Craig's Cosmological Argument - Cause Qualities and Conclusions

These are my notes from an argument given by William Lane Craig in a debate - specifically, his Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. I don't agree with Craig on everything (most notably his Molinism), but he's no slouch of a philosopher and apologist - the man can put together a powerful line of reasoning, and I think this is one of his best. Enjoy, and if you have any thoughts, I'd love to discuss them in the comments!


Craig’s Cosmological Argument – Cause Qualities and Conclusions

1. Everything that begins to exist must have a cause
2. The universe began to exist
Supporting evidence: Big Bang Cosmology and the Law of Entropy
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause

If the universe has a cause, such a cause must have a number of striking qualities:

As the cause of space and time, this cause must transcend space and time, and must therefore:

a. exist non-temporally and non-spatially (at least without the universe)

b. be changeless and immaterial

1. something can be timeless only if it is unchanging
2. something can be unchanging only if it is immaterial

c. must be unimaginably powerful

1. since it created all matter, space and time

d. must be personal

1. the only entities we know of which can be timeless and immaterial are either minds or abstract objects (e.g., numbers)
2. but, abstract objects don’t stand in causal relations
3. therefore, the transcendent cause of the universe must be an unembodied mind
   

Only a free agent can account for the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause

1. if the cause of the universe were an impersonal, mechanically operating cause, then the cause could never exist without its effect
2. for if the sufficient condition of the effect is given, then the effect must be given as well
3. the only way for the cause to be timeless but for its effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any antecedent determining conditions
   

Conclusion from the Cosmological Argument:
A personal creator of the universe exists, who is uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and unimaginably powerful.

Elaborating on Evil

I meant to respond to a few of my commenters a while back, but life did as life does and prevented me at the time from doing so. Now that I have more time, I want to make sure I don't ignore the kind people who read and comment on my blog, so I'm going to bring those comments to which I'd like to respond back to the top of the queue. The first one is from my loooong-time friend Nick Jenkins regarding my April 20 post, In the Face of Evil. Nick said:

On the subject of Evil, I'm not sure this is a healthy way to deal with the situation. I think it aids people in distancing themselves from someone (like Dahmer) by saying "It's EVIL!". The fact is that he was a man. He had problems, serious ones, but none the less... he was a human being that fell apart at some point. Trying to recategorize him into something "mythic" to me kind of hurts the cause. It alleviates us as a society from trying to correct problems.

I appreciate Nick's concern, and if I were doing what he cautions against, I would be concerned as well. However, I think he has misunderstood the way I am using "evil" - perhaps I wasn't being very clear in my original post. In my understanding, "evil" is not some mythic category removed from the context of human nature. I don't view Dahmer, or Cho, as somehow less than human, ontologically, when I talk about them and their actions as being evil. When I look at someone who has done something evil, it is in full view of their humanity.

As a technical definition, evil is a privation, the absence of good, and not a thing in itself (taking a cue from Augustine) - in other words, that which deviates from the character of the God who is good. You'll recall that I spoke of "the core of evil in each of us"; I think that the pull, the desire to rebel against God's goodness is a part of each person's nature, yours and mine and Cho's, as broken image-bearers of our Creator. These men have done nothing that I myself, absent certain conditions, am not capable of doing. Evil, to me, is not an abstract; it is wound tightly around each individual's human nature. So I do not in any way lose sight of the fact that these are men (in the gender generic sense) doing these thing, nor do I endorse any view that would lead to this kind of distancing or a shirking of societal responsibilities.

As a side note, perhaps another difference at play here is one that I'm only inferring from what Nick wrote, so I can't be sure this is his actual position (please correct me, Nick, if I am wrong!). It seems to me that Nick is operating from the view of human nature similar to that made famous by Rousseau - that man is basically good and is only later corrupted by outside forces - whereas I see the seeds of man's corruption as being internal, pervasive, and present from the moment the individual becomes an individual. I may be wrong in attributing this to Nick, but it is an interesting subject that maybe I'll post on separately sometime later.

The Desire to Justify

British historian Paul Johnson has written a book entitled Intellectuals, in which he chronicles the life and thought of such (arguably) great minds as Rousseau, Marx, Russell and Sartre. His conclusion was that most of their arguments and philosophies were based, not on noble rational convictions but on the choices they had made in their own lives. (Ex: Rousseau had five children out of wedlock and abandoned them all. He then maintained that children do not need parents to give them guidance or discipline, and that the state should bear the responsibility for raising them - all this supposedly out of his reasoning, intellect and common sense.)

While I certainly wouldn't want to be accused of committing the genetic fallacy, it is hard to escape the view that conclusions like this are not based on true reason but rather on the desire to justify and rationalize the moral choices already made. In my case, I think this statement would be free of that particular fallacy because it isn't my basis for rejecting their ethical theories. But it is an interesting aside.

Authority of Revelation vs. Reason

I had forgotten about and lost track of Paul Scott Pruett's blog, Pensées, over the last couple of years, but happily stumbled upon it again today, and this quote caught my eye:

If we reject reason in relation to biblical revelation, then the very words of God become nothing but unprocessed photons striking the retina.

A healthy reminder to those who reject all forms and uses of philosophy as Godless and unbiblical.