The Kalam argument

Who founded the Kalam argument?

The Islamic philosophers Al-Ghazali and Al-Kindi who originally introduced the Kalam argument in the middle ages

Who modernised the Kalam argument and when?

The American philosopher William Lane Craig (1949-present) in the 1970s

What does the Arabic word ‘Kalam’ mean?

‘Argue’ or ‘discuss’

What is Craig’s main belief about the creator of the universe?

He was a personal creator that caused the beginning of the universe

Personal creator

A God that is conscious and sentient as people can have a personal relationship with him

The Kalam argument

The argument that everything that begins to exist has a cause

Example: everything that begins to exist has a cause

The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause, which is God

How is the idea of infinite regress avoided in the Kalam argument?

The universe had a beginning at which it began to exist (and thus everything else began to exist)

Infinite regress

The idea that everything is made of something before it

The idea that everything is made of something before it

A wall is made from > brick, which is made from > cement > mud > dirt > minerals > elements particles > atoms > subatomic particles > and so on…

What idea is Craig’s modernised Kalam argument based on?

The idea that God created the universe ex nihilo and chose to make the Earth

What does the Latin word ‘ex nihilo’ mean?

‘(Formed) out of nothing’

Craig’s modernised Kalam argument

The present could not exist if there was an actual infinite universe because successive additions cannot be added to an actual infinite (the infinite hotel analogy)

Successive additions

The continuous addition of something to something

Example: successive additions (the linear chronological idea)

The history of the universe being one event following another event, and so on…

The infinite hotel analogy

A paradox that shows the counterintuitively of infinite sets of things (a fully occupied hotel with an infinite set of rooms cannot accommodate anymore guests, so each guest is moved up one room, which can be repeated an infinite amount of times)

How is the infinite hotel analogy counterintuitive?

You cannot add a number onto infinity, as you cannot move each guest up one room if the infinite number of rooms is filled

What does Craig use the infinite hotel analogy to suggest?

To illustrate the concept of an actual infinite, which he argues is problematic

How does Craig justify the existence of the present?

It is the result of all the chronological series of the worlds past events

What does Craig say about the universe?

The universe is finite (ie it had a beginning)

What are two pieces of evidence for Craig’s argument that the universe is finite?

Whatever begins to exist, has a course, as things cannot cause themselves, involving the universe and if you added all the events of the world together, you would not get an infinite number, showing that the universe is not infinite, but instead had a beginning