Can you defend this argument for the kalam argument's premise "the universe had a beginning" (finite past)?

[seagal]

The problem is that they seem to think that the temporal beginning of the universe is necessary for their proof of the existence of the Creator. That is probably because they have accepted the idea (which comes from René Descartes and especially David Hume) that “cause” means “succession in time.”

In reality, a temporal beginning is not necessary. Instead, and much more reliably, we can look at the causes that are in operation here and now and discover that there must be a unique First and Uncaused Cause.

The Kalam is not about a temporal beginning of the universe. It has nothing whatsoever to do with time. All it says essentially is that things don’t pop into and out of being by themselves. You don’t suddenly see a unicorn pop into your yard for no reason at all. You don’t even see a flower pop into your garden unless there was a seed or bulb planted there. Everything that begins to exist has to have a cause of its existence, and that includes things as small as quarks or as humungous as a universe. That is all the Kalam argument is trying to prove.

 

[seagal]

The problem is that they seem to think that the temporal beginning of the universe is necessary for their proof of the existence of the Creator. That is probably because they have accepted the idea (which comes from René Descartes and especially David Hume) that “cause” means “succession in time.”

In reality, a temporal beginning is not necessary. Instead, and much more reliably, we can look at the causes that are in operation here and now and discover that there must be a unique First and Uncaused Cause.

You pointed out the “fatal flaw” of the second premise in a previous post as “there is no philosophical way to prove that the universe had a beginning in time, at least in the way that we commonly understand that.” Equally, there is no way to prove philosophically that anything at all began to exist in time. But science has accepted as a given that the universe did indeed have a beginning. Doesn’t philosophy accept scientific (name removed by moderator)ut?

 

[thinkandmull]

One Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles:

**[23] Nor can it be held that both parts of the self-moved mover are moved, so that one is moved by the other, or that one moves both itself and the other, or that the whole moves a part, or that a part moves the whole. All this would involve the return of the aforementioned difficulties: something would both move and be moved according to the same species of motion; something would be at once in potency and in act; and, furthermore, the whole would not be primarily moving itself, it would move through the motion of a part. The conclusion thus stands: one part of a self-moved mover must be unmoved and moving the other part. **

Yet he admits, [5] not by reason of a part of itself, as happens when an animal is moved by the motion of its foot. What if fire is touched to a persons hand?

Bodies physically move themselvs

There is no cosmological argument without the argument that there is no infinite past

 

[thinkandmull]

I guess what the OP is trying to say is that the infinity of past time is different from an infinity that cannot be crossed. However, it is identical to saying an infinite dominoes series existed

Infinities don’t seem to make sense at times, but at least let me believe that time makes sense