Questions on the Kalam, Causation, and the Trinity

DR. CRAIG: Hello. This is William Lane Craig. We are right in the midst of our annual fall matching grant campaign. Up through December 31st of this year any gift that you give to Reasonable Faith will be doubled by a matching grant of very generous donors. So this is a wonderful way for you to double the impact of your giving to the Lord's work. I think that what's happening in Reasonable Faith around the world is certainly exciting and well worth your support. Over 3 million engagements every month come through our social media platforms. We have hundreds of local Reasonable Faith chapters all around the world, throughout Latin America, Asia, even the Middle East, that provide a community and a place of fellowship and outreach for local believers often in hardpressed circumstances. In addition to that, we have our Equip course which has now been taken by thousands of high schoolers and teenagers to equip them in the articulation and defense of the Christian faith. We have been so pleased with the enthusiastic reaction to this Equip platform. So as you approach the year’s end and think about how best to invest the Lord's dollar from your giving, we hope that you'll think of Reasonable Faith and send a gift toward our ministry. It will be doubled, and thereby have double the impact. Thank you so much for your consideration.

KEVIN HARRIS: We have a lot of thoughtful questions that people have sent in, and some that have been sent into our Facebook page. Here's the first one.

Is it possible for a being to exist logically prior to itself? If not then how can one claim that God exists due to the necessity of his own nature? How can the nature of God guarantee his existence if he doesn't already exist? Thank you for your work and ministry. Sincerely, Jackie, Canada

DR. CRAIG: In response to this question, I think it's impossible for a being to exist logically prior to itself, and that's why Christian theology does not think of God as a self-caused being but is simply an uncaused being. To say that he exists by a necessity of his own nature isn't to say that his nature somehow brings him into existence or explains why he exists; it simply is to say that God is a metaphysically necessary being – that it is essential to him to exist – and therefore God exists.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question:

Dear Dr. Craig, I think that belief in God is warranted but it occurred to me recently that given how much has been written on the subject that I may never be aware of every argument for and against that belief. My question is whether laymen such as myself can realistically come to an informed conclusion given that what I said is accurate. Joseph, United States

DR. CRAIG: This is a really acute problem for folks in our age of information overload. There's so much out there that a person can read on both sides. It's hard to make up your mind. I would say to Joseph that you need to find some trusted teachers on whom you can rely. The Scriptures say that God has given to the church teachers who can teach you Christian doctrine. It would be helpful to align oneself with one such person. Now, fortunately the Bible gives us all of the essential truths that we need to know in order to come to a knowledge of God and of salvation. We don't need to know all of the arguments for the existence of God or the correct philosophical analysis of the attributes of God. This is not something that's essential to salvation or to a victorious Christian life. But if, as a layperson, he does want to learn more about these, I would encourage him to find someone who he really trusts and who can serve as a sort of mentor to guide him in this area.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question,

Dear Dr. Craig, Must Christians concede that though God is not the author of evil he is at least the author of the potential for evil by his decision to create our temporal universe wherein evil and suffering is possible? And does Scripture help us to understand what about creation was worth the evil and suffering or even one lost soul to an eternally self-sufficient God who didn't need to create anything (Acts 17:24)? This question is in the realm of the classic problem of evil but with a focus on the divine perspective rather than the human perspective. Matthew, US

DR. CRAIG: I think that the Bible does give us some indication of what makes creation worth it so to speak. Jesus said in prayer to the Father, “And this is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.” The fulfillment of human existence is to be found in personal relationship with God who is the Supreme Good, an incommensurable good, that nothing can be compared with. So the justification for creation lies not in any benefit that might accrue to God, rather it lies in the benefit that occurs to us as creatures. God, by creating us, gives us the incomprehensible privilege of coming to know him, an incommensurable good. That, I think, makes it worth it.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Greetings, Dr. Craig. In Alex O’Connor's question and answer, he briefly commented on the kalam arguing that the thought process is rather circular as the first proposition (“everything which begins to exist has a cause”) and the conclusion (“therefore the universe as a cause”) are identical to each other. He rationalized this by saying that nothing new truly begins to exist. A car doesn't pop into existence; rather, it's simply matter that was rearranged into a new form but it didn't begin to exist. Therefore, he believes nothing new actually began to exist and that the universe (he accepts the proposition that the proponents of the kalam cosmological argument make, which is) that the universe proceeded out of nothing. This means that matter didn't simply get rearranged in order to create the universe like it does with a brand new car or a lollipop or something that did exist. In this way he argues that since nothing but the universe itself did begin to exist, the first proposition and the conclusion are essentially the same thing. His argument seems extremely logical to me, and I was wondering if there was a way to argue against it or to simply accept that the kalam cosmological argument is circular. With kind regards, Furkan, Belgium

DR. CRAIG: I was surprised to hear this coming from Alex O’Connor, and I have to say that I'll simply have to trust our questioner that he has represented O’Connor's views accurately rather than misrepresented them. Because, honestly, they are so confused, they are illogical. The first premise of the argument (“Whatever begins to exist has a cause”) cannot be identical to the conclusion that the universe has a cause because the first premise is a universally quantified statement which has no existential implications. To say “whatever begins to exist has a cause” in modern sentential logic is equivalent to saying “For any x, if x begins to exist then X has a cause.” And that is devoid of any existential implications whatsoever. It's like saying “All centaurs have four legs” which logically means, “For any x, if x is a centaur then x has four legs.” It doesn't say anything about whether centaurs exist. So the first statement of the argument is a universally quantified statement that has no existential implications. But the conclusion of the argument (“the universe has a cause”) is an existential statement. It implies the existence of the universe and a cause of the universe. Therefore it cannot be identical to the first premise. So this is just logically impossible what's being suggested. Moreover, the claim that things that have material causes do not begin to exist is frankly preposterous. I'm so disappointed if Alex has gone back to this objection which we talked about in my interview with him. This objection is one of my favorite of the World's 10 Worst Objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument; namely, if something has a material cause then it doesn't begin to exist. That is absurd. For example, I began to exist, and yet I have a material cause – the sperm and the egg which united at my conception to form me. And I can confidently say I did not exist before my conception. I certainly have not existed from eternity past, and yet indisputably I do exist. That's the lesson Descartes taught us – even in doubting that I exist, I affirm my own existence. So it's indubitable that I exist, and the fact that I have a material cause does not do anything to say that I didn't begin to exist. In fact, when you think about it, this argument, I think, proves exactly the opposite. I would say it's far more plausible that anything that has a material cause begins to exist. Think about it. If a bunch of particles come together to form something then something new begins to exist so that if something has a material cause it begins to exist. That is far more plausible than the assertion that things that have material causes do not begin to exist. So I think this objection or argument is absolutely hopeless. Now, even if, however, O'Connor were right that the universe and only the universe began to exist (as the second premise states), the argument still goes through! It would be like this: (1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause (2) Only the universe began to exist, therefore (3) The universe has a cause. And you're right back to the original conclusion of the kalam cosmological argument.

KEVIN HARRIS: This question is from Germany:

Hello, Dr. Craig. My question is the following. Number one: is multi-personality a great-making property? And, number two, if so then wouldn't that imply that God has to have the maximal amount of persons united in himself which, as I see it, could well be infinite? If this thought works then the Trinity (as it is not explicitly mentioned in Scripture) could be our understanding and partial revelation of God. I'm not sure whether there is an error in this thought. Thank you for your time. Joshie, Germany

DR. CRAIG: I do think that there is a good plausibility argument that God needs to be a multi-personality being and this would be an argument from God's being absolutely perfect – a maximally great being. A maximally great being that is morally perfect would be an essentially loving being, and love is a property that gives oneself away to another person. Love doesn't just pull back into its own self. In loving another, one gives oneself away to that other. If God is an essentially loving being, who is that other to whom he gives himself in love? It cannot be merely creatures because creatures began to exist and there are possible worlds where God refrains from creating anything at all. Yet God is still essentially loving. That suggests that there must be multiple persons within God himself to whom he gives himself away. And this is what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity affirms – that God is tri-personal, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now, I don't think that would therefore imply that God has to have the maximal number of persons; that by multiplying persons you get even greater and greater goodness in God. I don't see any basis for saying that. So although I think that the argument does make it plausible that God is multi-personal, I don’t think that it affords any conclusion that this is something that is to be proliferated without limit.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next question.

Dear Dr. Craig, I often see theists and atheists claim that the consensus of contemporary cosmologists is that the universe had (or did not have) a beginning. Is there any source or way to know? Like, has a poll been done or something? Joe, United States

DR. CRAIG: This is a great question, and I really wish some sociological research firm would do a poll of contemporary cosmologists to see exactly where they stand. This is an issue that is laden with metaphysical implications. So there will naturally be among secular thinkers a great resistance to the idea that the universe began to exist. This was a major impetus behind the old steady state model of Fred Hoyle and also helped to promote the oscillating models that were propagated during the 1970s by Russian cosmologists. But according to Hawking and Penrose in their book The Nature of Space and Time, today almost everybody believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang. That's the opinion of Penrose and Hawking when they look at the lay of the land. Are they correct? Well, who am I to say? But I think the far more important question is not how many people believe this, but what is the evidence? And here people like Alex Vilenkin and many others have laid out repeatedly in very clear ways the evidence that the universe in fact is not past eternal but did have a beginning so that even so skeptical a cosmologist as Lawrence Krauss, for example, admitted publicly in our debate in Australia that the universe probably did begin to exist. So when people are skeptical about this, I think that they are tending to say we don't know for certain that the universe began to exist. But we know virtually nothing for certain. What Vilenkin, and now Krauss, have claimed is that on balance the evidence makes it probable that the universe did begin to exist.^[1]