> I didn't say new material. Kalam didn't say new material. "Whatever begins to exist..."

And that's the point. It's verbal sleight of hand. It's a bait and switch.

You use the concept of a rearrangement of pre-existing matter and conflate it with creation ex-nihilo.

Premise 1 cannot justify creation ex-nihilo.

> No reason to get nasty, here. We're having a civil conversation.

Calling out your ignorance isn't getting nasty. It's speaking honestly about your statements.

You had never heard of Noether's theorem until I mentioned it and had no knowledge of the scientific basis of the conservation laws.

That you chose to speak out of ignorance is an issue larger than me correctly calling it out.

> This is incorrect. Kalam, myself, and presumably WLC said nothing of ex-nihilo vs. from pre-existing material.

I know. That's the attempt at obfuscation.

> The discussion is not about ex nihilo vs. pre-existing material, but in something beginning to exist,

You're using "beginning to exist" in two different senses.

If you're going to attempt to produce a syllogism the meaning of the terms matter. I'm challenging premise 1 on the basis of creation ex-nihilo having no evidence whatsoever, and furthermore, science (via the conservation laws) telling us it doesn't happen.

That's literally the point. My challenge is that premise 1 is ill defined with respect to these two very different kinds of "beginning to exist"s. To attempt to hand wave it away is an attempt to not address the challenge.

> Au contraire, mon frair. What I said is accurate according to current science.

Incorrect.

> This is the point. Physics don't even exist at that point, according to our current knowledge, which is all we have to go by. Speculation about possibly potential future scientific understandings is weak at best.

Physics exists, we just don't understand it. String theory has some decent notions, but I agree, it's weak... Which is why your statements about the origins cannot be correct because the physics isn't known.

> Oh, it has quite the same impact. The case still stands that the universe had a beginning and had a causal mechanism outside of itself.

Literally none of that is implied at all.

> Since we are looking for a causal mechanism that is powerful, eternal, timeless, and personal,

You're the one adding "personal." I don't see any reason for that, or even how it could make sense for something that is timeless and therefore unchanging.

And if you want to sneak "personal" in there, you really need to explain what you mean by it. Something that is timeless can't have thoughts, desires, plans, intentions, etc. It makes no sense to say that something is both timeless (and therefore unchanging), but also "a person" or "personal" in anything at all like the way we use those words normally.

I also don't think that the existence of anything "timeless" is a necessary conclusion. I was just pointing out that if we're considering timeless things a possibility, there's no reason to jump to the conclusion that it would be anything deity-like. And that problem with wanting both personhood and timelessness.

"Eternal" makes no sense if it's also "timeless." Eternal implies existence through time. We can't even imagine what a "timeless" thing would be like. Existence as we understand it is persistence through time. Is there any reason to think that "timeless existence" is even a coherent concept?

I'll accept "powerful" in a general sense, i.e., the high-energy state predicted for the earliest moments we can say anything at all about in the big bang model is an example of something "powerful."

> Because impersonal causes must have first causes, and only personal causes can be first causes (though not every personal cause is a first cause).

I don't see why.

> You can never have an infinite chain of causes—it regresses. Whenever we see a chain of causes, we can always ask, "Who caused it?" The first cause is always personal.

You keep making the same unjustified leap. The hypothesis is that the reality we live in had no beginning. Under that hypothesis, there's no first cause. There's no "what caused it" question (much less who caused it). It just is.

That's the hypothesis, and if it were logically inconsistent you'd need to show that inconsistency without assuming that the hypothesis is false. Assuming a "first cause," or saying there's no place to start counting, or saying there has to be an answer to "what caused it" are all question begging, because you're making assertions that only make sense if the hypothesis is false. You're (implicitly) assuming your conclusion.

> That's not an argument, but rather a shoulder-shrugging speculation. We're after inferring the most reasonable conclusion, using evidence and logic.

You cited Vilenkin, who doesn't hide the fact that he's speculating. But we simply have no information to extrapolate back to a singularity. We just don't know. Beyond that it's all speculation.

> We are remiss to assume scientific explanations when everything we know about science hits the trashcan as we extrapolate backwards.

"We simply don't know" isn't assuming a scientific explanation.

> But since we know the current state of the outcome, we can reasonably surmise that the causal mechanism was powerful, timeless, eternal, and personal. That's where the discussion lies now. What are the possibilities?

You're the one making the claim that "we can reasonably surmise" those things. My response is at the top.

> No new material is ever created in any of these circumstances.

I didn't say new material. Kalam didn't say new material. "Whatever begins to exist..."

> That deals with conservation of energy, but I'll let that slide.

I'm well aware of that. You don't have to "let" anything "slide."

> Your ignorance of the basis of the conservation laws

No reason to get nasty, here. We're having a civil conversation.

> You cannot use these examples to justify "beginning" in an ex-nihilo sense, which is what the Kalam (and you, and WLC) attempt to do.

This is incorrect. Kalam, myself, and presumably WLC said nothing of ex-nihilo vs. from pre-existing material.

> ex nihilo...ex nihilo...

The discussion is not about ex nihilo vs. pre-existing material, but in something beginning to exist, whether absolutely or practically speaking. If something begins to exist, something caused it. You're hung up on the wrong ladder.

> This is a high school level understanding of the big bang.

Au contraire, mon frair. What I said is accurate according to current science.

> We don't understand physics at points that close to t=0. You're making claims you can't possibly have scientific knowledge of.

This is the point. Physics don't even exist at that point, according to our current knowledge, which is all we have to go by. Speculation about possibly potential future scientific understandings is weak at best.

> Doesn't quite have the same impact, huh?

Oh, it has quite the same impact. The case still stands that the universe had a beginning and had a causal mechanism outside of itself.

> We do all the time. My daughter-in-law is undergoing IVF. The technicians watch the sperm and egg meet and something new begins to exist. Every car that comes off the assembly line is now a car where previously it was not. I do woodworking. I shape pieces and join them, and the object I am making begins to exist as a chair, a chest, or whatever the project is. Two substances join in a chemical reaction, and a new substance is formed that was not there before (salt from sodium and chloride). It is no longer sodium or chloride, but now salt; it has begun to exist.

All these examples are just the rearrangement of pre-existing matter.

No new material is ever created in any of these circumstances.

> You may be thinking of the first law of thermodynamics: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form.

That deals with conservation of energy, but I'll let that slide.

> In actuality, this is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one.

100% false. The conservation laws (all conservation laws) are direct results of Noether's theorem.

> To be more accurate we'd have to say, "As far as we have observed, the amount of actual energy in the universe remains constant. That is, no one has observed any actual new energy either coming into existence or going out of existence."

Nope. Your ignorance of the basis of the conservation laws doesn't make them less scientific.

I know more about the science than you do. Your proclamations don't reflect the actual scientific understanding (especially since you seem to get most of your scientific understanding from WLC).

> But frankly, the argument wins either way. If the universe IS eternal, then we admit that eternity is possible, and therefore God could be eternal also. If the universe is NOT eternal, it needs a cause.

The argument is that "everything that begins to exist..."

We have no evidence of anything, ever "beginning to exist."

That's the problem with the statement you say things like "this car began to exist" or "this person began to exist" but these are names we place on rearrangements of pre-existing material.

You cannot use these examples to justify "beginning" in an ex-nihilo sense, which is what the Kalam (and you, and WLC) attempt to do.

> Of course it is. But things begin to exist. It would be grossly inaccurate to say that I have existed from eternity because atoms existed. Ah, yes, "I am stardust." No, I'm me. Though I am to some extent the rearrangement of previously existing matter, I began to exist at a particular place and time in my mother's uterus.

"You" is just the name we give to this ever changing collection of matter. You weren't created ex-nihilo.

> The Earth, also, began to exist at a certain time. The fact that cosmic dust existed beforehand doesn't negate that this planet had a beginning with its agglomeration of matter. Before it was not a planet; now it is. We can trace its formation and the causal elements of its beginning.

And none of that was creation ex-nihilo.

Again, you use "begin to exist" in two different ways. It's a deliberate attempt at obfuscation.

> An expansion from what? No one knows. The Big Bang model presupposes that all matter-energy in the universe, space, and time initially began in one point (having zero spatial and zero temporal extension). Space didn't even exist. According to current astrophysics, there was nothing that space expanded into. Space was being created as the universe expands. The universe truly began to exist.

No, not really.

This is a high school level understanding of the big bang.

We know general relativity breaks down under the conditions as t=0. To say that space didn't exist isn't correct.

We can't say what your saying because we don't have a theory of quantum gravity. We don't understand physics at points that close to t=0. You're making claims you can't possibly have scientific knowledge of.

> There is no scientific theory that postulates the existence of matter before the Big Bang. Some theorists propose an infinite density of energy, but with no particular substantiation of that idea.

Here is an article from 15 years ago showing you are wrong:
[url]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-beginning-of-time-2006-02/[/url]

> I say, by looking at the logic and the science, the Kalam argument has plenty of support, reason, and substantiation.

It has none, since the first premise is a bait and switch and the second isn't scientifically supported.

If you want to exclude creation ex-nihilo, then the Kalam becomes:

1. Everything that begins to exist and is made from pre-existing material, has a cause
2. The universe began to exist and is made from pre-existing material.
3. The universe, made of pre-existing material, has a cause.

Doesn't quite have the same impact, huh?

> And we haven't even exhausted the non-deity possibilities. If you allow that God can be timeless, why can't something that isn't a deity be timeless?

Here's where the conversation lies. Since we are looking for a causal mechanism that is powerful, eternal, timeless, and personal, let's discuss the non-deity possibilities.

> what sense does it make to say that something that is timeless and unchanging is also "personal"?

Because impersonal causes must have first causes, and only personal causes can be first causes (though not every personal cause is a first cause). Kinetic energy is energy in motion; potential energy is energy stored. The only way something begins in motion is if there is a first cause. You can never have an infinite chain of causes—it regresses. Whenever we see a chain of causes, we can always ask, "Who caused it?" The first cause is always personal.

> Maybe something analogous to quantum vacuum (with spacetime being a property of universes that arise, as Vilenkin suggests, "without cause" from it).

That's not an argument, but rather a shoulder-shrugging speculation. We're after inferring the most reasonable conclusion, using evidence and logic.

> We simply don't know. Our understanding of physics breaks down when we extrapolate backwards, before we get .to a singularity.

Exactly. We are remiss to assume scientific explanations when everything we know about science hits the trashcan as we extrapolate backwards. At this point, according to our current scientific knowledge, nature did not exist at the singularity, and neither did the laws or forces of nature. But since we know the current state of the outcome, we can reasonably surmise that the causal mechanism was powerful, timeless, eternal, and personal. That's where the discussion lies now. What are the possibilities?

> My point is that we can be certain there was a beginning to the universe.

You say "certain," but then you just make a questionable claim ("unless we had a beginning we could not have a present") which you've asserted but not proven. I explained why I disagreed with your assertion, and offered a challenge that doesn't try to treat infinity as a number.

BTW you're misunderstanding what the Big Bang theory is saying. I wouldn't go to Fox News for good explanations of science, but you can note that even the article you cite doesn't make the claim you make. As that article suggests we can work backward to a prediction that everything we see in the visible universe occupied a tiny volume at extremely high energy, but then that's where we stop and have to say we simply don't know what happened before that point. Our current understanding of physics is insufficient to extrapolate further back than that.

And I think you might be misreading Vilenkin, based on what he's saying in that article about the universe arising without cause from a quantum vacuum. It sounds like when he talks about the BGV theorm he's talking about the "our" universe, the visible universe we live in, and when he's talking about the universe arising without cause from a quantum vacuum he's talking about some larger, encompassing reality that makes the spontaneous formation of universes possible. But it's also (as he freely admits) a lot of speculation. I don't see anything in there that supports the stronger stance you're taking, but I didn't spend a lot of time on it.

> > If the reality we live in extends infinitely into the past, then it never "began." It extends infinitely into the past.

> I'm trying to grasp this. You're saying that reality can't extend infinitely into the past because if it did, then there was no beginning, and therefore no existence in the present. Then you say "It extends infinitely into the past." I'm not catching what you're saying.

If the reality we live in extends infinitely into the past, then it had no beginning.

That was in response to your "we can’t even begin to count" argument. You don't need to "begin to count" if the reality we live in extends infinitely into the past, so "we can’t even begin to count" makes no sense as a rebuttal. There's no need to "begin to count" because there's no beginning.

That's actually not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if the past is infinite, then we aren't here to have this conversation.
But your arguments to support that claim are implicitly making that kind of assumption. Otherwise why is "we can't even begin to count" even a sensible reply? The hypothesis is that the reality we live in extends infinitely into the past. Therefore it had no beginning. Therefore "we can't even begin to count" is not contradicting anything about the hypothesis.

> David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section XII, “Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy, part 2 § 125

Thanks, I guess Ravi Z added the first sentence, which isn't in the original. In context, it still doesn't look like Hume goes beyond asserting that he thinks the idea is absurd, therefore anyone who disagrees must have corrupted judgement. That's not an argument.
And we haven't even exhausted the non-deity possibilities. If you allow that God can be timeless, why can't something that isn't a deity be timeless?

But also, what sense does it make to say that something that is timeless and unchanging is also "personal"? It makes no sense for something that is timeless and unchanging to have desires, or plans, or intentions, etc. It just "is." So if the answer here is that something has to be timeless, it's not going to be anything like what we mean by the word "person." Maybe something analogous to quantum vacuum (with spacetime being a property of universes that arise, as Vilenkin suggests, "without cause" from it).

We simply don't know. Our understanding of physics breaks down when we extrapolate backwards, before we get to a singularity.

> We have never, under any circumstances, observed anything "begin to exist."

We do all the time. My daughter-in-law is undergoing IVF. The technicians watch the sperm and egg meet and something new begins to exist. Every car that comes off the assembly line is now a car where previously it was not. I do woodworking. I shape pieces and join them, and the object I am making begins to exist as a chair, a chest, or whatever the project is. Two substances join in a chemical reaction, and a new substance is formed that was not there before (salt from sodium and chloride). It is no longer sodium or chloride, but now salt; it has begun to exist.

You may be thinking of the first law of thermodynamics: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed in form. In actuality, this is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one. To be more accurate we'd have to say, "As far as we have observed, the amount of actual energy in the universe remains constant. That is, no one has observed any actual new energy either coming into existence or going out of existence." It actually says nothing about the universe being eternal or of having no beginning. As far as the first law is concerned, energy may or may not have been created, and then placed in a contained system of sustenance where no new energy is formed and none is lost. It simply asserts that if energy was created, then as far as we can tell, the actual amount of energy that was created has remained constant since then.

But frankly, the argument wins either way. If the universe IS eternal, then we admit that eternity is possible, and therefore God could be eternal also. If the universe is NOT eternal, it needs a cause.

> Literally all of material existence is a rearrangement of pre-existing matter.

Of course it is. But things begin to exist. It would be grossly inaccurate to say that I have existed from eternity because atoms existed. Ah, yes, "I am stardust." No, I'm me. Though I am to some extent the rearrangement of previously existing matter, I began to exist at a particular place and time in my mother's uterus.

The Earth, also, began to exist at a certain time. The fact that cosmic dust existed beforehand doesn't negate that this planet had a beginning with its agglomeration of matter. Before it was not a planet; now it is. We can trace its formation and the causal elements of its beginning.

> That's not what the big bang says. The big bang says approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a massive expansion event that developed into our current local presentation of the universe.

An expansion from what? No one knows. The Big Bang model presupposes that all matter-energy in the universe, space, and time initially began in one point (having zero spatial and zero temporal extension). Space didn't even exist. According to current astrophysics, there was nothing that space expanded into. Space was being created as the universe expands. The universe truly began to exist.

> The big bang does not say that material came into existence from nothing, just that the universe developed into its current form from this state.

There is no scientific theory that postulates the existence of matter before the Big Bang. Some theorists propose an infinite density of energy, but with no particular substantiation of that idea.

I say, by looking at the logic and the science, the Kalam argument has plenty of support, reason, and substantiation.

> What's awful about this premise?

We have never, under any circumstances, observed anything "begin to exist."

Literally all of material existence is a rearrangement of pre-existing matter.

It's a premise without any support.

> There is substantial scientific and mathematical support for this premise, as well as logical ones. There is strong evidence from astronomy and its mathematical observations that virtually confirm an absolute beginning roughly 13.8 billion years ago. What's awful about this premise?

That's not what the big bang says. The big bang says approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a massive expansion event that developed into our current local presentation of the universe. The big bang does not say that material came into existence from nothing, just that the universe developed into its current form from this state.

There is nothing that supports the notion of a "beginning" in an existential sense.

I disagree. Let's break it down.

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." This certainly seems more plausible that its denial. The idea that things that don't exist can pop themselves into existence is horrible science, illogical, and worse than magic. If you know the illogic of the idea that if something begins to exist, something else caused it to come into existence, let's hear it. I'm not aware of anything that can spontaneous cause its own existence from a state of nonexistence. What's awful about this premise?

"The universe began to exist." There is substantial scientific and mathematical support for this premise, as well as logical ones. There is strong evidence from astronomy and its mathematical observations that virtually confirm an absolute beginning roughly 13.8 billion years ago. What's awful about this premise?

Let's talk about it. As far as I can see, premises ! and 2 are quite adequately if not fully supported.

The Kalam argument is awful. Both the first and second premises are completely unsupported.