Abstract
William Lane Craig, the contemporary Christian philosopher of religion, is the foremost advocate of the kalām cosmological argument. Although Craig’s kalām cosmological argument is not totally unique, he advances the kalām cosmological argument in at least two distinct ways. First, he takes modern set theory into account in his defence of the impossibility of an actual infinite, ensuring that the kalām cosmological argument is in line with contemporary mathematics. Second, unlike his predecessors, Craig presents scientific arguments together with the philosophical arguments in support of a beginning of the universe. As a result, Craig has helped foster interaction between philosophers and physicists regarding the origin of the universe. This chapter offers an analysis of Craig’s formulation and defence of the argument.
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- 1.
In view of the fact that Craig presents his long-running defence of the kalām cosmological argument in numerous publications, I shall treat several of his works as a coherent whole, rather than focusing on just one of his publications in my exposition of his kalām cosmological argument. The works on which I shall draw include those of Craig (1979, 2008, 2013) although I shall focus primarily on Craig and James D. Sinclair’s article entitled ‘The Kalām Cosmological Argument’ that is published in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2012). Although Craig and Sinclair co-authored the article, I shall credit Craig with the philosophical section of the article because, according to Craig (in Craig and Harris 2008), he wrote the philosophical section of the article while Sinclair wrote the scientific section on the cosmological evidence in favour of a beginning of the universe.
- 2.
Craig’s more technical definition of begins to exist is as follows: ‘x comes into being at t iff (i) x exists at t, and the actual world includes no state of affairs in which x exists timelessly, (ii) t is either the first time at which x exists or is separated from any t′ < t at which x existed by an interval during which x does not exist, and (iii) x’s existing at t is a tensed fact’ (Craig and Sinclair 2012:184).
- 3.
See Aristotle’s Physics 2.3 and Metaphysics 5.2, in which he presents his four well known causes, namely, material cause, formal cause, efficient cause and final cause.
- 4.
John M.E. McTaggart (1908) distinguishes between two theories of time that he arbitrarily terms the ‘A-series’ and the ‘B-series’. The former theory affirms that there exists a present moment in the series of time while the latter theory denies such a present moment. Similar, non-descriptive names, such as ‘ A-theory’ and ‘B-theory’, have since been used to differentiate between these two theories. For a brief introduction to McTaggart’s views regarding time see McDaniel (2010).
- 5.
For a defence of the A-theory of time, see Craig (2000).
- 6.
George Gamow (1947:17–18) accredits this thought experiment to David Hilbert (1862–1943), the distinguished mathematician of the nineteenth century.
- 7.
Occam’s razor is accredited to William of Occam (c. 1285–1349) and it is the principle that an explanation of a thing should not include more assumptions than are necessary.
References
Craig, W. L. (1979). The kalām cosmological argument. London: Macmillan.
Craig, W. L. (2000). The tensed theory of time: A critical examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Craig, W. L. (2008). Reasonable faith: Christian truth and apologetics (3rd ed.). Wheaton: Crossway Books.
Craig, W. L. (2013). The kalam argument. In J. P. Moreland, C. Meister, & K. A. Sweis (Eds.), Debating Christian theism (pp. 7–19). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Craig, W. L., & Harris, K. (2008). Blackwell companion book. http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/Blackwell_Companion_Book.mp3. Accessed 27 Dec 2014.
Craig, W. L., & Sinclair, J. D. (2012). The Kalam cosmological argument. In W. L. Craig, & J. P. Moreland (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to natural theology (pp. 101–201). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Gamow, G. (1947). One two three …infinity. New York: The Viking Press.
Hackett, S. (1957). The resurrection of theism: Prolegomena to Christian apology. Chicago: Moody Press.
McDaniel, K. (2010). John M. E. McTaggart. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2010 ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/mctaggart/. Accessed 15 Apr 2013.
McTaggart, J. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 17, 457–474.
Smith, Q. (2007). Kalam cosmological arguments for atheism. In M. Martin (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to atheism (pp. 182–198). New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Erasmus, J. (2018). Craig’s Kalām Cosmological Argument. In: The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73438-5_6
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