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Physicist David Snoke thinks that Christians should not use the kalaam argument for God’s existence

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The kalaam argument:

The Cosmological Argument or First Cause Argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of God which explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the variants of the argument which has been especially useful in defending the philosophical position of theistic worldviews. The word “kalam” is Arabic for “speaking” but more generally the word can be interpreted as “theological philosophy.” (All About Philosophy)

David Snoke, president of Christian Scientific Society, co-authored a paper with Michael Behe (2004).

From his article, “Why Christians should not use the Kalaam argument,”

The Kalaam argument is essentially as follows, although there are many nuanced variations of it. First, the argument is made that there cannot be any real infinity in the universe (real in the sense of physically obtained and occurring). It therefore follows that time cannot be infinite in the backward direction, since there are no real infinities. One therefore must have an initial starting point to time. But because something cannot come from nothing, that starting point must have some sufficient cause outside itself. That starting point, or sufficient cause, must be something outside of time, which can be identified with God.

My main problem with this argument is its starting point, in rejecting the idea of any real infinity. It may very well be that the universe has a definite starting point in time, which we can identify as the Big Bang. But in modern physics and mathematics, there is nothing inconceivable or illogical about the idea of an infinitely old universe. If we reject that, it is because of the data and observations, not because it is a logical impossibility. More.

See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

Comments
@DaveS, your #71 'EricMH, No, not according to virtually everyone who writes on the subject of an infinite past, as I stated above. Here’s an analogy: The real number line has infinite length, but there are no real numbers infinitely far from zero.' Is it not the case that any similitude, any comparison, any commonality between finite time and infinite time amounts to a category error. Rather like comparing something and nothing. Well with his nothing, filled with quantum foam, Dawkins might not see it that way, but then he believes, not only in a blind watchmaker, insane as that is, but a blind universe-maker - de facto with the infinite omniscience and omnipotence of the Christian God.Axel
November 24, 2017
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KF, Hope everything's ok. Looks way too close for comfort at the moment.daveS
September 5, 2017
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OT: KF, I hope Irma keeps her distance these next few days.daveS
September 4, 2017
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DS, that is the problem, then. KFkairosfocus
September 3, 2017
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PS: I don't want to sidetrack us, but I'm sure if I stated that each snooker ball carried an electric charge (of some uniform amount), you would be able to calculate an approximation of the electric field (reasonably far away, where the field is close to perpendicular to the line) induced by the ensemble. Therefore the picture of the infinite line of balls is coherent enough to allow physics calculations to be performed.daveS
September 3, 2017
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KF, I still don't see anything absurd, or even very strange about a collection of physical objects being in one-to-one correspondence with a proper subcollection of itself. Now, if one could show explicitly that it leads to a contradiction, that would be a different story, but I suspect that's not possible.daveS
September 3, 2017
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DS, did you see what I already said on the subject? Put a mirror half way between two of the balls. Virtual half-universe will match LHS and RHS. Nothing so far, but also, by implication of the endlessness to the two sides, the balls on the RHS -- a half split imposed physically -- will ALSO be in one to one correspondence with the whole set on both sides. This also obtains for those on LHS. Not, by transforming one set into another like 1, 2, 3 . . . --> x 2 --> 2, 4, 6 . . . etc, but by matching physical items. This result is fully as absurd as a Hilbert Hotel result. KFkairosfocus
September 3, 2017
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KF,
PS: A truly empty space seems to be impossible, space itself is populated by all sorts of things starting with virtual particles. Then we get to dark energy and cosmological expansion etc. PPS: I suspect your line would exhibit butterfly effect joined to uncertainties of location and would be inherently unstable.
I think this all depends on whether we assume physics to be similar to what we have in this universe. In any case, is it mathematically or logically impossible for that array of snooker balls to exist?daveS
August 31, 2017
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DS, we do observe means by which finite steps of time follow in succession, through causally linked dynamic processes with associated rates as a rule. That is a non-problem. The relevant one is that there is an inherent limit to such succession, it has no way to traverse the required transfinite span were there an actual transfinitely remote time r, that has been succeeded stepwise to now, think in terms of a clock that ticks off seconds much as the old Quartz clocks did until they started to get sweep second hands. This is the context in which we are only warranted to discuss finitely remote past times. KF PS: A truly empty space seems to be impossible, space itself is populated by all sorts of things starting with virtual particles. Then we get to dark energy and cosmological expansion etc. PPS: I suspect your line would exhibit butterfly effect joined to uncertainties of location and would be inherently unstable. And gravitational effects seem coupled to the existence of mass in effect warping space.kairosfocus
August 31, 2017
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KF,
DS, without a means for time to successfully traverse a transfinite span, there is no basis for discussing a hypothetical infinite past.
Even if you asked me to describe a means to traverse an interval of one minute in time, I couldn't say much other than "welp, it happened". But I don't see either of us coming up with new arguments, and I sense that neither of us is inclined to budge an inch on this question, so I won't add any more on the issue of time until there are further developments. Do you at this point believe that God could not create a universe totally empty except for an infinite line of snooker balls? I believe that would be at equilibrium gravitationally assuming all the balls are spaced uniformly, although it wouldn't be a stable equilibrium I guess. In any case, according to my understanding of physics, it would exist for some positive amount of time before any potential collapse (assuming this hypothetical universe did have gravity).daveS
August 31, 2017
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DS, without a means for time to successfully traverse a transfinite span, there is no basis for discussing a hypothetical infinite past. remember, that past would have to be made up of moments which were once the actual present then were succeeded by causally linked next moments, and so forth down to now. No means for time to span the transfinite and no grounds for suggesting a transfinite past temporal order. No basis for there being some remote past time r that (regardless of onward previous times) was such that it is transfinitely remote from now. Thus, time credibly had a beginning and that needs to be explained on necessary being given the logic of being and the absence of causal capacity for utter non-being, given that there is a temporal world. KFkairosfocus
August 31, 2017
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KF, I have to agree with much of this, but $20 says you can anticipate what my response would be.daveS
August 30, 2017
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DS, observe how time proceeds, stage by stage from now to the emerging now by a causally linked process. For argument, think in seconds or the like. Watch a clock, observe the cumulative, stage by stage causal process. Ponder the past week. Satisfy yourself that we experience a now always on the way to the next now, with the past having once been now. For example, for me, two July 18ths are now forever linked to step changes in my life: 1995 and 2017. That specifies a dynamic of stepwise succession that we have seen will inherently always span only a finite traverse from any given now on, regardless of what was before that now. It also means the actual past must once have been the now, succeeded by the same causally driven transition process. In that context we simply have no means to have spanned a transfinite succession, in a context that the real temporal past must once have been the present. We can only be warranted to speak of a finitely remote past. KFkairosfocus
August 30, 2017
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KF, Starting with the last question:
And BTW, have you any basis for thinking this ever beyond any n is true, any empirical observation, or is that just a bare hypothetical, speculative suggestion?
If I understand correctly, it is indeed a bare hypothetical. I am not interested here in whether there actually is evidence for an infinite past, but whether we can show it to be impossible in some sense. Perhaps I will just leave the issue of P4 vs P5 as a FFT, or a rhetorical question. If there is no problem with the derivation of P4 above, why must we use P5, which is clearly different?daveS
August 30, 2017
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KF @280: In his book Dr. Gitt talks about: Chronos: time of man Kairos: God's time Here's a PDF copy of the paper: http://bitimage.dyndns.org/english/WernerGitt/Time_And_Eternity_2001.pdfDionisio
August 30, 2017
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@281 error correction It should read 'before WW2' in lieu of 'between WW2'.Dionisio
August 30, 2017
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KF, The presentation seems like a summary of his own book referenced @273. Werner Gitt was born a couple of years between WW2 started in Gdansk. His birthplace was part of East Prussia but now is in Kaliningrad near the border between Lithuania and Poland.Dionisio
August 30, 2017
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Dionisio, understood. Care to give us a paraphrase or summary or money-shot quote in translation? KFkairosfocus
August 29, 2017
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KF @276: Oops! Sorry, my mistake. I'll try better next time.Dionisio
August 29, 2017
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DS, I think the issue has to do with the nature of temporal succession and the resulting causal succession from one stage to the next. If a time r is in the actual past, necessarily, it was once the present and gave rise to r+1 through causal succession, retreating into the past, and r is now under a stack of other past stages where now is the top of the stack. As a result, no actual past time r can be that was not once the present. If r is infinitely remote, it has to have been once the present and is now -- through stage by stage causally linked succession -- transfinitely remote. But, the transfinite cannot be successfully traversed in finite stage steps. That is the real heart of the matter. If we do not have a means by which past times r can recede to transfinite remove from us, stage by stage then it follows that there was no transfinitely removed past, no infinitely past time. That need for actually once having been the present and then being causally succeeded in finite stages to now is what is being obscured by talk of no matter how high an n you can name, there was something beyond it -- boiling down to every specific value we can identify is finite but we posit an unlimited onward extension beyond any such value. That is just what is at stake as there is a physical mechanism that must be satisfied for time to move forward stage by stage. And BTW, have you any basis for thinking this ever beyond any n is true, any empirical observation, or is that just a bare hypothetical, speculative suggestion? I have instead spoken of how time proceeds in a causal, forward direction, stage by stage and what that then points to. KFkairosfocus
August 29, 2017
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Dionisio and KF, Since this issue has been raised again, I'll try and respond as clearly as I can. Consider the following propositions. I'll frame them in terms of "stages" in a causal chain, as we did before:
P1: The past is finite iff there exists some positive integer n such that all events in our universe occurred fewer than n stages ago. P2: The past is infinite iff the past is not finite. P3: The past is infinite iff there does not exist a positive integer n such that all events in our universe occured fewer than n stages ago. P4: The past is infinite iff, given any positive integer n, there exists some event in our universe which occurred more than n stages ago.
I take P1, P2, P3, and P4 to be clearly true (of course any debate is welcome). According to KF, P5 below is the correct definition of "infinite past".
P5: The past is infinite iff there exists some (single) event in our universe such that for every positive integer n, this event occurred more than n stages ago.
A question I raised in a previous thread is, are P4 and P5 equivalent? I don't believe so; P5 places a stronger condition on the meaning of "infinite past" hence I don't believe P5 is correct.daveS
August 29, 2017
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Dionisio, nice vid but in German. KFkairosfocus
August 29, 2017
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Here's an old video of a presentation on the topic of time and eternity by the author of the book referenced @273: https://www.youtube.com/embed/_zY1v8ccyA4Dionisio
August 29, 2017
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KF @270:
the nature of time as it progresses cumulatively from one moment to the next by causal succession. Any time now in the actual past was once the actual present, but has been succeeded stepwise until now. As a direct result if there is no time r such that r was once the present but is now transfinitely remote in the past, then that is another way of saying the past is finite. So, you cannot have your cake and eat it: either you have had actual past points r that are now transfinitely remote and must span a transfinite range of time to reach now by succession of finite steps or else there never was a past time that is now transfinitely remote. On the former case you have an infeasible task to span to the present in finite step cumulative stages that cross a transfinite gap. This leaves the conclusion that we are only warranted to speak of a finite temporal past.
Excellent conclusion to this discussion. Thanks.Dionisio
August 29, 2017
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Here's an old book that touches the subject of this discussion thread, though from a different perspective than the article referenced in the OP: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/804656.The_Time_and_Eternity1Dionisio
August 29, 2017
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thankskairosfocus
August 29, 2017
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Certainly. I wish you well in your recovery.daveS
August 28, 2017
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DS, the nature of time is it progresses cumulatively from one moment to the next by causal succession. Any time now in the actual past was once the actual present, but has been succeeded stepwise until now. As a direct result if there is no time r such that r was once the present but is now transfinitely remote in the past, then that is another way of saying the past is finite. So, you cannot have your cake and eat it: either you have had actual past points r that are now transfinitely remote and must span a transfinite range of time to reach now by succession of finite steps or else there never was a past time that is now transfinitely remote. On the former case you have an infeasible task to span to the present in finite step cumulative stages that cross a transfinite gap. This leaves the conclusion that we are only warranted to speak of a finite temporal past. KF PS: Maybe it has not registered that I am not only generally uninterested from wandering about on the Internet but am in a recovery from the impact of a bereavement.kairosfocus
August 28, 2017
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KF, And by hypothesis, it was never infinitely remote from the present. But I don't want to go through these arguments again. Why don't you leave a comment on David Snoke's article? Ben Waters did, and had some interaction with Dr Snoke. Another one of your interlocutors here also discussed the paper there. You could ask him what he thinks of your argument about transfinitely remote points in the past.daveS
August 28, 2017
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DS, the issue is not whether the traversal has a beginning, just that at some point it was actually transfinitely remote in the past. Beyond 1 or k there can be onward endlessness for all I care just now but the thing is that if ever there was any transfinitely remote time, say r, from there to now we have to traverse a span that is just that, transfinite. That is where the difficulty lies. I add, given that the next stage causally and cumulatively emerges from the present, creating the next past and next present. Then, again and again, onward, creating the flow of time. KFkairosfocus
August 28, 2017
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