Nathan Cha
Professor Song
Philosophical Perspectives
17 December 2015
The cosmological Argument In William Lane Craig’s, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” he argues that whatever begins to exists had a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist Craig claims that the universe had a cause for existing. Craig furthers his claim by stating that God is the cause for the universe existing. To object to this argument J.L. Mackie brings some questions to the table to unpack Craig’s claims. In this paper I will further expand and explain Craig’s argument and also provide some of my own insight on Mackie’s objections. In this Kalam cosmological argument if you can prove that the premises are true you must accept that the concluding …show more content…
The second premise states, “The universe began to exist.” (Craig 210) The first part of the second premise claims that actual infinites cannot exist. To begin, an actual infinite is an infinity that is not growing towards infinity but rather something that is complete and infinite already. To prove that this cannot exist in reality the Hilbert’s hotel example is used to explain why. In the Hilbert’s hotel example there is a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms and they are all filled with someone in every room. A customer walks in the hotel and asks if there is any more room for him. The host responds and says that there is definitely room for him and says there going to move the person in room #1 to room #2 and the person in room #2 to room #3 and so on and so forth. This would allow room #1 to open up even though every room was filled. This would mean that no matter how many people where to come or to leave the hotel there would be the same infinite amount of people at all times. This kind of actual infinity cannot exist in reality. Using this example we can say that because actual infinites cannot exist in reality the universe could also not have always infinitely existed in that same
Professor Song
Philosophical Perspectives
17 December 2015
The cosmological Argument In William Lane Craig’s, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” he argues that whatever begins to exists had a cause of its existence, and since the universe began to exist Craig claims that the universe had a cause for existing. Craig furthers his claim by stating that God is the cause for the universe existing. To object to this argument J.L. Mackie brings some questions to the table to unpack Craig’s claims. In this paper I will further expand and explain Craig’s argument and also provide some of my own insight on Mackie’s objections. In this Kalam cosmological argument if you can prove that the premises are true you must accept that the concluding …show more content…
The second premise states, “The universe began to exist.” (Craig 210) The first part of the second premise claims that actual infinites cannot exist. To begin, an actual infinite is an infinity that is not growing towards infinity but rather something that is complete and infinite already. To prove that this cannot exist in reality the Hilbert’s hotel example is used to explain why. In the Hilbert’s hotel example there is a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms and they are all filled with someone in every room. A customer walks in the hotel and asks if there is any more room for him. The host responds and says that there is definitely room for him and says there going to move the person in room #1 to room #2 and the person in room #2 to room #3 and so on and so forth. This would allow room #1 to open up even though every room was filled. This would mean that no matter how many people where to come or to leave the hotel there would be the same infinite amount of people at all times. This kind of actual infinity cannot exist in reality. Using this example we can say that because actual infinites cannot exist in reality the universe could also not have always infinitely existed in that same