The Kalam, Time, and Causation.

Dr. William Lane Craig is arguably the most prominent philosopher promoting the Kalam cosmological argument in our day. All manner of objections have been raised against it. I’m not going to address those objections here. Many others have already done that, including Dr. Craig in his academic publications.1

I do, however, want to present one particular response that Dr. Craig shared in his debate with Dr. Massimo Pigliucci. A questioner had come forward raising an objection to Dr. Craig’s argument. Their concern was about the argument and how it relates to the impersonal or personal cause of the universe. Here is Dr. Craig’s response:

What I am arguing is that time must have a beginning. And that, therefore, the cause of the universe transcends time as it exists alone without the universe. And what I’m suggesting is that if those causal conditions that are sufficient for the existence of the universe are timelessly present, then the universe should be timelessly present as well. It would be impossible for those causal conditions to exist and yet the effect of those causal conditions not to co-exist with it. Otherwise they are not sufficient conditions. So if the causal conditions are timelessly given and they are sufficient for the effect, the effect should be co-existent with the cause. But in fact, that is not the case, what we have is a universe with a beginning—a temporal beginning.
 
How in the world can you get an effect with a temporal beginning from a cause that is timelessly present and existent? I can think of only one way out of this dilemma and that is by positing that the cause is a free agent endowed with freedom of the will and therefore able to create a new effect without any antecedent determining conditions. And thus, you can have a temporal effect arise from a timeless, personal agent cause. And I think that solves the dilemma.

The interesting contrast here, I think, is between the necessary and sufficient conditions. Just what could be the sufficient condition that brings about the beginning of time that didn’t have any antecedent determining conditions? Could this be anything else besides a timeless, personal agent?

Here’s a link to the debate. And here’s a link to quoted portion of the debate.

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Published 10/23/18

Clarifying the Argument from Contingency

The argument from contingency1 has, for some people, one particular premise that is a bit hard to swallow. Additionally, this particular premise has an aspect to it that can make things a little confusing (it was a bit confusing for me when I first delved into it and I’ve seen it confuse others as well)2. Let’s look at the whole argument and then evaluate the challenging premise in a little more detail.

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe3 has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence. (1 & 3)
5. Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the universe is God. (2 & 4)

Premise 4 follows logically from 1 and 3. This is unsurprising.
Premise 5 follows logically from 2 and 4. Again, this is unsurprising.
Premise 3 is relatively uncontroversial, so we are left with premises 1 and 2.

Premise 1 is challenged by some people, but that approach is generally an attack on the principle of sufficient reason, and that’s not the topic of this post. Perhaps it will be a topic for a future post, but we won’t be addressing that today.

This leaves us with premise 2. This premise, for a lot of people, is a bit difficult to accept. However, if we look at the premise with a bit more of a critical eye, maybe it will be easier to understand and accept. Here’s the premise again:

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

Let’s change the wording just a bit:

2′.4 If the universe has an explanation of its existence, then atheism is not true. 5

Without diving into the details of what atheism means6 at the philosophical and/or popular level (for the sake of keeping this post short), we are just changing the wording of the consequent 7 to read “then atheism is not true,” which is to say that God exists. This is pretty straightforward.

We need to examine the consequent of 2’ to clarify things just a bit more.

• If atheism is not true, then God exists.

Now we’ll flip the logic in the statement8:

• If atheism is true, then God does not exist.

Do you see what was done? We moved the negation to the consequent. We can do this in this particular instance because the statements are logically equivalent.9

Now that we’ve clarified the latter part of premise 2, let’s put the whole premise back together with the equivalences compared. Here’s the original premise again:

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

We’ll change the consequent:

2′. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, then atheism is not true.

We have to be careful with the rules of logic to make the statement logically equivalent:

2”. If atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence.

Premise 2’’ is logically equivalent to Premise 2.

It is this logical equivalence that has lead some atheists to say that the universe has no explanation. If the atheist admits to an explanation of the universe (Premise 1) then they are implicitly agreeing to Premise 2. The atheist is logically “arm twisted” into denying an explanation for the universe.

Hopefully this clears things up for some people.

Dr. William Lane Craig has a section in his book ON GUARD that expounds on this clarification and the entire argument in more detail. You can purchase his book here: Link.

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Published 8/10/18

A Universal Code?

Richard Dawkins, probably the most well-known biologist in the world, said in his book The Greatest Show on Earth that “…the genetic code is universal, all but identical across animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea and viruses.”1 (screenshot).  This echoes his earlier thoughts from his book The Blind Watchmaker where he says that “The genetic code is universal,” and that he regards this “as near-conclusive proof that all organisms are descended from a single common ancestor”2 (screenshot).

We can plausibly summarize his statements as follows:

1. If there was a single common ancestor, then there is a universal code.

On February 12th, 2011 The Science Network hosted a panel discussion entitled The Great Debate – What is Life? (link) The guests of the panel were Richard Dawkins, J. Craig Venter, Nobel laureates Sidney Altman and Leland Hartwell, Chris McKay, Paul Davies, and Lawrence Krauss.

In one of the exchanges (here) between Davies and Venter, Venter (who specializes in genetic sequencing) states that there is more than one genetic code. And that the particular code he was referring to (mycoplasmas) would not work in the human body. He went on to say to Davies that “there is not a tree of life.” And he called the tree of life an “artifact of early scientific studies that aren’t really holding up.”

Dawkins responded to Venter shortly after the exchange with this comment and question, “I’m now intrigued by Craig saying … that the tree of life is a fiction. The DNA code of all creatures that have ever been looked at is all BUT identical. Surely that means that they are all related. Doesn’t it?” Venter just chuckles, and the audience laughs.

So, just how many genetic codes are there? When I first stumbled across this information on 1/18/16 there were 18 codes. As of 5/16/18 there are 24 codes. These codes are listed on The National Center for Biotechnology Information website here.

Perhaps we can continue with the logic that these discoveries suggest.

2. There is not a universal code.

Then it would follow that, therefore,

3. There was not a single common ancestor.

This conclusion would pose a significant problem for Dawkins’ earlier suggestions as well as for the idea of LUCA (last universal common ancestor). Now of course this is provisional. Maybe some other type of evidence will come up showing that there is a single common ancestor. But as it stands right now, that hypothesis doesn’t seem to be holding up to the latest discoveries from genetic sequencing.

There’s a lot more than can be said about this topic, but I think we’ll leave it at this for now.

H/T
Jay Wile’s blog (link) is where I first discovered this information.
Evolution News (link).
 

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Published 5/17/18

Updated 2/25/23 – Thanks to my friend for catching a mistake in my logic!

What is Evolution?

Definitions matter.

How often have you had a discussion with someone where a misunderstanding was instantly cleared up by the words, “Oh! You meant ______!” Fill in the blank with just about any concept. The point here is how the other person’s perspective was immediately understood with the clarification on what was meant. I have both experienced and observed this same moment of clarity regarding the topic of evolution.

Considering that the topic of evolution is so … heated, it would be good idea to get our definitions from a reputable, authoritative source. And to be clear, this will not be an illegitimate appeal to authority. There are legitimate appeals to authority. As Wesley Salmon states,

There are correct uses of authority as well as incorrect ones. It would be a sophomoric mistake to suppose that every appeal to authority is illegitimate, for the proper use of authority plays an indispensable role in the accumulation and application of knowledge. If we were to reject every appeal to authority, we would have to maintain, for example, that no one is ever justified in accepting the judgment of a medical expert concerning an illness. Instead, one would have to become a medical expert oneself, and one would face the impossible task of doing so without relying on the results of any other investigators.1 (screenshot_1 & 2)

The particular authority that is to be cited here is very prominent in the scientific community related to the topic of evolution. His name is Francisco J. Ayala (wiki). Here is the link to his faculty page at University of California, Irvine, where you can see a detailed list of his published books and his journal articles. Among his numerous awards and honorary degrees, he was also awarded the National Medal of Science in 2001. Surprisingly, few people outside of the scientific community are aware of his name.

“The theory of evolution”, as defined by Dr. Ayala, “makes statements about three different, though related, issues:

(1) The fact of evolution, that is, that organisms are related by common descent;
(2) Evolutionary history—the details of when lineages split from one another and of the changes that occurred in each lineage;
(3) The mechanisms or processes by which evolutionary change occurs.”2 (screenshot)

Further down the same page, Ayala then provides more clarity on these definitions. Regarding the first issue he says that it “is the most fundamental and the one established with utmost certainty.” It is this definition, he says, that “is implied when biologists say that evolution is a ‘fact’…”

Ayala adds that regarding “The second and third issues—seeking to ascertain evolutionary history, as well as to explain how and why evolution takes place—are matters of active scientific investigation.” (emphasis mine).

Many of the discussions I have seen and been a part of have not done a very good job of clarifying definitions. And since I started using these definitions in my discussions, it has helped prevent some of the confusion and misunderstandings. Hopefully these definitions from a very prominent biologist will help clear up some of the confusion and misunderstandings in your discussions as well.
 

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Published 4/28/18

A Serious Problem for Mormonism.

“If we assert that a self-contradiction is true, then we are rejecting a principle upon which the possibility of any assertion at all rests: the principle, namely, that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same manner; and if this principle is false, no knowledge is possible—not even the knowledge that a self-contradiction is true.”
— Stuart Hackett1

One of the strongest refutations that someone can present in an argument against a particular view is to demonstrate that that view violates the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction goes back to Aristotle himself in the book Metaphysics IV: “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect.”2

Let’s look at an example proposition:

Socrates was a man.

Here we have ascribed manhood to the individual Socrates. And if we negate this property, we get:

Socrates was NOT a man.

This is precisely what Socrates said was impossible. Socrates cannot both be a man and not be a man at the same time and in the same respect; the statements cannot both be true.

Without going into much more detail on this particular topic of logic, suffice it to say that if an argument is presented showing a particular view violates the law of contradiction, that view is in serious trouble.

Let’s move on to the point of this post.

Joseph Smith was the founder of the religion of Mormonism (wiki). And as a founder of a major religion, and as a proclaimed prophet of God by his followers, he had a few things to say about God. In his “inspired” translation (done in the 1820’s) of golden, hieroglyphic plates, he made a very specific claim about God. Here is that claim:

“For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.” — Moroni 8:18 (screenshot)

We can summarize this passage simply:
God does NOT change. (¬P)3

On April 7, 1844, Joseph Smith gave a sermon entitled “The King Follet Discourse.” In this particular sermon, which according to the Mormon church is a classic (screenshot) in Mormon church literature, he said made a statement that is the exact opposite of what he translated in the Book of Mormon. Here is that statement:

“We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see … He was once a man like us;”
King Follett Discourse (screenshot)

In this particular segment, we can observe two things:

1. Joseph Smith wants to refute the idea that God was God from all eternity.
2. God was once a man like us.

It should strike the reader (or the follower of Mormonism) as a bit odd that Smith wants to refute the very idea that he translated (supposedly) from the golden plates into the book of Mormon.

Additionally, we can see that when Smith says that God was once a man like us, God must have changed. We can summarize #2 as this: God does change (P).

So, in the book of Mormon and in a sermon stated to be a classic in Mormon church literature, we have explicitly conflicting statements.

God does NOT change. (¬P)
God does change. (P)

One of these statements is false, or they could both be false (Joseph Smith’s God might not exist), but they cannot both be true.

On such a basic doctrine of the nature of God, it’s hard to see how Smith could have made such a mistake. Either way, one of the statements is true and one of them is false. Which one is it? And what are the implications on the falsity of either statement? Furthermore, how could a “prophet” of God make such basic, contradictory claims on the very nature of God?

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Published 4/8/18

You Can’t Prove a Negative!

Or can you?

Steven Hales, professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University has some interesting things to say on the topic:

A real, actual law of logic is a negative, namely the law of non-contradiction. This law states that that a proposition cannot be both true and not true. Nothing is both true and false. Furthermore, you can prove this law. It can be formally derived from the empty set using provably valid rules of inference.” (Italics in original)
 
Any claim can be expressed as a negative, thanks to the rule of double negation. This rule states that any proposition P is logically equivalent to not-not-P. … Think you can prove your own existence? At least to your own satisfaction? Then, using the exact same reasoning, plus the little step of double negation, you can prove that you aren’t nonexistent. Congratulations, you’ve just proven a negative. The beautiful part is that you can do this trick with absolutely any proposition whatsoever. Prove P is true and you can prove that P is not false.” (Italics in original)

Dr. Hales also makes a nice distinction between deductive arguments and inductive arguments as it relates to negative claims, which might be the basis for the idea that some think a negative can not be proven.
https://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf

Here is another philosopher, Dr. Craig, discussing the topic with a member of the audience in a debate with Dr. John Shook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XsW6jD4eg

Another philosopher, Dr. Stephen Law, shares an interesting observation, “Notice, for a start, that ‘You cannot prove a negative’ is itself a negative.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/believing-bull/201109/you-can-prove-negative. (screenshot).

A law of logic, double negation, and a self-reference problem for the statement itself … it sure looks like a negative can be proven.

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Published 1/30/18

Updated 12/12/21