This academic year, I’ve been taking a class on the Doctrine of God. Last week we were studying God’s eternity, and as part of that we looked at the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig’s formulation of it – that link goes through to his website, where you can watch a short video on the Kalam which is actually quite good. He didn’t come up with the original argument himself, but he did extend it).
The argument itself is pretty simple. It goes like this:
- Everything that began to exist has a cause of its existence
- The Universe began to exist
- Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
- Causes are either:
- Impersonal (without a will) – a previous physical state of affairs which ‘produces’ the new state of affairs. or…
- Personal (a will produces the new state of affairs)
- So: The universe is either caused by a 4a) or 4b) cause.
- But: 4a) causes are not available to cause the universe because by definition there is no previous physical state of affairs.
- Further: This personal cause is – in relation to the universe: Transcendent, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent.