Kalam’s cosmological argument criticisms? (argument presented)?
1) If, the universe did not have a beginning
then , an actual infinite series of events have occurred.
2) An actual infinite series of events is impossible
3) Our Universe has a beginning
1) The first premise is argued to be true because if the universe has always existed then it does follow that an infinite series of past events has occurred.
2) The second premise is said to be true because if the universe has an infinite series of events then it would be impossible for time to reach this point because there would have been an infinite series events that needed to happen before this moment to occur. This series of infinite events no matter how short in duration would still require an infinite amount of time so this moment would never have come about. Yet this moment has come about so we can assert that an infinite series of events has not occurred.
3) Because both 1 and 2 are true we know that 3 is must be true thus our universe had a beginning.
Comments
Premise 2 is clearly false.
There exists an infinite set of points between where my foot began and ended in taking a step. If Premise two is true then I could never complete a step since I would never be able to traverse the infinite points of space required. Since I clearly can take a step, it follows that premise 2 is false.
Mistaking premise 2 to be true stems from an incomplete understanding of infinities. There are boundless infinities and bounded infinities as Cantor clearly proved over a hundred years ago.
The entire argument can be understood as faulty by coming to a better understanding of Zeno's paradoxes and basic calculus..
An infinite series is definitely not impossible. Finite events are situated along an infinite series wherever they are situated. An occupant of every such event can truly say either or both of "An infinite amount of time has passed before me." and "An infinite amount of time will pass after me.". There's no logical contradiction, nor even anything nonintuitive, about their being able to truly say that.
Furthermore, no reason is given in your formulation of the argument to think that infinite series are not actual. That is to say, your formulation has given us no reason to think that we ourselves can't truly say either or both of the above things. And when such reasons have been given elsewhere, they haven't had any bearing on the question of existence of the divine.
With utmost generality, events, finite or otherwise, are situated in logical space wherever they are situated ... and logical space is infinite. Finis. End of story.
The argument you present retains plausibility only to confused persons who aren't clear what they mean when they use words like "beginning" and, especially, who use such words ambiguously.
Surely, you're aware of the following already but I present it to you again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_ar...
Pay special attention to the criticisms attributed to Ghazali, Iqbal, and Kant.
To think that this little thing we call the cosmos with it's tiny history of just several billion years is the sole creation of the divine is to simultaneously engage in blasphemy, by thinking God so tiny, and hubris, by thinking ourselves and our home so great. It's to underutilize God's greatest gift to us: imagination.
By and large, the proponents of the kalam cosmological argument are guilty of the same sort of arrogance and sheer insular stupidity as were Galileo's persecutors. This is no surprise since its leading contemporary proponent is a young-earth creationist.
You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig.
I don't see any obvious problem with the premises and since it's of the form modus tollens, it must be valid. The only thing I can point out is that the kalam was constructed to prove the existence of god, which this argument obviously doesn't.
It certainly follows. I haven't heard any real criticisms of it. David Hume wrote concerning cause and effect in his Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, but his arguments seemed pretty absurd.
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