, Missio Dei, and blogs at The Catholic Armchair Philosopher.