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On the Kalam Cosmological Argument for Gods Existence

by Nathan Dickey*
That natural reality is assumed rather than explained, is not proof for the existence of a creator.
Introducing god as an explanatory notion only shifts the locus of the question: why would such a god
exist? And, it is possible that the universe just happens to exist, without explanation.

~ Willem B. Drees
No time says the clock, the clock says no time.
~ Bill Nelson, No Time Says the Clock from the album Clocks & Dials (Discs of Ancient
Odeon, 2008)

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a philosophical and scientific defense of theism that many
theistic apologists have found to be relevant and useful in recent years. It is especially favored by
Christian apologist and philosopher William Lane Craig, who has been primarily responsible for
its popularization in the debate circuit. The argument is deceptively simple, yet very involved
with deep philosophical implications. Entire books have been written on the subject.
Consequently, my treatment of the argument in this essay touches only briefly upon its basic
components and describes some of its more common criticisms. If my reader is interested in
learning more about the subject, more objections to the Kalam Cosmological Argument than is
presented in this brief examination can be found through a simple Internet search.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument originated with the kalm tradition of Muslim
dialectics engaged in by medieval Arabic theologians such as al-Ghazl, al-Kindi and ibn
Rushd.1 In recent years, William Lane Craig has resuscitated and revised the argument, rescuing
it from the obscurity of esoteric orientalist journals and breathing new life into it as an argument
for theism that he claims holds relevance in light of modern developments in philosophy,
theology, mathematics and science.
Before discussing the Kalam argument itself, it will be useful to clarify what cosmological
arguments are in general. This genre of philosophical argumentation essentially attempts to

A useful historical overview of the origins of the kal tradition is found in William Lane Craig, The Cosmological
Argument from Plato to Leibniz (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1980), pp. 48-126.

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address the question, Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there a universe at
all, and how did it come to exist? What was the initial cause of everything, if there was in fact a
cause? Obviously, theologians and apologists for various religions want to argue that there was a
cause for the existence of the universe, and that this cause was necessary. Apologists such as
William Lane Craig then attempt to make the case that this cause is necessarily the Christian
God, despite the fact that arguing philosophically or scientifically toward establishing a causal
agent says nothing about the nature or identity of that agent, or even that it must be intelligent.
Another term for this rhetoric is the First Cause Argument. In this more generic nonkalm form, it is claimed that everything that exists had an initial cause, with the special
exception of one thing that has no cause. This uncaused agent that is asserted is then given the
attribute of intelligence without evidence and called God. Such First Cause arguments contain
its own refutation; it first states that everything that comes into existence has to have been
caused, but then posits something for which there was no cause. In a footnote in his book on the
kalm cosmological argument, Craig writes, [T]he causal principle concerns only what begins
to exist, and God never began to exist, but is eternal.2 These two claims cannot both be true.
The moment we grant that something exists for which there was no cause, then we are simply no
longer burdened with the need to describe why anything has a first cause, and such an attempt is
rendered unwarranted. The first premise at that point becomes no longer applicable. Theists
attempt to bypass this problem by invoking the Argument from Contingency, which we will
presently see is also highly implausible.
Additionally, Craig is demonstrably and grossly misguided when he states that Objections
to a First Cause of the universe hardly merit refutation.3 Because Craig assumes that the First
Cause argument is a self-evident principle that requires no justification other than ubiquitous
experience, he does not develop as elaborate a defence of it in his book as he does for the second
premise (that the universe began to exist). He delivers his justification for not elaborating fully
on the causal principle in the following way:
The causal proposition could be defended as an empirical generalisation based on the widest
sampling of evidence . . . To reject the causal proposition is therefore completely arbitrary.

William Lane Craig, The Kal

170.
3
Ibid., p. 170.

Cos ological Argu e t (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1979), p.

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Although this argument from empirical facts is not apt to impress philosophers, it is nevertheless
undoubtedly true that the reason we and they accept the principle in our everyday lives is
precisely for this very reason, because it is repeatedly confirmed in our experience.4

But it is just this type of everyday and common experience that gives us the impression that the
world is flat. Thus, according to Craig's logic, it would be just as completely arbitrary to reject
the proposition that the world is flat. The fact is that physical events at quantum levels are
observed to have no evident cause. Scientists find no evident or observable cause for excited
atoms dropping to a lower energy level and emitting photons, for example. A similar example is
found in the decay of a radioactive nucleus, for which a cause is not at all evident or observable.
Quantum mechanics has on numerous occasions successfully predicted that individual events are
not pre-determined and countless experiments indicate that the emission of photons and nuclear
radiation occur spontaneously and without precedent. Such quantum principles can be applied on
a macroscopic level, to the universe as a whole, for quantum mechanics transition smoothly into
classical Newtonian mechanics when the systems parameters approach that classical regime. In
what may be a vague anticipation of this objection, Craig makes another crucial blunder in the
same footnote when he writes, unobservable entities such as cosmic rays cause observable
effects. And could not an unobservable spirit being like an angel or demon, if there be such,
cause observable effects, such as the levitation of an object? Why then could not God cause the
world?5 Craig is here effectively admitting that the cause spoken of in his first premise could
just as likely be an entirely natural one.
Examining Kalam
The Kalam Cosmological Argument derives from a comprehension of weighty notions of time
and causality. This is not to say that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is any more correct than
other less sophisticated formulations of theistic cosmological assertions and it does utilize a
great deal of obfuscation to make the matter seem more confusing than it really is but it
nevertheless tackles high concepts and weaves premises from them that are not readily accessible
to those unversed in philosophy or in science. Ultimately, however, the Kalam Cosmological
Argument contains the seeds of its own refutation as well. A notable number of critics have
4
5

Ibid., p. 145.
Ibid., p. 170.

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pointed out several devastating logical problems, both philosophical and scientific, that plague
the argument. One of the most prominent problems, and the one I shall focus on in this essay, is
the contradictory models of time that William Lane Craig invokes in attempting to vindicate the
argument.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is posed by Craig syllogistically as follows:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.6
After proposing this formulation, Craig writes, The point of the argument is to demonstrate the
existence of a first cause which transcends and creates the entire realm of finite reality. Having
reached that conclusion, one may then inquire into the nature of this first cause and assess its
significance for theism.7 For the purposes of this critique, we may set aside the obvious point
that at no point in the argument are we informed as to why the proposed first cause necessarily
has to be the Islamic or Christian God, or any intelligence for that matter. Even if the argument
itself held up under scrutiny (which we will see does not) there is nothing in the argument that
can inform us as to the nature of the cause.8
One of the most pressing problems in the way Craig structures the argument is one that has
been pointed out by many philosophers of a mathematical bent, which is that the argument
depends on two incompatible ideas of time. The crux of Craigs thesis is his contention that the
existence of an actual infinite is impossible, including the formation of an actual infinite by
successive addition. He maintains that if the series of events in the past is infinite, the present
moment could never be reached.9 This underlying contention comes as a consequence of the
6

Ibid., p. 63.
Ibid., p. 64.
8
It is ironic that when the Big Bang model was first proposed in 1927 by Catholic priest and astronomer Georges
Lematre, the most outspoken critics of the theory were those whose philosophical commitment to naturalism
rendered the theory singularly uncomfortable. Astronomer Fred Hoyle, who was the most well-known critic of
Lematre's findings, proposed the Steady State model of the universe as an alternative to the Big Bang model for
this er reaso . Craig rites, [A]ccording to Hoyle's own admission, the steady state model sought to bypass the
conceptual difficulties of the origin of the universe . . . Hoyle, unlike the vast majority of scientists, realises the
metaphysical and theological implications of such a beginning, and he recoils fro these i plicatio s (Craig,
Kal , p. 120). This is extremely ironic given the fact that in modern times, anti-scientific rejections of the Big Bang
theory almost always come from religious fundamentalists.
9
This idea plays a central role in Zeno's Paradoxes, which Craig comments upon in an appendix to his book as a
basis for drawing a distinction between potential infinity and actual infinity. Zeno's Paradoxes address infinite
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implications involved in a Newtonian concept of absolute time. In the Newtonian understanding,
time is viewed as a linear chain of causal events, a substratum within which all states of affairs
occur. In absolute time, time exists ontologically distinct from and independently of all states of
affairs. Absolute time can perhaps be best conceived of as a stage across which objects move; the
stage (representing absolute time) exists independently of the presence of motion across it. By
arguing that the idea of actual infinity is untenable due to the impossibility of the past being
composed of an infinite chain of events leading to the present, Craig is assuming that the model
of absolute time is untenable. This assumption is needed in order for Craig to argue convincingly
for his second premise, namely that the universe began to exist.
On the other hand, the concept of relational time stands opposed to Newtonian absolute
time. The concept of relational time as first advanced by philosopher and mathematician
Gottfried Leibniz and later elaborated upon by Einstein states that time cannot exist in the
absence of bodies in motion. On this view, time is ontologically nothing without objects relating
to other objects and states of affairs acting on other states of affairs in space. Time and motion
are thus understood to be interdependent; one cannot exist without the other. Time is a measure
of motion in space, hence the concept of spacetime.
In his analysis of the kalam cosmological argument, freelance philosopher James Still
points out that Craig seems to agree with the notion of relational time, simply because his entire
premise is based on the impossibility of actual infinity and thus, by implication, the concept of
absolute time. But then, in order to argue that the cause of the universe was a creator God, he
flips the switch:
Craig seems to agree with the relational view of eternity. However, when he discusses the
problem of an actual infinite, he slips into an absolute view of time to use the principle of
determination in the kalam argument's conclusion. He argues that the universe began to exist
because of thermodynamic considerations and the impossibility of an actual infinite. However, if
eternity is a timeless void, then the universe is eternal in the sense that there were no moments in
which the space-time continuum did not exist. Yet in order to effectively employ the argument for
a particularizer who decides a course of action at a given moment, Craig finds it necessary to

subdivisions of finite length, and asks whether a finite distance that is infinitely divisible can actually be traversed.
In contrast to this concept of potential infinity, speaking of time as infinite is to speak of actual infinity, in which
time extends an infinite distance backwards.

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revert to an absolutist view of time . . . Craig wrongly presupposes an ontological view of time
that conflates timeless eternity with temporal infinity - an infinity that is supposed to be a priori
impossible in the kalam argument . . . [T]he kalam argument becomes entangled in this conflated
notion of eternity when it argues that God was a particularizer who freely chose to create the
universe in time.

10

The conflation of timeless eternity with temporal infinity that Craig commits is seen most clearly
when he invokes the Islamic principle of determination and the related Leibnizian principle of
sufficient reason to support his claim that the agent responsible for creating the universe is a
personal being. He writes,
[W]hy did the universe begin to exist when it did instead of existing from eternity? The answer . .
. was carefully explained by al-Ghazl and enshrined in the Islamic principle of determination.
According to that principle, when two different states of affairs are equally possible and one
results, this realisation of one rather than the other must be the result of the action of a personal
agent who freely chooses one rather than the other. Thus, Ghazl argues that while it is true that
no mechanical cause existing from eternity could create the universe in time, such a production of
a temporal effect from an eternal cause is possible if and only if the cause is a personal agent who
wills from eternity to create a temporally finite effect. For while a mechanically operating set of
necessary and sufficient conditions would either produce the effect from eternity or not at all, a
personal being may freely choose to create at any time wholly apart from any distinguishing
conditions of one moment from another. For it is the very function of will to distinguish like from
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like.

We will see later on why it makes no sense to speak of God choosing from eternity to create,
given that choice is always a temporal decision. For now, it is enough to point out that the
question Craig poses at the beginning of the quoted passage above can only make sense in the
absolute view of time, a view that he argues against at great length in his book. But this principle
of determination is implausible in and of itself as well. The existence or non-existence of the
universe encompass two possibilities mutually exhaustive one of the other. As such, one of the
two states will occur even in the event that the causal agent chooses neither option. This means
that either the universe could have arisen without a cause, or that something else was responsible
10

Ja es till, Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig's Kala Cos ological Argu e t, Internet Infidels 1998,
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/kalam.html (accessed 27 March 2010).
11
Craig, Kal , pp. 150-1.

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for causing the universe. The former possibility stands contrary to the kalam argument's first
premise, and the latter possibility contradicts the principle of determination (i.e., that the nonexistence of the universe was equally possible).
Craigs surreptitious flip-of-the-switch strategy is very similar in nature to what Christian
apologist Matthew J. Slick resorts to in his Transcendental Argument for God, in which he
argues at length to establish that logical absolutes cannot be contingent upon minds, then turns
around in the conclusion and arbitrarily makes a special exception for one mind.12 This
inconsistency is enough to dismantle Slicks case completely, without even raising the additional
objection that the only minds that we have direct experience with are the result of physical
processes. Minds occur in brains, and sometimes they occur in microchips (which entail a very
loose definition of mind). But we are not aware of any mind that exists in the absence of a
space infrastructure to support it, and in fact groundbreaking developments in neuroscience
strongly indicate that such infrastructure-independent minds are very likely impossible.
In like manner, scrutiny reveals Craigs argument to be an elaborate exercise in proposing
a special exception. One need only wade past the sophisticated obfuscation to see this. Creation
is a causal activity. Thus, in order to argue for the existence of a creator of the universe, Craig
must appeal to absolute time, contradicting the relational time upon which he earlier depended to
argue against the possibility of infinity. Craig devotes the majority of his book to arguing against
the possibility of infinity in order to make the case for a sentient, creative First Cause in the first
case! This aligns with a pattern of non-reasoning noticeable in a great many arguments for
theism and creationism can be summed up as follows: There is a rule X which must and always
does apply in order for our case to make sense. But it cannot always apply, because we have
proposed something that has permission to break the aforementioned rule and have called it
God. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is no exception; it is an extremely elaborate and
ornate structure that in the end simply couches another special-pleading fallacy.
Craig wants the causal agent of the universe to be a personal Creator of the universe who
exists changelessly and independently prior to creation and in time subsequent to creation.13 But
in order to engage in the causal activity of creating a universe, this agent has to create within
time. Nothing can be timeless and contingent upon time simultaneously, and Craig contradicts
12

Matthe lick, The Transcendental Argument for the E iste ce of God, Christian Apologetics & Research
Ministry, http://www.carm.org/transcendental-argument (accessed 27 March 2010).
13
Craig, Kal , p. 152.

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his statement that the creator exists changelessly at one point and relationally at another point.
Something that is changeless and eternal by definition cannot change! If time exists in the
Newtonian absolute sense, a being that exists outside of what we recognize as spacetime is still
not separated or outside of time. There are therefore pronounced difficulties in positing a being
that does not work within causality.
Another problem with Craigs argument is that it necessitates the assuming of knowledge
of conditions that precipitated the beginning of the universe. We do not currently have that
knowledge, and it is possible that we never will. Our current scientific knowledge concerning the
origin of the universe extends back impressively far. We can trace the origins of the universe
back to the time at which the entire known universe was an extremely hot and dense state that
expanded and inflated rapidly. But we cannot currently progress beyond that point in order to
inquire further, and we do not know what manner of physical conditions applied that caused the
universe to arise. When apologists such as Craig begin positing a God who created the universe
and who is not subject to the physical rules implied by that selfsame causal activity and who is
outside of spacetime, the same problem arises. How can anyone presume to say anything about
how God operates if this God is outside of nature? In order to presume upon such matters, the
apologist is forced to admit that his argument does not derive from empirical observations, which
they often like to claim.
Besides, the nature of space and of time is tied very closely to the nature of matter in
relativity theory, which Craig admits is empirically confirmed. As a consequence, if there is
anything outside of spacetime that is exerting an influence on this universe, such an influence
is still contained within the concept of the universe, or the totality of all that exists. This is a
common problem frequently encountered in cosmological arguments for theism: they rely on a
very vague and ambiguous definition of universe. We can consider the universe to be the sum
of all things that exist, in which case God would in actuality be a part of the universe, and any
notion of existing outside the universe is reduced to absurdity. One can also use "universe" in the
sense characteristic of a science-fiction story, in which there are a vast number of parallel
universes. In this usage, one can make reference to this universe as one particular universe
among many. It is this latter concept that apologists usually seem to fall back on when they speak
of creation from outside. In the formulations common to cosmological arguments for theism,
there is a universe, but there is also stuff outside this universe to account for the creative acts.

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However, the stuff outside this particular universe can also be encompassed by the single word
universe in the sense of a mathematically complete set. As philosopher Nicholas Everitt points
out, [T]here could not have been an event preceding the universe and bringing it about, for the
simple reason that there was no time before the start of the universe in which that event could
have occurred. The first moment of time was the first moment of the universe. If per
impossibile there had been any event before the supposed start of the universe, that would simply
show that the universe had in fact begun earlier than we had assumed.14 If Craig is to remain
consistent in his appeal to relational time against the possibility of the infinity of past events, it
would seem he is forced to concede this point. This is the problem that I find inevitably emerges
when apologists talk about that which is outside the universe, or that which is not reliant upon
spacetime. In the course of his kalam cosmological argument, Craig arrives at a God who is
given permission to break any and all rules because he exists outside and beyond all physical
laws. In this case, how can he say anything meaningful about this God at all? How can he really
know how a being of that nature operates, and bring the news of it to us? And how is it sensible
to posit a being that transcends spacetime and yet carries out causal activity such as universecreating within spacetime?
In responding to Craigs invocation of the Islamic principle of determination and of the
Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason to account for why the causal agent must be personal,
Everitt succinctly reveals the inconsistency inherent in arguing for a timeless being that chooses
to create a universe:
[N]ecessary beings are thought of as being in some way outside time. But although this picks up
on the traditional idea that God is timeless, it threatens to render unintelligible the conception of
the God/universe link in terms of choice. For choosing is something that takes place at a time, and
if Xs choices are to explain Xs actions, then the choices must precede the action: X must be a
temporal being . . . Suppose we grant for the sake of argument that the creator could have a
thought of the form I will a universe of such-and-such a kind to exist. Since the creator is
outside time, this willing does not occur before (nor of course after) the start of the universe
which it is supposed to create. It occurs, but occurs at no time at all. Already it sounds a very
suspicious sort of cause. But worse is to follow. The hypothesis of the creator is supposed to
explain why the universe began to exist when it did, rather than earlier or later. This requires that

14

Nicholas Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 70.

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the creator should be able to have thoughts of the form I will the universe to start existing now
(or in a million units of time from now, etc.). But a being who is outside time can attach no sense
to terms like now (or a million units of time from now etc.). They can be used and understood
only by beings who exist at a time and who persist through time.15

These self-contradicting notions that we find batted back and forth within the structure of the
same argument create devastating problems for the conclusion that the universe necessarily had
to come into existence as a result of a Creator. Craigs argument fails to establish that God is a
name for something that can meaningfully be commented on, in much the same way that
arguments from design fail to demonstrate that a personal First Cause is an inherently consistent
and meaningful concept demanded by the structure of nature. Intelligent Design advocates such
as Michael Behe and William Dembski invoke a being which in principle is infinitely more
complicated than the universe in order to account for complicated things, which they at the outset
insisted needs an explanation as the aperture to proposing a God! This internal inconsistency is
aided and abetted by Craig, who comes along to posit a God who does not need an explanation,
who exists outside of time and space and yet creates regardless.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Kalam Cosmological Argument comes burdened with a variety of logical
inconsistencies, and the premises contained within it are not rooted in anything as solid as
apologists seem to think they are. Not only does the argument assume knowledge of conditions
that nobody can have at our current scientific state, but the argument also juxtaposes two
irreconcilable models. Most of Craigs argument sides with the notion of relational time over
absolute time. But then, once Craig comes to the point where he needs a God to be the cause
responsible for creating the universe, there is a sudden shift to absolute time. This is because,
according to the argument, God had to have been engaging in a causal activity in order to bring
forth the universe, necessitating a model of time that is not relational, not interdependent with the
bodies in motion and states of affairs that is allegedly being created. Such is the self-refuting
difficulty with Craig's entire premise. Apologists for theism want a God that has the capacity to
carry out causal deeds, who necessarily utilizes a causal process to create a universe. But at the
same time, this God avoids the very rules they claim necessitate his existence; in Craigs
15

Ibid., p. 76.

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argument, he gets to be a creator who exists within absolute time only at the junctures in the
argument that call for an absolute over a relational time model. Again, how can such a being be
both timeless and eternal and contingent upon time simultaneously? An irrational and unjustified
belief in magic is what theistic arguments such as these boil down to in the end.
If the interested reader wants to delve deeper into this subject (seeing as this critique has
only just scratched the surface) there are a number of critiques that can be found in many
interesting articles and papers online. The subject makes for very worthwhile and fascinating
reading, especially when reading Craigs rebuttals to his critics and their subsequent counterrebuttals.16 I highly recommend Infidels.org as an excellent starting point for broaching the many
involved issues surrounding this as well as other theological arguments, such as the
Transcendental Argument.

*March 27, 2010

16

For a sustained back-and-forth written debate between Craig and atheist Quentin Smith concerning the
cosmological argument, see William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).