Kalam

Who am I?
History – Medieval theologians
Valid and Sound Arguments
Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover
Thomas Aquinas's Five Proofs
Anselm of Canterbury - Ontological Proof
Fine Tuning
Kalam Cosmological Proof

Religious (Christian) response to secularism and
other religions
Presents a rational (rather than emotional) basis
for the Christian faith
Gained traction after Enlightenment - appeal to
intellect and reason
Intricate logical proofs for god’s existence.
Sophistry using the vernacular of logic, complex
jargon
Bible, Greek Philosophy, and other Theologists’
writings used as premises for proof of God
They originated most of the proofs we hear today

Historical evidence
God as source of objective Morality
Argument from meaning (life has no meaning without
god)
Consciousness comes from god
God as basis for science and the natural laws
Personal testimony, experience, and revelation
Argument from Improbability – The information in DNA
Descartes’ (and other) ontological arguments
Irreducible complexity of life
Resurrection story
Fulfillment of biblical prophecies
Pascal’s Wager
…etc.

Stephen Colbert
Like all great theologies, Bill's can be boiled down
to one sentence:
There must be a god, ...
because I don't know how things work.

Scholastic Theological Philosophy (Scholasticism)
1100 to 1500 Medieval universities and monasteries
Rediscovered Aristotle and Plato during middle ages
New translations of the classic Greek became available
Logic, analysis, and vigorous debate were powerful tools,
used enthusiastically on every line of the bible
Used ideas and techniques of the Greek philosophers to
solve theological questions and doctrine.

Dominant Christian theological and philosophical school
of the Middle Ages
Based on the authority of the Latin Fathers and of Aristotle
Focus on articulating and defending church dogma using
logic, reason, reference to other scholastic writings.
Rigid, formalistic, dogmatic, biblical premises.
Think: Monks in robes, arguing about how many angels can
sit on the point of a needle

Occam's Razor - The simplest explanation that accounts for
the facts is usually right.
Introduced dialectic method and rationality to Europe, only
source of intellectual activities.
Roger Bacon - scientific method and inductive reasoning.
Reintroduction of Greek literature and philosophy.
Continued the tradition of academic study and learning
through the middle ages.
Universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, Bologna).
Beginnings of empiricism and western analytical thought.
Great art and architectural projects.
Some theologians were actually moderate (Augustine).

Is there excrement in Paradise?
Does the hair and nails will grow following the
resurrection?
Will the resurrection of souls take place at night?
Is bigamy removed by being baptized?
Do people have sex in heaven?
Do angels know more in the morning or evening?
Can several angels be in the same place at once?
Can an angel go from place to place without passing
between those two places?
Can the limbo of hell be the same as “Abraham’s
bosom”?
…and other (to modern sensibilities) silly topics.
Many other apocryphal stories attributed to them, as well.

• Hell is where the damned are placed.

• Bible says the damned are separated from God and cannot see him.
• Limbo (where un-baptized dead children go) is in Hell on its “edge”.
• Augustine says God can be seen from Abraham’s Bosom (where
the old testament patriarchs and righteous dead go).
• Therefore Limbo is not the same as Abraham’s bosom!

Hell (cannot see God)

Can see God

Limbo

Abraham’s
Bosom

Atheist/Creations debates in the “Born Again” 70’s
caught science proponents off guard.
Apologists have been doing this for 900 years.
Ignoring, scorning, or ridiculing religious arguments
do not constitute a rebuttal.
Even though these arguments are only of marginal
interest, if unchallenged, apologists claim new
territory and advance their agenda.
Strong naturalistic arguments give focus to atheist
movement
Provide on-the-fence theists something to think
about – slow but steady de-conversion process.
Because they’re wrong and someone needs to tell
them!

Circular reasoning in which premises assume the conclusion
(God is a necessary being because he is God).
Ambiguous and confusing premises ("necessary being",
"perfectly just", "all possible worlds", "greatest possible being",
etc)
Arguments sometimes valid, but not sound (more on this later)
Untrue premises: verses from bible, writings by Aristotle and
Augustine taken as self-evident and true.
Deduction is of limited value in proving God's existence, which is
really an empirical question.
Need to find evidence through experimentation.
This is a metaphysical question – Disagreement in metaphysics is
pervasive and deep-rooted. No agreed on solution, regardless of
the Christian “proofs” to the contrary.

Pure logic applicable in highly controlled scenarios:
Deriving and proving mathematical theorems
Formal / symbolic / propositional logic
Engineering technologies such as software and circuit
design
Where conclusion is completely contained in the
premises
Premises are totally clear, unambiguous, and
universally agreed to.
Only in extremely constrained and "clean" scenarios.
Just a starting point when talking about the real world.
Must be followed up with evidence (burner on stove).

Logic doesn't reveal truths about the actual world.
It reveals consequences of axioms and premises.
From axioms, theorems can be derived.
Logic doesn't tell us which of the axioms are
actually true. For that you need to go into the real
world and observe/experiment.
When you find evidence of these axioms, you may
be able to apply previously worked-out logical
systems.
Helps point investigators towards fruitful areas to
study in the real world.

An argument is valid when its conclusion
logically follows from its premises (well formed).
It is impossible for the premises to be true and
the conclusion false.
An argument is sound when it is valid AND all of
the premises are true.
An invalid or unsound argument may still have a
true conclusion!

Socrates is a man (true)
All men are mortal (true)
Therefore, Socrates is
mortal (true)
Difficult to construct outside of
math, formal logic, engineering.
Frequently not for "fuzzy“ cases
where premises are poorly
defined and ambiguous.

All animals with wings can fly (not true)
Penguins have wings
(true)
Therefore, penguins
can fly (not true)

All toothpicks are made of metal
(false)
All metal objects are toasters
(false)
Therefore, all toothpicks are toasters (false)
Has FALSE premises, but conclusion DOES FOLLOW from the premises

All mammals have backbones (true)
All creatures with backbones have three bones in each ear
(false)
Therefore, all mammals have three bones in each ear (true)
True conclusion, but not because of the argument. If an argument
is unsound, the conclusion may be either true or false
All Animals

All Animals
3 bones in ear
Backbones

Mammals

3 bones
in ear

Back
bones

Mammals

Metaphysics – book (identity, non-contradiction,
excluded middle, etc)
“Unmoved mover” is "perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and
contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating“
"There must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible
for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world“
Tried to solve the problem of who keeps the
concentric spheres of heaven in movement.
Each sphere required an unmoved mover, but
he thought there must be one Primary
unmoved mover.
This argument served as model and
inspiration for future scholastic
theologians and apologists.

Several false premises:
Earth was the rotational center of the universe
(incorrect cosmology)
Stars are embedded in fixed spheres made of
aether
Must show how the 47
to 55 spheres stay in
motion
Rest is the natural state.
Motion has to be
maintained

Males have more teeth than females.
Heavier objects fall faster than lighter
objects.
Five elements in nature.
The brain is a cooling organ for blood.
Sun, stars, moon are embedded in
solid spheres of aether revolving around
Earth.
Mucus is brain fluid leaking out of
the nose.
The heart was the source of
sensation and movement.
Number of legs on a fly (actually he
is innocent on this item).

Benedictine monk.
Theologian/Philosopher around 1100
The "Ontological argument" (ontology is the study of being,
becoming, existence).
Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza,
Hegel and Godel had versions
of this also.
Attempts to show god to be
"logically necessary“ a priori.
(meaning through logic alone).
Got the ball rolling in the
modern era for proofs of god.

1. God is a being greater than any other being that can be
imagined or conceived.
2. The idea of God certainly exists in the mind.
3. A being which exists both in the mind AND exists in
reality is greater than a being that exists ONLY in the
mind.
4. If God ONLY exists in the mind, then we can conceive of
a greater being, a being which also exists in reality.
5. We cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
6. Therefore, God is that entity which exists both in the
mind and in reality.

Slippery and dangerous use of
logic to prove that fiction is reality.

A contemporary of Anselm.
Used the "overload objection" rebuttal
Does not disprove Anselm, but shows how the same logical form gives
unacceptable results.
1.
2.
3.

4.

The "Lost Island" is an island greater than any other island that can
be conceived, full of riches and beauty and joy.
It is greater to exist in reality than merely as an idea.
If the Lost Island does not exist,
one can conceive of an even
greater island - that is, an island
that does exist.
Therefore, the "Lost Island" exists
in reality.

What appears to be a valid and sound
argument can lead you to ridiculous
conclusions.

Immanuel Kant: 1724-1804 objection:
“Existence” is not a "predicate" (not a descriptor like
color, size, or weight). Not a property of an object.
"Existing" adds nothing (including perfection) to the
essence of a being, but merely indicates its occurrence in
reality.
Makes no sense to say: “there is a god and he exists” vs.
“there is a god and he does not exist”
It is conceivable for a perfect being to not exist in reality only conceptually (abstractly), like a perfect triangle.
A statement about existence is structurally identical
(syntactically) to a statement attributing qualities to a
thing. But it indicates a very different concept:
John is tall (yes)
John lives in Colorado (yes)
John is President of the United States (yes)
John exists (no)

Nothing can be proven to exist using only a priori
(purely logical) reasoning.
You could only prove God's existence if its opposite
(non-existence) generated a contradiction (which it
doesn't) .
With Anselm, non-existence of
a perfect being is just as viable
as its existence. Simply imagining
a perfect being doesn't cause
that being to exist.
Therefore, evidence is needed.

No contradiction:
You can't prove that there is NOBODY behind you by showing
that it is inconceivable that there is SOMEBODY behind you.
You obviously CAN imagine that there is SOMEBODY behind
you (their existence does not cause a contradiction).
The only way to prove that NOBODY is
behind you is through evidence
(TURN AROUND!!!!!)

A contradiction:
You are alone in a room.
The room has a single locked entrance.
Therefore, NOBODY else can get inside.
Therefore, there is NOBODY behind
you.

Concluding there is SOMEBODY behind you would
contradict the premises.

Dominican friar, Catholic theologian, and author.
"Summa Theologica“
Empirical proofs (based on observing the world) and
using propositional/deductive logic.
Began with a principle similar to
Occam's Razor to create a strawman
assertion that God doesn't exist:
"It is superfluous to suppose that
what can be accounted for by a
few principles has been produced
by many"

Responded to his own challenge
with five proofs of God's existence.
The "Five Ways" (Quinque Viae)

Borrowed and updated Aristotle's unmoved
mover, but now in support of the Christian god.
1. Some things are in motion (really "motion" refers
to change, not just movement)
2. A thing cannot initiate its own motion. It requires a
mover.
3. An infinite regress of movers is impossible.
4. Therefore, there is an "unmoved mover" from
whom all motion proceeds.
5. This mover is what we call God.

Necessarily goes back to the origin of the known universe
- the Big Bang. We don't understand how or why the Big
Bang happened, so EVERYONE is
ignorant on this point.
Big Bang is unique - it only happened
once (as far as we are know).
Cannot be compared to any other
similar event. We can't say anything
about whether it moved itself, or was
moved by some "outside" force (since
it occurred when there was no "inside“
or "outside“ or “before” or “after”).
Time and space began with the Big Bang. Prior to it no
time or space existed in which sequential causation (as we
understand it in the “macro world”) could have occurred.
Causation at this level is “incoherent”.

What moved the first mover?
If first mover is God, what moved (or caused) God?
Special Pleading: If god is "uncaused" and has always existed,
then why can we not also say this is true of the universe itself?
What does it even mean to talk of a being that “exists outside of
space and time”, as theists do of god? Like an abstract Platonic
object?
How can an entity outside of space and time affect things in
space and time?

If we grant that an "unmoved mover" got the universe going,
there is no guarantee that it is the god you worship!

Quantum physics - some natural phenomena do not have causes:
Radioactive decay spontaneously happens
Spontaneous creation of particles due to quantum fluctuation.
Apologists argue that these particles are not appearing out of "nothing“
(saying that the background energy fields are "something")
Causality only makes sense in our macro world. At the quantum level
(and near the big bang) causality is not a meaningful concept.

Prior to big bang: the singularity was infinitely small, dense, hot, and
curved. Space and time had not emerged and differentiated. Causality
(as we understand it) did not exist.
There is currently no human or mathematical language to conduct a
meaningful discussion
Relativity breaks down - key equations to stop making sense.
Quantum Theory – No theory of “Quantum Gravity” that might allow us
to know what happened at that moment.

Is an infinite regress of movers impossible? That has not been proven.
All we can say is that it makes us feel uncomfortable.
Infinity is always a little disturbing (has been since Zeno).
Mathematicians prior to Georg Cantor did not take infinity seriously,
considered it an aberration, a novelty, a messy abstraction.

1.
2.

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Some beings/events cause other beings/events (i.e., contingent
events which depend on some other being/event for their existence).
If an event happens, then it must be caused by something outside of
itself. Nothing can create itself, because it would exist before itself.
There can be no infinite cause/effect chains in the ordered causal
series.
So, there is a first, uncaused cause (a necessary being), that was
never created, but always existed.
If a first cause did not exist, there would be no second, third, etc…
cause, and we would not have a universe of “caused” things.
God is the name we give to this first necessary being.
Therefore God exists.

Same responses to “Unmoved Mover” apply here.
Why can God break the rules and require no cause?
Same quantum physics
issues. Causation doesn’t
make sense at that level.
No reason to assume
first cause is the
Christian god. The
"creator" might not care
about us, if he is there
at all.

A first cause is an incoherent concept. The relationship
we refer to as “prior to” and "causality" has not yet
emerged in the universe at the time of the Big Bang.
Presupposes a realm beyond the universe in which the
universe is a caused item of
that larger set. By our definition
of “universe”, this can’t be.
The question "What was there
before the Universe?" makes no
sense. Asking "what happened
before the big bang?" is like asking
"what is north of the north pole?“
Why does following a causal chain back in time always
arrive at the same very specific God?

No requirement that the universe have an
external cause or an explanation at all.
If a god “just is,” why can’t the universe “just be?”
Hume: "Why may not the material universe be the
necessarily existent being?" (Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion)
If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as
well be the world as God.
Bertrand Russell – “The universe is just there, and
that’s all”.
Humans may demand an explanation, but the universe
is not obliged to provide one. Can’t invent one to fill
the gap.

Assumes the conclusion - God can break the rules
because he is god, but the point was to prove god
exists.
There could be multiple first causes (polytheism).
No need for just one.
Error of Composition - what applies to the parts
may not apply to the whole. The universe is the set
of all things, different from the things in it:
Russell – “All men have a mother, therefore the human
race has a mother”
The pieces of a watch cannot tell time, therefore the
watch cannot tell time.
Atoms are colorless. Flowers are made of atoms, so
flowers are colorless.

David Hume – Mid 1700’s
Attacks the view of causation used in the argument (that
causation is an objective, necessary relation - a power that holds
between two things).
Our view of causation is learned habit. When events A and B
occur, we say that A causes B when the two always occur
together, when they are conjoined, and that A occurs before B.
We have no experience of universes being made and so cannot
discuss one’s cause intelligently.
Not possible to argue from causes within the universe to causes
of the universe as a whole.

Immanuel Kant – Mid to late 1700’s
Cosmological argument, in identifying a necessary being, relies on
the Ontological Argument, which has already been rebutted.
The idea of a ‘Necessary Being’ is meaningless.
Because our knowledge is limited to the world of space and time,
it is not possible to speculate about what may exist outside of
space and time.

1. Contingent things exist (the tossed coin). We find in nature
things that are possible “to be” and “not to be” (the coin
could have been tossed or not tossed).
2. Each contingent thing has a time at which it does not exist,
and a time at which they go out of existence.
3. If all things are capable of not existing at some time, then
there was a time when nothing existed.
4. If the world were empty at one time, it would be empty
forever, because that which does not exist only begins to
exist when generated by something else.
5. If everything were contingent, nothing would exist now.
6. But clearly, the world is not empty (from premise 1).
7. So there exists a thing (a being) who is not contingent, but is
“necessary” - uncaused by an external source.
8. That being is what we refer to as “God”.

If the universe does need an external cause, it’s a huge leap to say
that the only possible cause is a god. It could be a large number of
other currently not understood processes.
The explanation given for the existence of the universe is not just a
god, but the god of Christianity, which is also a giant leap into
speculation.
Even if our local universe did begin with the Big Bang, it is possible
that it has a physical cause within a multi-verse of which it is a part.
The larger multi-verse may extend
infinitely into the past, even if our
local experience of time began
with the Big Bang (multi-verse as an
idea already flows from other
cosmological theories).
The concept of a non-contingent
(necessary) being is a hypothesis that
has not been proved. Show us such a
thing and then we will have something
to discuss.

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its
existence (either in the necessity of its own nature
or in an external cause).
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence,
that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. The universe has an explanation of its existence.
(from 1 and 3)
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s
existence is God. (from 2 and 4)

#1 is doubtful, especially as applied to the collection of what
exists.
#2 is incorrect, as we can imagine a wide assortment of
possible explanations. If "universe“ means “all that exists”, it
isn't clear how there can even be an explanation. The
universe itself may be a “necessary being”.
No good explanations available:
Science does not currently provide us an answer to the question
of existence.
Religion, of course, doesn't either. “God did it" has
NO DESCRIPTIVE, EXPLANATORY, OR PREDICTIVE POWER!
As a theory, it is useless. It conveys almost no information.

Answers may not even be possible; a final explanation of
existence may be a logical impossibility, as there is nothing
outside existence that can explain it.

1. Objects throughout the universe have properties to greater
or lesser extents of perfection.
2. For us to evaluate ranking of properties, there must be an
ultimate standard of perfection against which to judge.
3. Without such a standard, all our value judgments are
meaningless and impossible
4. If an object has a property to a lesser extent, then there
exists some other object that has the property to the
maximum possible degree
which represents perfection
of that property.
5. So there exists an entity
that has all properties to the
maximum possible degree.
6. That entity is god.

Like Anselm's argument, simply because we can conceive of an object
with some property in a greater degree doesn't mean that such an
object exists.
There is no a priori requirement that some object has a property to
the maximum possible degree giving it ultimate perfection. It could
just have more of it than any other object (hottest star, for example).
Quickly descends into weird "modal logic" jargon: "necessarily
possible" "symmetric, reflexive, transitive relationships", etc, and
honestly, I got lost…
Relies on an obscure concept called "Axiom S5", which modern
logicians consider obsolete and incorrect:
If something is possible (possibly x)
then it can't be necessary for it to
be false (not necessarily not x)
If something is necessary
(necessarily x) then it can't be
possible for it to be false (not
possibly not x).
blah blah blah…

But it can also be possible that God is the
absolute perfection of evil.
If there are degrees of cruelty, then God must
be the cruelest being.
If there are degrees of
insanity, then God must be
the perfectly insane being.

Similar to Paley's "A watch implies a watchmaker"
Looks to the "end purpose" of things as proof
Design is obvious in nature, which implies a designer - God
Psalm 19:1-3
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim
the work of his hands”

All natural bodies in the world act towards ends.
These objects are in themselves unintelligent.
Acting towards an end is a
characteristic of intelligence.
Therefore, there exists an intelligent
being that guides all natural bodies
towards their ends.
This being is whom we call God.

Many objects have no obvious "purpose", they just "are" (rocks,
water, space, etc).
Design does not have to come from outside:
Snowflakes, molecules, sand dunes, geological formations,
crystals, social networks, ecosystems, economies, cities, etc.
have "emergent" properties that look like design.

Internal source of design
Spontaneous order
Emergent properties
Self organization
The only examples of designers we have are human beings.
We have not seen any super-human designer.

Life appears undesigned, haphazard, inefficient:
Random death and violence and inefficiencies in nature
Vertebrate eyes
Human appendix is a vestigial organ with no known purpose
Human female birth canal passes through the pelvis, making the
birth process difficult and dangerous.
Pharnyx is used both for breathing and eating, making choking a
real hazard.
... Etc.

In a designed universe, everything is designed, so how can
you pick out a watch as seeming to be specially designed?
Is the beach not designed?
Evolution explains the design of living creatures. No need
of an outside designer.

This theory makes no successful predictions, nor can it
explain bad design. It is useless as a theory.
Hume:
Philo argued that if nature contains a principle of order within it,
the need for a designer is removed.
This uses a faulty analogy with manmade objects (which are
designed). Unlike manmade objects, we have not witnessed the
design of a universe, so do not know whether the universe was
the result of design.

Polytheism:
If we found a watch and a bicycle and a beachball, are there three
creators of these objects?
The universe has millions of different kinds of things. Does each
have its own creator god?

Design argument is an “argument from incredulity“
We do not know how DNA, RNA, and other life systems
emerged, but saying god did it is not an explanation.
Other “incredible” things science has uncovered:
Copernicus: Heliocentrism
Darwin: Evolution
James Hutton/Charles Lyell: Geological age of earth
Ramachandran , Damasio, etc: Consciousness and the brain
Newton: White light is composed of a rainbow of light
Wegener: Plate tectonics
Einstein: Space is curved, Simultaneous events are not…
Light is both a wave and a particle

Voltaire: Even if the argument from design was correct, it would
not prove that this designer is God.
Fred Hoyle (Cosmologist): Abiogenesis - Tornado in a junkyard
Dawkins: Intelligent designer must be more complex and
difficult to explain than what it designs (“Ultimate 747 gambit”).
Who designed the designer?
Complexity does not imply
design (some simple things
are designed, and some
complex things are not)
Darwin: “design” is the result of
a natural and random process

Constants in physics (about 25) are precisely set to support life
that the universe could only have been created by God.
There cannot be accidental. Therefore a personal god designed
the universe so that humans could come into existence.
Gravitational constant
Ratio of weak / strong nuclear forces
Ratio of electron / proton mass
Energy density of empty space
(cosmological constant)
Fine-structure constant: α
Planck’s constant
Speed of light
“nuclear efficiency,” Є

If these differed much, organic
chemistry would not be possible.

1. The combination of physical constants that we observe in our
universe is the only one capable of sustaining life as we know it.
2. Other combinations of physical constants are conceivable.
3. Some explanation is needed why our actual combination of
physical constants exists rather than a different one.
4. The best explanation is that our universe was created out of
nothing by a single being who is omnipotent, omniscient, allloving, eternal, and interested in sentient organic systems, and
that he "fine-tuned" those constants in a way which would lead
to the evolution of such systems.
5. Such a being as described in (4) is what people mean by "God."
6. Hence, from (4) & (5), there is good evidence that God exists.

1974: Astronomer Brandon Carter formulated it: Anthropic
(pro-human life) coincidences are part of the universe's very
structure:
Weak anthropic principle:
If our universe weren't hospitable to life, then we wouldn't be
here to wonder about it. As such, there's no sense in asking why.
The physical properties of the universe are propitious for life
somewhere within it, at some time.

Strong anthropic principle:
The Universe and laws of physics and constants must be such as
to allow the creation of observers within it at some stage. Among
all the possible universes that could exist, only a special few have
the right conditions that could give rise to complex chemistry,
stars, galaxies, planets, and finally, intelligent life.

Why is an explanation required?
Theists "demand" an explanation, but it is not
"owed" to them.
Science continues to peel back the onion, finding
more fundamental descriptions.
This is how we learn, not by
positing a god to explain
what we don't currently
understand.

Why these constants?
No one (including theists) knows why the constants of
physics have the values that they possess.
There may be no alternative to these values, or if there
is an alternative, it is within a very narrow band.
The constants may depend on some undiscovered
variable. The number of independent variables keeps
shrinking
You can't say how likely something is or isn't from a
sample size of one. We can't point to other universes to
use as a basis of comparison.
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: physicist Victor Stenger

Existence of life proves nothing about Christian God.
Could be a devil, or aliens, or other gods, or a simulation?

Fine tuning of the physical constants is baffling.
This mystery should help focus scientific research.
This is an empirical question that needs research, not
theological philosophizing.
Don’t lay the question at a god's feet.

Why did god wait 14.7 billion years to create life?
Ratio of livable area to entire universe = one water
molecule in 6 million Olympic swimming pools.
Are the pools fine tuned for storing water?
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000073% habitable
Google “cdk007 fine tuning”

Possibly a multiverse with many different universes, each
with different values for constants. We live in a universe
that self-selects for intelligent life, but others would not.
Multiverse is not just a response to fine tuning - it results
from other cosmological
theories and string theory.
Universe is excessively
large. No need for
hundreds of billions of
galaxies. One would be
enough. No special plan
for us.

The universe is not fine tuned for life. Life is fine tuned
for the universe. In a universe with different constants,
a different sort of life may have formed.
The universe we live in is what we would expect from
natural laws, not divine (haphazard, dangerous,
sparsely populated, ambigous and shabby "instruction
manual“).
Religion has never taught us anything about the
structure of the universe. Everything we know comes
from science. Given its amazing track record, it makes
sense to continue to look to it for new insight.

Kalam Islamic tradition, revived by William Lane Craig
Everything that begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe (space, matter, and time) has a cause
As the cause of space and time, this cause must be an uncaused,
changeless, timeless, and immaterial being which created the
universe. Moreover, it must also be personal.

+

=

Valid, but unsound argument (some premises are wrong).
No evidence that whatever begins to exist has a cause. All
"new things" are not new, but just rearrangements of
atoms. They already existed in a different material form.
We have very little experience with creation of new
material from nothing, and when it does happen, we have
no reason to believe that is it causal in the same way
(quantum fluctuations). The closest examples we have of
"creation ex nihilo" are acausal.
Causality cannot be applied to the universe (the collection
of all things and phenomena) as to the things inside it.
There is nothing "outside" the universe to cause it (that we
know of).

We don't know how the universe began, but that doesn't
mean god can step in to fill the gap.
The universe "began to exist" at most one time (as far as
we know). We cannot make a general rule about how
universes are created from a sample of one. We do not
know the causal process.
Cannot make observations within a system to make rules
that govern the overall system itself (Composition Error)
All men have a mother, therefore the human race has a mother.

"Abstract" entities may come into existence (i.e., the design
for an invention, kindness, the color red, etc), but those are
a very different type of existence than that of actual
objectively real objects (debatable…Problem of Universals).

An “actual infinite” cannot exist.
An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.
A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual
infinite (because you can alway add one more to it).
The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by
successive addition.
Therefore, the temporal series of
past events cannot be actually
infinite.
Therefore, the universe had a
beginning.

Cosmologist are not arguing for an infinitely old universe
anyway. It is one possiblity, though.

Our universe "began" with the big bang, but any discussion
of "before" that is meaningless. “Before” didn’t exist.
There may have been a multiverse that gave birth to our
universe, but it didn't share our time or space.

Although infinitely extended times and objects may make us
uncomfortable, that does not make them impossible.
Singularity in a black hole is infinitely dense
Unclear if universe is finite or infinite in size (cannot observe
more than 13.7 billion light years)

Paradoxes involving infinity go back to Zeno (Achilles and the
Tortoise). Highlights limits and boundary conditions of the
logical process that we use to
think about a problem.
Craig is not a mathematician.
He has credibility on this.
Even different mathematicians
think about it differently
(Platonists, Logicists,
Constructivist, Formalists, etc).

We must discover what the universe is actually doing. If it seems
to offend our sense of what is and is not possible…
So much the worse for our preconceptions!!!
We just cannot make informed statements about how the
universe is organized using logic aided by theology. These taught
us:
Earth is the center of the universe. The sun, moon, and stars seems to
revolve around us, so why not?
Disease is caused by demon possession.
Storms and earthquakes are evidence of an angry god.
Wars are won or lost based on a deity's preference for one side.
Comets are signs from heaven.
People of other religions should be conquered or destroyed.
Heaven is a solid surface with stars embedded in it (the “firmament”).
…etc

These arguments are centuries old and are only used by
Christian apologists. The rest of the world has moved on.
Scholastic (pedantic) approach to these theological problems is
obsolete and no longer used (except by apologists).
Based on premises that have not, or cannot, be experimentally
verified, and are confusing, fuzzy, and unclear.
A priori arguments can't be used to prove existence (Hume)
If we don't know how the universe works, we should not
introduce a "god of the gaps".
Deductive proofs are interesting challenges, but their
conclusions need to be backed up with empirical evidence.

Use deduction and a priori proofs to help form a hypothesis (i.e.,
“god exists”).
But that must be treated as an empirical claim!!!
To determine his existence will be an empirical exercise, as it is
for all other knowledge we have of the world (Sean Carroll).
Logical arguments do not reveal new truths, but just
consequences of the relationships of the premises.
Deduced conclusions are just restatements and repackaging of
the content contained in the premises.
Unclear and confusing terminology just muddies the waters
("existence", "omnipotent", "all knowing", "perfect", "supremely
moral", "all possible worlds", "necessarily necessary", "logically
possible worlds", “necessarily possible”, etc).

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our
intelligence by means of our language" - Wittgenstein
"Most of the propositions and questions to be found in
philosophical <and theological> works are not false, but
nonsensical.“ - Wittgenstein
"Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence" - Joseph Wood
Krutch
"Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice" - Elbert
Hubbard
"The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of
logicians, and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and
worse" - H. L. Mencken
"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments
for going on believing as we already do." - James Harvey
Robinson

"Scientific faith vs. Religious faith"
http://scirelfaith.blogspot.com
"Conceptions of God“
http://conceptionsofgod.blogspot.com
"Anti-Christian 101“
http://antichristian101.blogspot.com

Robert Price – theologian and biblical critic
Richard Dawkins - zoologist, atheist, author
Carl Sagan – astronomer and science communicator
John Loftus - former student of Craig, now vocal apostate
Richard Carrier- blogger, historian, and biblical critic
Lawrence Krauss – physicist, author
Victor Stenger - physicist, atheist, speaker
Daniel Dennett – philosopher
Sean Carroll - physicist, cosmologist, atheist
Sam Harris – author and neuroscientist
Matthew Ferguson - blogger and classical historian
Keith Augustine – blogger

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