#723 Our Newest Video on the Philosophical KCA

Dr. craig’s response

Thanks, Peter, for drawing attention to our newest Zangmeister animated video on the philosophical kalām cosmological argument! I hope that you were able to respond to Joe’s objections. I’m afraid that I didn’t find them very compelling. I identified five different objections in his post, as follows:

1. The video misrepresents infinity, applying Hilbert’s Hotel incorrectly. Until Joe identifies a specific error, this allegation is baseless. I think it’s pretty implausible that I, not to speak of Hilbert, don’t understand the concept of the actual infinite.

2. Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology avoids the problems of an infinite temporal regress. Recall that this second video is on philosophical arguments, not scientific arguments, for the beginning of the universe. So the objection here has to be that Penrose’s model avoids the philosophical problems of an infinite temporal regress. Now wholly apart from the empirical inadequacy of Penrose’s model,[1] I think it’s evident that his model does nothing at all to avoid such a regress. Even if time fades out, so to speak, in each expanding universe—itself a moot question[2]—, the fact remains that the number of universes prior to the present universe is actually infinite. This can be seen simply by counting the number of new beginnings, when time certainly does exist, and the answer can only be an actually infinite number of new beginnings. The model thus does nothing to avoid the philosophical absurdities attending the existence and formation of an actually infinite number of things, any more than did the older cyclic models.

3. Time itself is not infinitely divisible. The kalām cosmological argument doesn’t presuppose that it is. Indeed, the argument is easier to put through if time is quantized, i.e., if there are indivisible time atoms or chronons. Just ask yourself: if the universe never began to exist, how many chronons have there been prior to the present chronon?  An actually infinite number!

4. If Platonism is true, then an actually infinite number of things (viz. mathematical objects) exist. Right! So what’s Joe’s argument for the truth of Platonism? (For the contrary view see my God Over All [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016].)

5. The video contradicts itself, saying that infinity is impossible, but that an infinite God is possible. The argument never aspires to prove God’s infinity; but, in any case, Joe needs to appreciate that when theologians speak of God’s infinity, they are not using a mathematical or quantitative concept. God is not a collection of an actually infinite number of definite and discrete things. His infinity is qualitative: He is necessary, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, morally perfect, etc. Note that God’s not being a mathematical infinite has nothing to do, as Joe imagines, with His existing “in some strange realm.” Existing in a strange realm, as do mathematical objects, does nothing to annul their numerosity and hence actual infinity.

Finally, Joe’s comment that “I will never be satisfied I think, until I can watch the universe being made!” betrays an anti-scientific, not to say anti-philosophical, attitude that ironically characterizes young earth creationists!