The Kalam Argument; God is Timeless, Of Course, But Also Temporal. Sort Of.

The Kalam Argument; God is Timeless, Of Course, But Also Temporal. Sort Of. Kind Of.

11/9/2024

Behold the first two premises and conclusion of William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument!

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

And the further premise and conclusion Craig appended later:

4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.

5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.

I’ll wade into my own thoughts about this argument in the coming days. For now, I’d just like to focus on one point in 4 and 5 of the argument, specifically, the bit about the uncaused, personal Creator of the universe who is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful sans the universe.

Now, at first glance, I would interpret this as God having all those qualities despite the universe—meaning the creation of the universe had no effect on him as beginningless, changeless, etc.

But then I considered that Craig may be referring to time. Is he suggesting that God may be temporal?

Maybe. Kinda. Sort of.

Here’s what Craig has to say on the subject:

Because the biblical data are underdeterminative, Christian theists have defended a wide variety of views on God’s relationship to time and change. Some have defended views according to which God is timeless and immutable, others views according to which God is omnitemporal and constantly changing. My own view is something of a hybrid:

God is timeless sans creation and temporal since the first moment of creation.

Wait! Did he say God may be temporal rather than strictly atemporal?

Well, kind of. Sort of. Not really.

Craig explains his position via an inviting wall of text here.

Why do Christians have such difficulty accepting time as an inherent reality within beings?

Same reason they insist upon things like the Kalam Cosmological Argument as “proof” of creation out of nothing.

11 Comments

bruce g charlton

11/10/2024 11:46:04

My interest in this kind of stuff is to try and infer the motivation behind the argument.

As an argument it gets nowhere with me, because I reject the assumptions behind the first premise "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" - which assumes that there are "things" that "begin" to exist (rather than having always existed) - and I infer that he assumes that these "things" include human beings.

This was interesting: "Because the biblical data are underdeterminative, Christian theists have defended a wide variety of views on God’s relationship to time and change. "

This is true - as is the idea that "bibilical data" *ought* to be determinative.

And Yet - most of the major denominations/ churches make their particular chocie among the possibilities, into a mandatory dogma though-which the meaning/ purpose/ implications of Jesus Christ Must be viewed.

This was the error, made very early (even before the Bible was compiled) - that led to the Christology and then Trinitarian dispuites that spilt the church again and again and continuing.

Francis Berger

11/10/2024 12:28:26

@ Bruce - "This was interesting: "Because the biblical data are underdeterminative, Christian theists have defended a wide variety of views on God’s relationship to time and change.

This is true - as is the idea that "bibilical data" *ought* to be determinative."

Aw, come on, Bruce! As Kristor has informed us, everyone knows that:

"YHWH declares that he is “I AM.” Exodus 3:14. And Jesus himself says that, “before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:59. He could as well have said, “before the Big Bang was, I AM;” or, “before all things, I AM."

And later,

"Apparently, the I AM who is the source of time – of time as such, and so of all worlds – can participate the history of our world, sweat, work, walk, eat, talk, love – & suffer, bleed, die. It’s a wild notion. But since Jesus insisted on it, we are not at liberty to argue with him about it."

And so forth.

"As an argument it gets nowhere with me, because I reject the assumptions behind the first premise "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" - which assumes that there are "things" that "begin" to exist (rather than having always existed) - and I infer that he assumes that these "things" include human beings."

Me neither, for the same reason; and I am at a loss to understand why Kristor insists upon us answering this argument. I have suggested his insistence only reveals that he has not really engaged with what we have proposed. If he had, he would have been able to quickly figure out that the KCA is largely irrelevant when applied to your assumptions and mine.

Motivation is key. Coincidentally enough, I focus on that in some posts I am putting together on the KCA. Turns out, I've got quite a few things to say about the KCA and the usefulness of logical argumentation about God in general.

Stay tuned.

JMSmith link

11/10/2024 18:56:07

What is your answer to the rhetorical questions with which you end this post? Why do Christians labor under the intellectual disability you say they labor under? I'm not taunting you here; but you seem to imply the answer is obvious and it is not obvious to me.

When you say time is an inherent reality within beings, I take it you mean that change is inherent in being. In other words, I take it you are denying the reality of eternity. The point of Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument is that this argument does not comport with modern physics, not that it does not comport with Christianity. This world of mutability cannot be itself a mere mutation. Mutation necessarily entails creation.

11/11/2024 11:22:32

@ JM - What is your answer to the rhetorical questions with which you end this post? Why do Christians labor under the intellectual disability you say they labor under?

Faulty assumptions of the major things that obstruct the work of Jesus and make it somewhat incoherent -- onmigod, Prime Mover, everything that exists is of God ex nihilo, etc.

When you say time is an inherent reality within beings, I take it you mean that change is inherent in being.

Yes.

In other words, I take it you are denying the reality of eternity.

No. I accept eternity, but not as it has conventionally been presented and understood.

The point of Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument is that this argument does not comport with modern physics, not that it does not comport with Christianity.

It comports with the faulty, enforced assumptions inherent in Christianity.

This world of mutability cannot be itself a mere mutation. Mutation necessarily entails creation.

Yes. No doubt. Creation is real. God is real. God created us into Creation, but there exists something before Creation.

11/11/2024 11:58:34

If we are talking about the "Let there be light" creation that is described in Genesis, you are certainly right. It is right there in Genesis 1: 2. Before God created Heaven and Earth there was "void," "darkness," "the deep," "the waters." Not a place I would care to be, but certainly not nothing. The creation of Genesis 1 and 2 is the creation of order and not the creation of the primal chaos that was called to order by God. We may certainly ask where that primal chaos came from, but I know of nothing in the foundational texts of Christianity that commits us to any particular answer. I think this is all agreeable to your general outlook, since to call to order (make Heaven and Earth with logos) is a spiritual act, and you see creation as essentially spiritual, At least this is what I think you think. The essence of a painting is the idea, not the paint, the canvas, or the frame. The "stuff" of the Biblical creation must of come from somewhere, but where it came from is of little interest compared to the Glorious idea of Heaven and Earth,

11/11/2024 12:58:14

@ JM - "I think this is all agreeable to your general outlook, since to call to order (make Heaven and Earth with logos) is a spiritual act, and you see creation as essentially spiritual, At least this is what I think you think."

Yes, that aligns well with what I assume. Thanks.

Kristor link

11/12/2024 08:43:06

Craig is an outlier (so far as I know) in thinking that God is atemporal prior to creation and temporal posterior thereto. I'm not able to make sense of that idea. All others I have read on the topic think either that God is temporal or that he is atemporal, period full stop. Craig’s position is heterodox: orthodox theology has ever held that God is atemporal and eternal; that he is the source of time (and of everything else), and thus not himself subject to it, but rather vice versa.

Kalam demonstrates that perpetuity – of God, or of other beings – is an incoherent notion: there is no way an infinite temporal series of finite events (in the life of a cosmos or of a being) that had no beginning – i.e., a perpetuity – could ever reach the present moment, or any other. From a point in time infinitely far in the past of any moment, any now, an infinite series of finite events would have to traverse infinitely many finite steps to reach that now. And no number of finite steps can sum to infinity. From the perspective of any such now, the series would always be cooking along infinitely far in its past.

Zeno’s paradoxes of motion anticipate Kalam.

For “finite events” in the foregoing we may substitute “finite causes” and reach the same result: no assemblage of finities can add up to infinity; it cannot be the case that it’s turtles all the way down. So, the real world and its panoply of causes must be finite: they must each have a terminus a quo, a First Cause, an absolute beginning.

Thus, perpetuity can’t be carried into actuality. So, neither God nor any world can be perpetual.

The necessity of an absolute beginning is by the way the basis and reason of creatio ex nihilo. The alternative – creatio ex materia – implicitly presupposes the actuality of an impossible perpetuity.

11/13/2024 07:09:07

@ Kristor - What you say above does not address why the author of the KCA assumes an atemporal God SANS creation but a temporal God WITH creation.

Moreover, you pushed the KCA on me, but an atemporal God of the sort you promulgate ultimately fails the "scythe" of KCA as Craig outlines it if Craig's appended premise and conclusion are considered, which they must be since it is HIS Kalam argument.

11/12/2024 08:59:51

@ JM Smith: The void, darkness, deep, and waters of Genesis are all ancient Hebrew ways of denoting chaos: utter formlessness. It is easy to think that utterly formless chaos is a thing, but that is to fall into the fallacy of reification. What is utterly without form has not even the form of existence. It is no thing. When Genesis says that in the beginning the earth was formless and void, it is saying that in the beginning the earth was nothing.

11/13/2024 07:12:28

@ Kristor - Yeah, go ahead and "instruct' JM about what certain passages in the Bible really mean, as opposed to W.L. Craig -- the author of your beloved Kalam Cosmological Argument -- who at least has the sincerity to admit that biblical data are "underdeterminative."

11/12/2024 09:07:06

@ JM: I should have added that the foundational texts of Christianity are silent on the question of where the primal chaos came from on account of the fact that it amounts to asking where nothing came from. You see the problem. Nothing is not a thing. It didn't come from anywhere or anything, because it *is not.*

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The Kalam Argument; God is Timeless, Of Course, But Also Temporal. Sort Of. Kind Of.

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