User:Efiiamagus/Kalam cosmological argument (test)

The Kalām cosmological argument is a variation of the cosmological argument that argues for the existence of a personal First Cause for the universe. Its origins can be traced to medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers, but most directly to Islamic theologians of the Kalām tradition. Throughout history there have been many proponents of the argument: John Philoponus, Al-Kindi, Saadia Gaon, Al-Ghazali, and St. Bonaventure. Its most vocal contemporary proponent is William Lane Craig.

=Historical background=

The Kalām argument was named after the Kalām tradition of Islamic discursive philosophy through which it was first formulated. In Arabic, the word Kalām means "words, discussion, discourse."

The cosmological argument was first introduced by Aristotle and later refined in western Europe by the christian theologian, Thomas Aquinas. In the Islamic tradition, it was adopted by Al-Ghazali, Al-Kindi, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) Another form of this argument is based on the concept of a prime-mover (This is the Aristotelian form of the argument also propounded by Averroes). The premise is that: every motion must be caused by another motion, and the earlier motion must in turn be a result of another motion and so on. The conclusion thus follows that there must be an initial prime-mover, a mover that could cause motion without any other mover. One of the earliest formations of the Kalām argument comes from Al-Ghazali, who wrote, "Every being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a being which begins; therefore, it possesses a cause for its beginning."

Two kinds of Islamic perspectives maybe considered with regard to the cosmological argument. An positive Aristotelian response strongly supporting the argument and a negative response which is quite critical of it. Among the Aristotelian thinkers are Al-Kindi, and Averroes. Al-Ghazzali and Muhammad Iqbal maybe seen as being in opposition to this sort of an argument.

In 1979, William Lane Craig published The Kalām Cosmological Argument. Since then, he has elaborated and defended the argument in various debates, articles, and books including his contributions in Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (1993), in which he debates Quentin Smith, and The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2009), in which he provides an analytic rearticulation of the argument along with James D. Sinclair.

The argument has several forms, the basic first-cause argument runs as follows:

=The argument=

Classical argument
The Kalam Cosmological Argument


 * 1) (1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
 * 2) (2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.

Therefore:
 * 1) (3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
 * 2) (4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.

Therefore:
 * 1) (5) God exists.

Discussion
Every event must have a cause, and each cause must in turn have its own cause, and so forth. Hence, there must either be an infinite regress of causes or there must be a starting point or first cause. Al-Kindi (as Aristotele) reject the notion of an infinite regress and insist that there must be a first cause, and the first cause must be God, the only uncaused being.

Another form of this argument is based on the concept of a prime-mover (This is the Aristotelian form of the argument also propounded by Averroes). The premise is that: every motion must be caused by another motion, and the earlier motion must in turn be a result of another motion and so on. The conclusion thus follows that there must be an initial prime-mover, a mover that could cause motion without any other mover.

Two kinds of Islamic perspectives maybe considered with regard to the cosmological argument. An positive Aristotelian response strongly supporting the argument and a negative response which is quite critical of it. Among the Aristotelian thinkers are Al-Kindi, and Averroes. Al-Ghazzali and Iqbal maybe seen as being in opposition to this sort of an argument.

Al-Kindi is one of the many major and first Islamic philosophers who attempt to introduce an argument for the existence of God based upon purely empirical premises. In fact, his chief contribution is the cosmological argument (dalil al-huduth) for the existence of God, in his On First Philosophy.

He presents four different versions of this argument, all are variation of the cosmological argument which require a cause.

The first argument revolves around the principle of determination (tarjjih), that is prior to the existence of the universe it was equally likely for it to exist or not to exist. The fact that it exists, implies that it required a determining principle which would cause its existence to prevail over non-existence. This principle of determination is God.

This is similar to Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason  Leibniz argues that everything in the world is contingent that it may or may not have existed. Something will not exist unless there is a reason for its existence. This rests on his premise that the actual world is the best possible world, as such we can account for everything in it as being there for a specific reason. But the universe as a whole, requires a further reason for existence, and that reason for Liebniz is God.

A second argument of his draws its inspiration from Islamic and Aristotelian sciences. He argues that only God is indivisible, and everything other than God is in some way composite or multiple. Kindi describes his concept of God, He has no matter, no form, no quantity, no quality, no relation; nor is He qualified by any of the remaining categories (al-maqulat). He has no genus, no differentia, no species, no proprium, no accident. He is immutable… He is, therefore, absolute oneness, nothing but oneness (wahdah). Everything else must be multiple.

This for Kindi was a crucial distinction upon which he rested some of his main arguments for God’s existence. In Kindi’s theory only God’s oneness is necessary whereas that of all others is contingent upon God. Hence all other beings single or multiple must emanate from the ultimate essential being. In addition this first being must be uncaused, since it is the cause of everything else.

The material world cannot exist ad infinitum because of the impossibility of an actual infinite (a concept borrowed from Aristotle). The material world can also not be "eo ipso" eternal, because of the impossibility of an infinite duration of time, since the existence of time is contingent upon the existence of bodies and motion, which have been shown to be finite. As such the world requires a creator, or rather a generator (mudhith) in Kindi’s scheme, who could generate the world ex nihilo.

The third and fourth arguments he presents are similar versions of the first cause argument, and hence are subject to the same criticisms that apply to any cosmological argument. These criticisms come not only from western scholars but also Islamic ones. Al-Ghazzali is unconvinced by the first-cause arguments of Kindi. In response to them he writes: "According to the hypothesis under consideration, it has been established that all the beings in the world have a cause. Now, let the cause itself have a cause, and the cause of the cause have yet another cause, and so on ad infinitum.  It does not behoove you to say that an infinite regress of causes is impossible."

Ghazzali thought that it is at least theoretically possible for there to be an infinite regress, and that there is nothing that necessitates a first-cause simply by pure deductive reason. He thus undermines one of the essential premises of the first-cause argument.

Al-Kindi’s argument has been taken up by some contemporary western philosophers and dubbed the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Among its chief proponents today is Dr. William Craig. It proposes to show (contrary to what Ghazzali thought) that the universe must have necessarily had a beginning. A contrast is drawn between two concepts, the “potential infinite” and an “actual infinite.”

Craig's proposal is as follows:

Contemporary argument
William Lane Craig has formulated the argument as follows:


 * 1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
 * 2) The universe began to exist.
 * 3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Then follow with two sub-sets of arguments.

The first sub-set of arguments:

Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

The second sub-set of arguments:
 * 1) An actual infinite cannot exist.
 * 2) An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
 * 3) Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition:


 * 1) A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite.
 * 2) The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
 * 3) Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

Discussion
Craig argues that the first premise is supported most strongly by intuition, but also by experience. He asserts that it is "intuitively obvious," based on the "metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing," and doubts that anyone could sincerely deny it. Additionally, he claims it is affirmed by interaction with the physical world. If it were false, he states, it would be impossible to explain why things do not pop into existence uncaused.

The second premise is often supported by philosophical arguments and scientific verification for the finitude of the past. Craig claims that the number of past events cannot be infinite, meaning that the universe must be finite and therefore must have begun to exist. He also cites the Big Bang theory as evidence for the second premise. Craig interprets the Big Bang as the temporal beginning of the universe, and discounts the Cyclic model, vacuum fluctuation models, and the Hartle-Hawking state model which suggest otherwise.

The argument concludes, often through a process of elimination, that the cause of the universe must be a personal, uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, enormously powerful, and enormously intelligent being, which is God.

=Objections and criticism= The argument has been widely criticized. by such philosophers as J. L. Mackie, Graham Oppy, and Quentin Smith, and physicists Paul Davies and Victor Stenger.

Stenger has argued that quantum mechanics disconfirms the first premise of the argument, that is, that something can not come into being from nothing. He postulates that such naturally occurring quantum events are exceptions to this premise, like the Casimir effect and radioactive decay.

Craig has responded that the examples that employ quantum mechanical principles are not counterexamples to the first premise, because these events happen within the context of the already existing quantum vacuum. "[These] particles do not come into being out of nothing. They arise as spontaneous fluctuations of the energy contained in the sub-atomic vacuum. Popular magazine articles touting such theories as getting 'something from nothing' simply do not understand that the vacuum is not nothing but is a sea of fluctuating energy endowed with a rich structure and subject to physical laws."

There are difficulties with this kind of an account of the universe. It seems to lead to the conclusion that all truths are necessary. That is, if everything exists because the reasons for its existence supercede the reasons for it non-existence, then it will necessarily exist. Everything and anything with a sufficient reason to exist will exist.

Therefore, the universe and everything in it, must necessarily exist. Since, the superiority of its potential existence over its non-existence provides the required determining principle (of Kindi) or sufficient reason (of Liebniz), for it to exist. It appears now that the bringing into being of the universe is not contingent upon the will of God, rather it is something that is as necessary as the existence of God Himself. This seems implausible. In response Liebniz argues that its existence is only theoretically necessary and God may or may not implement it. However, if God is all good, He would clearly be obliged to bring into being the best possible world.

Ghazzali thought that it is at least theoretically possible for there to be an infinite regress, and that there is nothing that necessitates a first-cause simply by pure deductive reason. He thus undermines one of the essential premises of the first-cause argument.

Muhammad Iqbal also rejects the argument stating, “Logically speaking, then, the movement from the finite to the infinite as embodied in the cosmological argument is quite illegitimate; and the argument fails in toto.”  For Iqbal the concept of the first uncaused cause is absurd, he continues: It is, however, obvious that a finite effect can give only a finite cause, or at most an infinite series of such causes. To finish the series at a certain point, and to elevate one member of the series to the dignity of an un-caused first cause, is to set at naught the very law of causation on which the whole argument proceeds.

It is for these reasons that modern philosophers almost unanimously reject the cosmological argument as a legitimate proof for the existence of God. Kant for example also rejects any cosmological proof on the grounds that it is nothing more than an ontological proof in disguise. He argued that any necessary object’s essence must involve existence, hence reason alone can define such a being, and the argument becomes quite similar to the ontological one in form, devoid of any empirical premises.

=Notes=

=See also=
 * Antinomy
 * Natural theology
 * B-Theory of time

=References=