everything has to have a cause to exist, — Varese

That's not what William Lane Craig says. He says that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause. He is thereby sneakily baking in his conclusion to his premise. You see, God never BEGAN to exist, God ALWAYS existed, and therefore God requires no cause. It's pure sophistry.

It would be helpful, though, if you want to initiate a discussion, to link or present the version of the cosmo argument you wish to discuss. Else confusion will be generated, since we won't all be talking about the same thing.

Of course. That was the reason i haven't wrote "kalaam cosmological argument" but just "cosmological argument". Becasue i am not saying the same thing as Lane Craig says. As i understood it, Dr. Craig talks about god as if it is a phenomenon which has always existed and just picked a certain time to create everything, using its transcendedness not as the bulk of his premise, but (kind of) just as a feature. Even though that version of the claim seems to me kind of bizarre, everyone is giving counter arguments to that version of the argument which is again, i think is nearly pathetic.

So yeah, it is incoherent with Dr. craig's representation. Despite that, i think i made it clear what my representation is but of course you can ask anything you want about it.

I think it's pretty clear that assuming time and space are real objects which exist outside of consciousness inevitably leads to the conclusion that there is a God. It really would take a God to design such complex constructs and moreover impose dualistic metaphysics onto us by fiat.

This is totally unrelated to the teleological argument. Please read the thread accordingly.

This is totally unrelated to the teleological argument. Please read the thread accordingly. — Varese

There are many variations of the cosmological argument. If you want discussion on a specific version, you should post a link to, and/or summarize, the specific version of the argument in which you are interested. Nobody can read your mind.

He says that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause. — fishfry

Isn't the cause in this context the thing that brings something else into existence, or alternatively the reason for something happening? In other words, doesn't cause not merely entail existence but signify a beginning of existence? In which case something with no beginning cannot be caused.

God, as a proposed entity, is always defined as always existing. God is never defined as having a moment of birth. So I don't see where the conclusion is baked in other than perhaps in assumptions about what and which entities have beginnings -- other than God.

the premise [ ... ] everything has to have a cause to exist — Varese

... is patently false. See Causa sui, etc ... follow links for further contexts.

edit:

Furthermore (below @fishfry reminds me)

[ ... ]

"3. An infinite regress ... is impossible"

False. Loops, circumferences, cycles, fractals, etc can be infinitely regressed (or egressed) ... Travel in a straight line ... any direction on Earth and after traveling c24.9k miles you must arrive where you'd departed from because the Earth's surface is finite yet unbounded. — 180 Proof

The present is t=0; the farthest back to the past our current, best, measurements go — make physical sense according to contemporary physics — is t= minus 13.81 billion years; physical speculations "beyond the physical" are, therefore, unwarranted and even nonsensical (e.g. before the beginning, cause of causality, north of the north pole ...)

God, as a proposed entity, is always defined as always existing. God is never defined as having a moment of birth. So I don't see where the conclusion is baked in other than perhaps in assumptions about what and which entities have beginnings -- other than God. — Garth

My reading of section 1, Form of the Argument, seems to agree with my interpretation. But I am no expert on this, I think Craig is a charlatan. In any event the OP doesn't want to discuss Craig and I have nothing else to contribute. Except to say that personally I believe in infinite regress, since I believe in the negative integers: $\dots, -4, -3, -2, -1$. In this case each "event" has a cause, namely its immediate predecessor, yet there is no first cause.

since I believe in the negative integers: …,−4,−3,−2,−1. In this case each "event" has a cause, namely its immediate predecessor, yet there is no first cause. — fishfry

I think you'd have to order them the other way. They arise in group theory as the additive inverse of the natural numbers.

I couldn't find any counter arguments against the cosmological argument? — Varese

Well, the only way you could fail to find counterarguments to common versions of the cosmological argument is if you didn't look. But as for your formulation, I confess that I find it too confusing. For example, I can't tell what you mean by "immanent" - a word that you use a lot, but not in a way that I recognize.

I'll say one thing though. A common feature of cosmological arguments is that they rely on some kind of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), which I think you call the "deterministic principle." I think the most direct way to oppose a cosmological argument is to deny the PSR.

I think you'd have to order them the other way. — Garth

I can order them any way I want. Nothing wrong with ω* order type.

I would prefer to attack this line of reasoning by arguing against PSU, not by denying that everything has a cause but by denying that the cause must be greater than the effect. Then there is not necessarily God creating the universe, but a tiny blip, echoing louder and louder before finally fading away back into the nothingness from whence it came.

All I can say is that the following things you said form are at odds with each other:

1. "everything has to have a cause to exist"

and

2. "it has to defy the mathematical standpoint we can see which is that "things" cannot be on their way to go to, or to be traced backwards to, infinity"

because 1 implies backwards infinity - a cause for a cause...ad infinitum. So, if you object to something, anything because there's infinity in it (like you do in 2), you have to object to 1. "everything has to have a cause". :chin: Maybe I'm not reading this right. Anyway, my two cents.

That everything has to have a cause to exist is a pretty weak premise, but let's get along with it.
I don't understand what is the problem with the hypothesis that we are living in an universe that always existed. Is because it would contradict the premise? Since the universe exist, it HAS to have a cause? But then even God would be subjected to the premise. You can't say that this transcendental cause (God) always existed without denying the premise. Or is it because of the infinite regress with the causes? But that there is an infinite regress of the causes is not contradictory or unintelligible in any way I can see. Does it defy logic in some way? How? Doesn't seem so.

Now, let's assume that there actually is something outside of space and time (very problematic talking about space and time in this way, but let's get along with it) that created the universe. Why are you assuming only ONE cause? It could also be the result of many dinstict transcendental causes. You may call each one of those a "God", amd then you would have many gods. Maybe A LOT of them. So why one instead of, let's say, 123'876 gods?

Finally, EVEN IF you could show that it has to be just one transcendental cause, would it be fair to called it a "god"? What if this cause ceased to exist rigth after the universe was born? Would you still call it a god, even though is, well, dead? And what about its attributes? Is this cause intelligent? Does it have a will? A mind? Is it good? Because, if it is neither intelligent, good, omnipotent and "alive", than I think that calling it "god" is just playing with words. And it would even be offensive for the vast majority of religious of people, assuming that God is just a stupid, mindless cause that has even ceased to exist billions of years ago.

We don't know that all physical things must have a cause
We don't know that all transcendental things do not require a cause
We don't know whether infinity can be realized in reality (in this case that cosmic events are eternal. And note a distinction between universe and cosmos, the latter including multiverse(s))

So the argument only works if you just assert a position on several things that we don't actually know.

I think you'd have to order them the other way. They arise in group theory as the additive inverse of the natural numbers. — Garth

I'm sorry, what? You don't think the negative integers are ordered as I said? Which is smaller, -4 or -3? Did you miss that day in 8th grade? Even as an (ordered) additive group, the integers are ordered the negative integers followed by 0, followed by the positive integers in their usual order. I hope this is not new material to you. I'm afraid I could not find the sense of your statement. Are you familiar with the real number line and the usual order on the integers? What's the smallest negative integer?

Wouldn't 'causation' only come into effect when time became manifest? So what you are asking is before time when did the universe start. Which is like asking which end you should hold a one ended stick?

There are properties of the universe (in fact most of the existing universe) that does not need, nor is it reliant on 'time'. Virtual particles for one thing... and to some degree quantum mechanics... certainly the whole loop quantum gravity theory... well they don't need nor rely on time.

Is time though a real thing... well if its not then how can it manifestly change if i head away from you at the speed of light or some portion of that and then return? Time has moved on at a different rate for both of us... in a universe where time was illusory and merely a conceptual description ... that couldn't happen. But it does need one process to run on... a universe in the first place.

So which came first the universe or time? Well time is property OF the universe so the universe is the origin of time... not the other way around. Demonstrated by the relative difference of my time to yours when I'm accelerating and you are not!

Your cosmological argument relies on causation/time predating the universe. I'm sorry, that's not a possible thing. It has a zero probability.

Perhaps I didn't explain this very well... if not I'll be happy to expand on this.

Now the next question might be 'when did time become manifest?' which again is a weird question.... to my mind the universe has existed for all of time, just as the south pole consists of all of southness! Theres nothing south of it! and its a silly question to ask what is south of it! (although I see a lot of folks asking just that!)