The kalam argument

[Mickey3456987]

How can user of kalam argument
do something like:
1.It is impossible for there to be infinite past event because if it’s true then we can’t arrive at today

2.Therefore the past is finite cause we arrive at today.

1&2 is okay I accepted it, but after some apologist use this they jump to

“Universe as a whole” have a beginning
This show that space and matter to have a beginning too.
But the argument (1&2) can only show that time does have a beginning how can we concluded that space and matter have a beginning too by use argument aganist infinite past didn’t it just show that time have a beginning?

Thank!

 

[Nicene]

I’m not sure why you would argue against it, being similar to Aquinas’ argument concerning the Uncaused cause for the existence of God. Basically they are both arguments against infinite regression or that the universe has always existed.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[Wesrock]

I’m not sure why you would argue against it, being similar to Aquinas’ argument concerning the Uncaused cause for the existence of God. Basically they are both arguments against infinite regression or that the universe has always existed.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is not the same as any of Aquinas’ cosmological arguments and makes assumptions Aquinas would never make about infinite regresses. Aquinas, for example, has no care (in his arguments) about whether there was a start to the universe. Aquinas also would disagree with the KCA’ assumption that a series of accidentally ordered events cannot proceed to an infinite regress (Aquinas believed they could).

 

[Wesrock]

How can user of kalam argument
do something like:
1.It is impossible for there to be infinite past event because if it’s true then we can’t arrive at today

2.Therefore the past is finite cause we arrive at today.

1&2 is okay I accepted it, but after some apologist use this they jump to

“Universe as a whole” have a beginning
This show that space and matter to have a beginning too.
But the argument (1&2) can only show that time does have a beginning how can we concluded that space and matter have a beginning too by use argument aganist infinite past didn’t it just show that time have a beginning?

Thank!

I have not studied the KCA in depth as I believe it has flaws. However, I think I can answer this. The KCA would still hold that anything that has a beginning must have a cause. If this could go on forever, it would mean that everything is explainable without appealing to a first cause. The point of the KCA is that this cannot go on forever, so the universe (or the first thing of the universe) had a beginning, and if it has a beginning it must have a cause, and it must be something without a beginning and which is in fact timeless. There’s probably more to it than I’ve summarized here.

 

[Nicene]

That’s why I said similar, not the same. For irony’s sake, you made an assumption

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[rossum]

“Universe as a whole” have a beginning

The material universe had a beginning. However, the philosophical universe may not have had a beginning. Philosophically we can define the universe as “All that exists”. The ATE universe can be eternal:

• God exists.
• God is eternal.
• Therefore the ATE universe is eternal.

The ATE universe can have no external cause, because anything external to the ATE universe does not exist, by definition. A non-existent cause cannot cause anything.

Your use of the Kalaam argument assumes a particular definition of “universe”. It works for the material universe; it does not work for the ATE universe.

 

[John_Martin]

The ATE universe can be eternal:

• God exists.
• God is eternal.
• Therefore the ATE universe is eternal.

Except the Revealed (by Himself) God of the people he chose (The Church) is not a being contained in our universe, and we are not infinite with Him, nor is there any being infinitely with him so that “existing” could be said of any. “Our universe” is not, with Him. “All That Exists”, ATE, does not mean God plus Us, philosophically nor materially.

John Martin

 

[Magnanimity]

WL Craig does not begin the argument as the OP has here. Craig argues,

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its coming to exist.
2. The universe as we know it began to exist a finite time ago.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause

 

[rossum]

Except the Revealed (by Himself) God of the people he chose (The Church) is not a being contained in our universe,

God is not contained in the material universe, certainly. He is contained in the ATE universe since He exists. The only way God cannot be contained in the ATE universe is if He does not exist. For example, even prime numbers greater than 2 are not contained in the ATE universe because they do not exist.

God is contained in a lot of sets: the set of living things, the set of loving things, the set of omnipotent things etc. Any property of God puts Him in the set of things with that property. Since God exists then He is in the set of things that exist, which is the ATE universe.

 

[John_Martin]

The only way God cannot be contained in the ATE universe is if He does not exist.

A universe is a “thing”, ATE, philosophical, or this universe, and if such were “to contain God” then it could be considered greater than God, for it would contain him plus other things, the sum total of which would be greater than our LORD, this imaginary ATE universe would be other and more than God alone, which is inconceivable to one who knows this LORD, whose very Name (‘I AM’) disallows and disproves it as nothing but an impossible fantasy.

John Martin

 

[rossum]

A universe is a “thing”, ATE, philosophical, or this universe, and if such were “to contain God” then it could be considered greater than God, for it would contain him plus other things, the sum total of which would be greater than our LORD, this imaginary ATE universe would be other and more than God alone, which is inconceivable to one who knows this LORD, whose very Name (‘I AM’) disallows and disproves it as nothing but an impossible fantasy.

God is infinite, hence God alone is the same size as God plus any finite number of entities. I suggest that you read up about Hilbert’s Hotel. The same applies to certain categories of infinity as well. If I combine the odd numbers with the even numbers then I still have an infinity of numbers, yet there are infinitely many odd numbers and infinitely many even numbers.

Since God is infinite, you need to deal with infinities when dealing with God, and infinities can behave in ways that are different from ordinary finities.

Alternatively, you can deny the existence of God’s creation since that would satisfy your objection, but I suspect you do not want to go down that route.

 

[HarryStotle]

John_Martin:

Except the Revealed (by Himself) God of the people he chose (The Church) is not a being contained in our universe,

God is not contained in the material universe, certainly. He is contained in the ATE universe since He exists. The only way God cannot be contained in the ATE universe is if He does not exist.

Not true. One other possibility would mean God is not in the set of existing things. According to Aquinas God doesn’t exist like other existing things because he is Existence Itself, the ground of Existence, the Pure Act of Being Itself. When we speak of God “existing” we do so only analogically, not equivocally.

A parallel example would be to speak of the set of All Numbers That Exist. (ANTE) Mathematics itself would not be in that set. Nor would “that which actualizes the possibility of numbers” be in any set of all numbers.

We are speaking of a different level of being or existence when we speak of God. God isn’t “an existing being” in the set of all existing beings. God is the actuality of being itself.

God is contained in a lot of sets: the set of living things, the set of loving things, the set of omnipotent things etc. Any property of God puts Him in the set of things with that property. Since God exists then He is in the set of things that exist, which is the ATE universe.

This just misrepresents the God of classic theism. God isn’t in “the set of living things,” he is Life Itself. God isn’t in “the set of loving things,” he is Love Itself. There is no “set of omnipotent things” because things cannot be omnipotent. By definition, only God who exists by his very nature – Ipsum Esse Existens – can be omnipotent.

Likewise, mathematics itself wouldn’t be in the set of all numbers that exist because mathematics itself isn’t a number.

Since God exists then He is in the set of things that exist, which is the ATE universe.

God ISN’T “a thing that exists,” ergo he ISN’T “in the set of THINGS that exist, which is the ATE universe.”

 

[AlNg]

Except the Revealed (by Himself) God of the people he chose (The Church)

I thought that God chose the Jewish people.

 

[AlNg]

God is not contained in the material universe

I thought that Jesus was God and that He was contained in the material universe. Further, the Eucharist is God and the Eucharist is contained in the material universe.

 

[AlbMagno]

With the New Covenant, during Jesus’s life, God’s chosen people changed from just jews to all people who would be baptized in his name (and the rest of the Holy Trinity) i.e. the Church.

As not all jews were converted and baptized, the ones that didn’t (the ones that remained jews) were no longer God’s chosen people.

In a certain way we christians are the new Israel of which the psalms talk.

(All of this from a catholic perspective, obviously).

 

[HarryStotle]

rossum:

God is not contained in the material universe

I thought that Jesus was God and that He was contained in the material universe. Further, the Eucharist is God and the Eucharist is contained in the material universe.

Language is a poor “container” for reality. We don’t understand very well the nature of reality, let alone God. So when we claim that Jesus as God is “contained in” the material universe, we are speaking very tenuously.

Are your ideas “contained in” your mind? Is your mind “contained in” your body? How is that possible, since when you think about your body, your body becomes “contained in” your mind and in your thought?

The problem is in attempting to use concrete, material, language when speaking of immaterial reality. “Contained in” has spatial connotations which are just not applicable when speaking of God.

It would be like asking “How exactly was God ‘contained in’ the body of Jesus?” We would need first to answer and completely understand “How exactly is mind ‘contained in’ a body?” before we could even begin to approach the question of God becoming a human being.

 

[rossum]

One other possibility would mean God is not in the set of existing things.

Then God is not an existing thing, but is a no-thing. How can something which does not exist cause a material effect like parting the sea for Moses? God Himself stated that He exists: “I AM”, where “AM” is a form of the verb ‘to be’ or ‘to exist’.

God isn’t in “the set of living things,” he is Life Itself.

Then God is not alive, despite what He says in the Psalms: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” You are reifying any adjective used of God, which denies God that property.

God ISN’T “a thing that exists,”

Then God is a no-thing that does not exist. Very Zen, but I doubt if many Christians will agree with you that God does not exist.

 

[AlNg]

The problem is in attempting to use concrete, material, language when speaking of immaterial reality. “Contained in” has spatial connotations which are just not applicable when speaking of God.

It would be like asking “How exactly was God ‘contained in’ the body of Jesus?” We would need first to answer and completely understand “How exactly is mind ‘contained in’ a body?” before we could even begin to approach the question of God becoming a human being.

Is the Eucharist God? Yes or No.

 

[Wesrock]

God is Subsistent Being. Everything else only has being derivatively, only participates it. God is not on the same level of existing as everything else. He transcends it.

Anyway. The KCA isn’t meant to start by assuming God in “all that exists” (ATE, as rossum puts it). It clearly is meant to work from physical, observable reality and demonstrate that it can’t be ATE, that there must be something that exists eternally and necessarily that is “first”.

 

[Gorgias]

how can we concluded that space and matter have a beginning too by use argument aganist infinite past

Time only exists in the context of the material universe. It’s a fundamental feature of it. If time is finite, so must be space (and therefore, the universe).

Aquinas, for example, has no care (in his arguments) about whether there was a start to the universe.

Well… I think it’s more like “Aquinas didn’t want to throw out Aristotelian philosophy, which he’d have had to do if he crossed Aristotle’s notion of an uncreated cosmos.” Therefore, he left the question open.

Philosophically we can define the universe as “All that exists”.

You’ve raised this point in other threads, and I still don’t think that’s a valid construct. It doesn’t really get us anywhere, does it? (In any case, I wouldn’t say that “God exists”; I would say that “God is existence itself,” which would exclude Him from your “ATE Universe”.

God is not contained in the material universe, certainly. He is contained in the ATE universe since He exists.
God is contained in a lot of sets: the set of living things, the set of loving things, the set of omnipotent things etc.

God isn’t “contained” by anything. At best, we could say that He supercedes all sets.

Any property of God puts Him in the set of things with that property.

God doesn’t have properties, per se. He is simple, not composite. If he had ‘properties’, then He’d be composite.

God is infinite, hence God alone is the same size as God plus any finite number of entities.

When we talk about God being ‘infinite’, we’re not talking about Him having the physical property of ‘size’. That would be a category error.