From: William Lane Craig <info@reasonablefaith.org>Subject: Question of the Week - A Contradiction in the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

Date: January 2, 2012 7:35:13 PM GMT+08:00To: lowellgomezperez@aol.com

Reply-To: William Lane Craig <info@reasonablefaith.org>

#246

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A Contradiction in the Kalam CosmologicalArgument?

Question:

I came across a blogger who calls himself Angra Mainyu (destructive spirit) who has thought a lot aboutthe Kalam Argument and bases several of his objections on the following quotations from your work. Iam really hoping to hear your response

1) A contradiction follows from William Lane Craig's position:

William Lane Craig and J. P. Sinclair:By an "event," one means any change. Since any change takes time, there are no instantaneousevents so defined. Neither could there be an infinitely slow event, since such an "event" would, inreality, be a changeless state. Therefore, any event will have a finite, nonzero duration. (WilliamLane Craig and J.P. Sinclair, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", in "The BlackWell Companion toNatural Theology", Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..Page 106.)

William Lane Craig: The reason I hold God to be timeless without the universe is that I think that an infinite regress ofevents is impossible, and, according to a relational theory of time, in the absence of any eventstime would not exist. The reason I hold God to be temporal since the beginning of the universe isthat the creation of the universe brings God into a new relation, namely, co-existing with theuniverse, and such an extrinsic change alone (not to mention God's exercise of causal power) issufficient for a temporal relation. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5673)

William Lane Craig:So if God is timeless, he is also unchanging, but it does not follow that He cannot change. I'd saythat He can change and if He were to do so, He would cease to be timeless. And that's exactlywhat I think He did. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5971)

God changes from timeless to temporal.

Any change is an event, so let E(0) be the event "God changes from being timeless to being temporal."i

Let's assume that (as Craig maintains):

a) Time begins to exist, at t=0. b) The concept of timelessness is coherent. c) The world contains a state of affairs S at which God exists timelessly. . d) God exists at t=0.e) An A-Theory of time is true.

Under those assumptions, at S, it's not the case that time exists, so it's not the case that God knows thattime exists. At t=0, God knows that time exists. Thus, there is a change in God, from S to t=0.

Let E(0) be the event "God changes from a state at which he does not know time exists, to a state atwhich he knows time exists".

Then, E(0) is an event that ends at t=0. Let e>0 be the duration of E(0).

Then either there is an interval of time [-e,0], or at least a nonempty open interval (-e,0]. Either way,time exists before t=0, contradicting the assumption that time begins to exist at t=0.ii

Kevin USA

Dr. Craig responds:

These cited statements certainly appear to be inconsistent! Part of that appearance is due to theblogger’s cobbling together quotations from different sources, some of which are popular writing inwhich one sacrifices technical precision for communicability. Let’s try to sort through theinconsistencies.

The first quotation arises in the context of the second philosophical argument in defense of the premissthat the universe began to exist. That argument contains the premiss

2.12. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.

Here it’s crucial that one is clear about what constitutes an event. I'm stipulating that the events spokenof in "an infinite temporal regress of events" have each an equal, arbitrary, non-zero duration. What Iwant to rule out is instantaneous events, lest one think of the series of instantaneous states between,say, 1:01a.m. and 1:00a.m. as an infinite temporal regress of events. So in this technical sense,someone’s winning a race does not count as an event, so defined, because it is not temporally extendedbut instantaneous. The reason I give for so restricting the range of “event” is that I’m talking aboutchanges, and changes take time to occur. I want to argue that there cannot have been an infinite regressof events so-defined. There must have been a first event of non-zero duration. (Note that such aconclusion is consistent with there being temporal intervals prior to the first event, so long as they arenot long enough to qualify as an event themselves.)

It immediately follows that the creation of the universe by God would not qualify as an event on thisdefinition because it is instantaneous, involving no lapse of time. Similarly, God’s becoming temporal, ifHe is timeless sans creation, could not be spoken of as an event, since it does not have a non-zeroduration. Similarly, God’s coming to believe all tensed truths would not qualify as an event, since it, too,happens instantaneously. It follows that in this technical sense, God’s becoming temporal or coming toknow tensed truths should not be spoken of as a change in God. There is no beginning or ending ofsuch “events,” anymore than there is a beginning or ending of starting to move or coming to exist. At tGod is temporal, knows that time exists, and knows tensed truths, without having been or done sopreviously (there being no “previously!”).

The second and third quotations come in the context of discussion of God’s relationship to time. Here Iwas using the word “change” in a different sense than the sense it carries in the kalam argument. Insaying that God changed in creating the world, I meant merely that God is not the same in His timelessstate and in His first temporal state. He has different properties. In that sense He changes. But thatdifference does not take place over time and therefore is not a change or an event in the sense spokenof in the kalam argument.

Now if you think that God’s becoming temporal or coming to know tensed truths ought to count as achange, that’s fine; just go back to the second premiss of the philosophical argument against an infinitetemporal regress of events and clarify that what you are talking about there is changes of a peculiarkind: events of equal, arbitrary, non-zero duration.

In other words, the contradiction here is merely verbal and can be easily removed just by clarifying andcorrectly using one’s terms. Nothing has been said that undermines either the kalam cosmologicalargument or the view that God is timeless sans creation and temporal from the moment of creation.

Notes:

i The choice of the change in God from timelessness to temporalness as the event is only one possibility.

There are alternatives. For instance, let say the actual world contains a state of affairs S at which God existstimelessly. Then, at S, time does not exist, so it's not the case that God knows that time exists. On the other hand,at t=0, God knows that time exists. Let E(1) be the event “God comes to know that time exists.”

Another alternative would be: At S, there are no tensed facts. So, it's not the case that God knows any tensed facts.At t=0, there are tensed facts, so God knows tensed facts. Thus, God's mind changed - he came to know tensedfacts -, and one can consider the event E(2) “God changes from not knowing any tensed facts at S, to knowingsome tensed facts at t=0”.

0

ii On his website, Craig says that it's not clear to him that creation itself is an event which determines a before andan after.

However, that E(0) – or, for that matter, E(1), or E(2) – is an event follows straightforwardly from the definition of“event”: an event is any change, and Craig himself says that God changed.

Also, Craig claims that any event takes time. A contradiction follows.

But in any case, let us suppose the event E(2) “God changes from not knowing any tensed facts at S, to knowingsome tensed facts at t=0” has zero duration - contradicting Craig's claim that any event has a non-zero, finiteduration.

So, at the beginning of the event, it is not the case that God knows any tensed facts - since the event is preciselythe change in God from not knowing any tensed facts, to knowing some tensed facts.

On the other hand, at the end of the event, God does know some tensed facts.

Now, since the event ends at t=0 and its duration is zero, it begins also at t=0.

Thus, at t=0, God does not know any tensed facts, and at t=0, God knows some tensed facts. But that'simpossible.

Someone might object that E(2) does not begin at t=0, but at the "timeless state" S.

However, using the word "timeless" is not a license to circumvent logic: if the event ends at t=0, and its duration isliterally zero, then its beginning is also present at t=0 as well.

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