To TGL:

As long as you acknowledge that Reality did not begin to exist, then you don't have an issue with the dilemma. There might be other philosophical issues, but at least the Causal Dilemma isn't one of them. However, traditional Christian doctrine insists that God created everything out of nothing, so the acceptance of an eternal Reality is impossible from that perspective. I understand the Cosmological Argument doesn't formally say 'reality,' but that's just from linguistic construction -- an attempt to be too cute by half. What it means to say is, precisely, Reality, otherwise it would be incomplete and not interesting whatsoever. But that's a moot point, because the same criticism applies even if the Universe is the only thing under consideration (as long as the Universe represents the total sum of reality, otherwise what I said doesn't apply and there's a Reality that extends beyond the Universe).

Thank you for your thoughts, SoG. Here are my objections to your counter-arguments:

1) “This is wildly conjectural, and in order to use it as any objection you must demonstrate that such other universes or dimensions exist, or at least demonstrate that it is highly more plausible that they do exist than that they do not. Thus far, there is literally zero evidence for any other universes or dimensions outside of ours, and so we are granted no reason to assume such.”

Objection to 1: You have misunderstood this part of the argument, which was never to argue that a multiverse exists or that it’s even plausible. I’m agnostic on the question myself. The argument simply meant to show that, in the event that these ‘complicated’ features of Reality exist, the Cosmological Argument can be rephrased in a general way to account for them. And if they don’t exist, the ‘General Version’ (as I’ll call it) simply reduces to the traditional version. Thus the most intellectually satisfying option is to analyze the General Version. I fail to see why this is controversial.

2) “If it were demonstrated that other universes/dimension did, indeed, exist, this does not in any way refute or destroy the Kalam argument, because all of the universes within this multiverse would have begun to exist (due to the impossibility of an infinite temporal regression), thus, premise (2) is changed, thereby, to "The multiverse began to exist". Rendering the conclusion, "Therefore, the multiverse must have a cause".
All this does is push the causal question back one step further.”

Objection to 2: I have the impression that you glossed over certain parts of my essay. I acknowledged as much in my original post, when I wrote “…the theologian would presumably extend the scope of reality to include those other universes and dimensions, thus returning the problem to the search for the one, true, and fundamental cause behind all of reality.” Again, the existence of a multiverse is not the central point behind the refutation; it’s simply an elegant way of rephrasing the argument. And it would be necessary in the event that Reality is far more complicated than just our universe.

3) “I can't help but point out that this is a straw-manned version of the cosmological argument, for it does not state that reality began to exist, but that the Universe (the totality of spacetime and its contents) began to exist. This requires a causal explanation which exists beyond spacetime and its contents in order to bring it into existence.”

Objection to 3: On the contrary, the Generalized Version is the most complete form of the argument. Consider the possibility that there are extra dimensions beyond the four-dimensional spacetime of relativity. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not for the purpose of the argument; if it’s metaphysically possible, you must at least consider it. Under this possibility, your version of the Cosmological Argument only explains a small subset of Reality. How else should we interpret an argument that purports to explain only four dimensions of spacetime in this universe, while scores of other dimensions and universes also exist? Thus you have two choices: return to the General Version or present an incomplete Cosmological Argument. As I argued in my essay, the latter option is ridiculous: who cares if our universe came into existence when so did millions or billions of others? It’s like coming up with a Cosmological Argument for one particular ant somewhere on Earth.

4) “1.) Whatever begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia) has a cause (material, efficient, or both).
2.) The Universe began to exist (either ex nihilo or ex materia).
3.) Therefore, the Universe must have a cause (either material, efficient, or both).”

5) “1.) Whatever begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia) has a cause (material, efficient, or both).
2.) The Universe began to exist (ex nihilo).
3.) Therefore, the Universe requires a cause (efficient).”

Objections to 4 and 5: This is your most important counter-argument, so let’s dissect it carefully. First let’s make sure we understand what I’m saying, and then I’ll return to your reformulation. There are two basic versions of the Cosmological Argument which are logically correct. They are:

Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a material cause.
Reality began to exist ex materia.
Therefore, Reality had a material cause.

The other one is:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a transcendent cause.
Reality began to exist ex nihilo.
Therefore, Reality had a transcendent cause.

These arguments are both logically valid. But they’re ontologically absurd. We both seem to agree that Reality could not have had a material cause, since that would imply that some pre-existing material preceded the emergence of Reality. Clearly that’s a contradiction. And the second one is equally absurd ontologically, because there’s nothing that begins to exist ex nihilo. The only plausible element in the set of ‘things that begin to exist ex nihilo’ would be Reality itself. Thus ontological considerations force the last argument to become a tautology:

Reality begins to exist ex nihilo.
Reality began to exist ex nihilo.
Therefore, Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

What becomes clear now is that your reformulation above is, in fact, fallacious. The logically correct version would be this:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo or ex materia either has an efficient cause or a material cause.
Reality began to exist either ex nihilo or ex materia [you can’t pick and choose here, otherwise you’re presupposing the causal emergence]
Therefore, Reality either had either an efficient cause or a material cause.

Once you select either set (material or efficient, ex nihilo or ex materia), you just revert to the Causal Dilemma.

6) “Not at all. It implies that something (x) is only *actually* beginning to exist iff it comes into existence at time (T).”

Objection to 6: I’m noticing a pattern of just glossing over material for convenience. Read what you wrote and juxtapose it with what I wrote in my essay: “An object x begins to exist if it comes into existence at some time t and at no later time t1.” Missed that last part perhaps? Because it’s central to the argument I was making.

7) “The word "transcendent" means that it exists apart from the Universe; you cannot be apart of the Universe and cause it to begin existing at the same time, this is logically self-contradictory. Thus, the cause of the Universe must exist externally and independently of its effect, per logic.”

8) “This is patently false. To say that the Universe has a transcendent cause is simply to say that the cause of the Universe is not bound by the Universe or any of its strictures; it exists externally from and independently of the Universe, which is the only logically viable option.”

Objections to 7 and 8: You are misunderstanding the argument. There’s a basic question you are forced to consider if you assume that foundationalism does not resolve Agrippa’s Trilemma: can a transcendent cause have transcendent causes? Saying that a transcendent cause created Reality says nothing about the transcendent cause or where it came from; hopefully we can agree on that. But that doesn’t mean it’s a worthless inquiry. I would like to get your opinion on the following. Is it possible for God, assuming it exists, to have created equally omnipotent deities? Assuming it is possible, would it not then be possible for these deities to have destroyed or eliminated God? And if these things are metaphysically possible, then would it also not be possible for these deities to have created Reality? Under this scenario, the identity of the transcendent cause seems to matter. It’s the difference between deciding which version of mythology, Jewish or Babylonian, you’d like to accept.

My comments and objections to your statements follow below.

1) “If any other dimensions did exist beyond our current ones, then they would immediately be included in "the Universe" within the premise "the Universe began to exist."”
2) “Once again, all this does is push the causal question back one step further to "therefore, the multiverse must have a cause".”

Comments to 1 and 2: This is not so much an objection because now you’ve at least acknowledged the possibility that Reality could be more complicated than this Universe. The rest seems to be a matter of semantics; you insist on calling it the ‘Universe’ whereas I think ‘Reality’ is the more appropriate term. The term ‘universe’ is inextricably bound with the popular understanding of the observable universe, which we’re sure for various reasons cannot be all there is even in ‘the Universe.’ And the problem of Reality being even more complicated than the multiverse remains, thus for the purposes of generalization I will still continue to phrase the argument with the concept of ‘Reality’ in mind.

3) “It's not fallacious at all. To exclude a form of causation whose exclusion is not yet justified in the argument is the fallacy (of special pleading). The premise "whatever begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia) has a cause (material, efficient, or both)" is a logically airtight premise; anything that begins to exist will have either a material cause, an efficient cause, or both, it all depends on the means by which it begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia).”

Objection to 3: The variations to the Cosmological Argument you’ve presented suffer from various flaws. Primary among them is that you’re deliberately mixing terms and phrases in Premise 1 in the hopes that a crisp conclusion can somehow follow. You’re just muddling the argument. Let’s consider some of your variations.

Variation 1 (the one in your first post):

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo or ex materia either has an efficient cause or a material cause or both.

Premise 2: Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

Premise 3: Therefore, Reality had an efficient cause.

In this version, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Specifically the conclusion contradicts Premise 1. To be logically valid it would have to be reformulated as follows:

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo or ex materia either has an efficient cause or a material cause or both.

Premise 2: Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

Premise 3: Therefore, Reality either had an efficient cause or a material cause or both.

This version is logically correct. That’s because Premise 1 has been formulated to allow for the possibility that creation ex nihilo can have both material and efficient causes. In other words, Premise 1 has been artificially constructed to be metaphysically absurd, since how could creation ex nihilo ever have a material cause? It just doesn’t make sense. The way to remove this logical and linguistic equivocation absolutely, of course, is just to adopt one of the logically correct versions I proposed above. Again the following variation logically works:

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a transcendent cause.

Premise 2: Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

Premise 3: Therefore, Reality has a transcendent cause.

This version works on a logical level because it makes it absolutely clear that ex nihilo creation can only be associated with transcendent causes. But again it’s ontologically absurd since we know of nothing that begins to exist ex nihilo. Premise 1 is almost like saying, ‘Everything on Earth that does not obey the law of gravity has some property x.’ But that’s a null set; there’s nothing that has the property in question. Thus Premise 1 crumbles. To better understand the mistake you made in your original argument, consider the following argument which is structurally similar:

If you have a sibling, then you have either a brother or a sister.

You have a sibling.

Therefore, you have a sister.

Obviously that’s a fallacy; the conclusion doesn’t work with Premise 1. The correct conclusion should be that you have either a brother or a sister. Because your version of Premise 1 gives a dual understanding to ‘begins to exist’ (treating it as a superposition of creation ex nihilo and creation ex materia), that means that your understanding of cause also has to reflect this duality.

The following are also variations which do not work ontologically:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo or ex materia has a material cause.

Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

Therefore Reality had a material cause.

Another one:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo or ex materia has a transcendent cause.

Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

Therefore Reality had a transcendent cause.

This last version doesn’t work because Premise 1 allows the possibility that ex materia creation can have transcendent causes. That’s another ontological absurdity, hence you run into the Causal Dilemma.

I think by now we’ve analyzed enough variations of the argument to quite plainly see that there’s no way to remove its metaphysical contradictions. Thus the argument should be rejected as unsound.

There’s another point I want to get across. There might be people reading over this thread who might not be familiar with what I mean when I say that the Cosmological Argument is logically correct but ontologically absurd. How can a philosophical argument which is logically correct be absurd? It’s very easy actually, and the history of philosophy is replete with examples. But it doesn’t take much imagination to come up with your own. Here are a few arguments which are logically correct, but ontologically meaningless.

If it’s Saturday, then unicorns exist.

It’s Saturday today.

Therefore, unicorns exist.

The second premise could also say that it’s not Saturday today, and therefore unicorns don’t exist. The argument is logically valid, but metaphysically absurd since the existence or non-existence of unicorns does not depend on what day it is. Another one with a similar flair:

If 2 + 2 = 4, then God exists.

2 + 2 = 4.

Therefore, God exists.

Again, the absurdity is painfully obvious. The fundamental point I’m making is that the Causal Dilemma sends the Cosmological Argument into this class of arguments: logically correct, ontologically meaningless.

4) “Premise (1) of this argument is not valid. Something which begins to exist ex materia will require both a material and an efficient cause, seeing as material cannot cause itself to begin existing, and material cannot rearrange itself into a new form without the intervention of an efficient cause to do the rearranging.”
5) “What material did J.K. Rowling use to create Harry Potter? What material did Beethoven use to create his symphony? Ex nihilo creation can be accounted for. Thus, the first premise "whatever begins to exist ex nihilo has an efficient cause" is not fallacious or ontologically absurd; even if we had no examples of ex nihilo creation, it would still logically follow that an ex nihilo creation requires an efficient cause.”

Objections to 4 and 5: Let me begin with 4. I object to the idea that ex materia creation requires material and efficient causes. In fact, after reading what you just wrote, I have the sense that we’re living in different universes and not even sharing the same understanding of ‘begins to exist ex materia.’ How does the fusion of hydrogen into helium inside the Sun require an efficient cause? How does the emergence of ferromagnetism in the Ising model require an efficient cause? And how did the emergence of the Solar System from a dense cloud of gas and dust require an efficient cause? It seems obvious to me, but maybe I missed something in physics class, that material can rearrange itself all the time into new shapes, forms, and patterns. And all the questions I just posed have perfectly consistent naturalistic responses, thus to posit transcendent causes which cannot be empirically verified almost seems to border on the idea that everything that begins to exist is due to a transcendent cause. I take it you are not a pantheist (maybe you are and you just didn’t know it!) so I assume this is not what you’re trying to say. However, the suggestion that ex materia creation ‘requires’ (your word) both material and efficient causes is very difficult to interpret in any other way. You seem to be committing yourself to some form of pantheism, which I admit is an interesting theological position, but also a very radical one. I’m not a theologian so I’ll stay away from that fight, but needless to say you have no ontological basis for suggesting that ex materia creation requires both causes. All reliable evidence suggests that ex materia creation can be explained through material causes alone, even in the case of human beings.

Speaking of which, let’s get to point 5. The material that JK Rowling used to create Harry Potter depends on what you mean by ‘Harry Potter.’ If you are asking about what she used to create the book, then first I imagine she wrote it down on a computer, which used a hard drive to store the written information. Then she printed it using paper, which is the same substance used for the commercial version available to everyone. If you are asking about something more seemingly intangible, like where she got the idea for Harry Potter, then I would respond that the idea came from the neurological structures in her brain. Various life experiences which she had, and which no one else did in the exact same way, influenced the neurology of her brain to eventually create this fictional character we know as Harry Potter. Then her neurology dictated her motor functions, which caused her to sit down on a computer and start typing out Harry Potter. And I’ve already covered that part, so the emergence of Harry Potter has been successfully explained through exclusively material causes. A similar response would apply for Beethoven’s symphonies, of which I’m a huge fan by the way (especially the fifth and ninth). Due to both genetic and environmental factors, Beethoven’s neurology guided his artistic expression and creativity. God sure as hell didn't give him the idea for the Ninth Symphony; it took him about a decade to complete. But again, we have another phenomenon explained exclusively in terms of natural causes.

For the purposes of this argument, I’m not claiming that ex nihilo creation is absurd simply because we’ve never seen it. Rather I’m contending that, given the fact that we haven’t seen it, we have no successful causal model for it in the way that we have causal models for ex materia creation. Now, there are many things which we’ve never seen or experimentally verified but for which we have successful causal models (or theories). Dark matter and dark energy would be two examples. We’ve never experimentally confirmed the existence of dark matter particles, but there are several scientific theories which explain their existence in the context of other known phenomena. The key point is that their existence is explained through materialistic properties; that’s the foundational basis for scientific research (naturalism). No causal account of ex nihilo creation can be reconciled with ex materia creation, and the Causal Dilemma will remain with the Cosmological Argument as long as that remains the case.

6) “The Universe is the totality of spacetime and its contents, rendering absolutely nothing existent sans the Universe, therefore, we can conclude that the Universe begins to exist ex nihilo. This demands only an efficient cause. The whole purpose of me writing out the technical version of the cosmological argument was to demonstrate that once we have determined by which means the Universe begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia) we can then determine what type of cause it will have. If it begins to exist ex materia (logically absurd, as you yourself have said), then it will have both. If it begins to exist ex nihilo, then it will only have an efficient cause; hence the reason for the following argument:”
7) “1.) Whatever begins to exist (ex nihilo or ex materia) has a cause (material, efficient, or both).
2.) The Universe began to exist (ex nihilo). In this premise we have determined by which means the Universe has come into existence, thus giving us the conclusion:
3.) Therefore, the Universe must have an efficient cause.”

Objections to 6 and 7: Once again, the version presented here is just plain wrong. I explained why above, but the big idea is that you allow ex nihilo creation to potentially have material, efficient, or both causes simultaneously. And if that’s the case, then your conclusion has to be that the Universe must have an efficient cause, a material cause, or both. You have to insist on an exclusive sense of ‘begins to exist’ and then on an exclusive cause, or exclusive combination of causes, associated with that sense. You have the following eight options for Premise 1:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a material cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a transcendent cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a material and a transcendent cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a material or a transcendent cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a material cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a transcendent cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a material and transcendent cause.
Everything that begins to exist ex materia has a material or a transcendent cause.

It doesn’t matter which one you pick for the Cosmological Argument; they all fail because of the Causal Dilemma. None of these variations of Premise 1 can be ontologically reconciled to Premise 2, the idea that Reality began to exist ex nihilo.

8) “I would not grant this true. An entity begins to exist if its state of existence has a point at which it begins, i.e., that at one point it was non-existent, but then became existent. Thus, things can come into existence more than once. On your Lego scenario, what happens is, when you destroy the creation, it once again becomes non-existent, thus allowing it to begin existing yet again.”

Objection to 8: I’m confused about what you’re saying here. When you write that ‘I would not grant this true,’ are you saying that you would not grant Craig’s formulation of causation as true? Because that’s what I was referencing. So if you think Craig’s formulation is wrong, I fail to see what we’re arguing about. If you think Craig’s formulation is reasonable, you don’t seem to show it from your own description of causal emergence. Craig’s formulation would modify your description as follows: ‘An entity begins to exist if its state of existence has a point at which it begins, and then no other point in time t1 in the future.’ Before we even get to the Lego set and other things related to this formulation, at least tell me if there’s something we’re arguing about here or not. The Lego scenario as you described it, by the way, is exactly the contradiction I was trying to show for Craig’s formulation (ie. the Lego set can begin existing at some second time t1 in the future).

9) “Yes, actually. My mother transcends me, because her existence is not contingent upon mine. So, that means that *her* mother transcends her (my mom). Thus, transcendent causes can have transcendent causes. All the word "transcendent" means is that it exists independently of whatever it is causing, or that it exists non-contingently of its effect. But, if a transcendent cause is, in and of itself, a causeless cause (as in the case with the cause of the Universe), then it will not have any cause, transcendent or not.”

Objection to 9: Here you are equivocating on the meaning of ‘transcends,’ using it in a radically different sense than what you mean when you say that ‘the Universe came into being through a transcendent cause.’ Of course the existence of any mother isn’t absolutely contingent on her son or daughter, but it is partially dependent on it. After all, there are a number of things sons and daughters can do, deliberately or not, to shorten or lengthen the existence of their mothers. The same applies for all parents and children, and indeed for all people on Earth. The existence of anyone is, at the very least, partially dependent on that of everyone else. Unless you mean to argue the same for Reality and God (ie. that the existence of God partially depends on the existence of Reality) then these two conceptions of ‘transcendence’ have no equivalence. Additionally, you have provided a definition for ‘transcendent’ which I disagree with. I define a transcendent cause essentially as anything that’s not a material cause (ie. something which has an effect that is, in principle, not explicable through materialistic properties and concepts). The existence of sons and mothers can be explained entirely through materialistic causes. Thus there’s no transcendence to speak of. If we cannot agree to a consistent definition of ‘transcendence,’ then that might be a more fundamental problem then anything we’ve discussed up until this point.

10) “What he is saying here is that if you demand an explanation for the explanation, then you're going to end up with an infinite causal chain. But, as I reiterate, the cause of the Universe does not, itself, have a cause, due to its timelessness (at least sans the Universe). The cause of our Universe exists ceaselessly and necessarily, thus there is no point where it begins to exist, thus you have no point at which to ascribe a cause to it.”

Objection to 10: Craig is alluding to the trilemma. I’ve been talking about it all this time. I would like to know something: are you suggesting that the only possible set of causes exists in time? Thus, on this view, timeless causes don’t even count as causes? Why can’t we just speak about two different sets of causes, causes in time and timeless causes? They are radically different, I would agree, but they both seem to be metaphysically conceivable. That is, it seems to be metaphysically conceivable that God performed other actions before it created Reality. Maybe those actions were related to the creation of Reality, maybe they were not. That’s not even important. The only thing that’s important is that it (or they, in the case of many gods) could have acted in other ways before Reality was created. My point is not necessarily to search for an explanation to the immediate transcendent cause that formed Reality. That would be boring. I had a far wider ambition: to understand the nature of transcendence in which God or other supernatural entities existed before the emergence of Reality. And furthermore I wanted to understand if this nature can be ever made compatible with more conventional metaphysical notions, or if it’s always doomed to be unknowable in some profound sense. How would you respond to theological non-cognitivists, who argue that the linguistic expressions related to God are meaningless? Thus much of this discussion we’re having is useless, according to this view.

11) “No, because no being can possess equal or greater power than the greatest conceivable being. This is not to undermine God's omnipotence, because maximal greatness is an innate part of God's nature, and God cannot violate his own nature. Secondly, if God created a being "equal to or more powerful than God", that being would still be contingent upon God, which immediately renders it less powerful than God. So anything that God creates is, by definition, less powerful than him. How can a contingent being be more powerful than it's non-contingent creator? However, divine omnipotence is a subject I will gladly discuss on a separate forum thread.”

Comment on 11: This is more for my theological curiosity than anything else. It’s amusing to talk about the properties that a non-existent being possesses. You asked the following question: ‘How can a contingent being be more powerful than it's non-contingent creator?’ The reason why I think this question is so fascinating is because we might actually have an answer for it soon, in an entirely different context. I’m speaking, of course, about robots. Robot technology has advanced in leaps and bounds recently, and one of the major challenges is just packing enough computer power in its ‘brain’ to simulate the neurological functions that the natural human brain acquired through millions of years of evolution. But this is entirely a matter of when, not if. At the very least, it seems plausible that these contingent beings (robots) can become intellectually equal (or superior) to their creator. And it seems plausible very soon, maybe even in our lifetimes. There’s at least one concrete example. Obviously I hesitate to extrapolate between this concrete case and our hypothetical. So let me rephrase my original question as follows: if God cannot create a being which is more powerful or equally powerful, then could he create several beings which are individually weaker (or less perfect) but collectively stronger (or more perfect in some sense)? And then I would ask again: could these beings force God out of existence? Is there anything that can, for that matter? Talking about this here seems appropriate. After all, you’re claiming Reality had a transcendent cause. I would like to know at least something about that transcendent cause.

My arguments and objections follow below.

Comment: “Reality is the Universe. "Reality" as it is defined in terms of science, is the totality of spacetime and its contents. However, do not make the equivocal mistake of defining reality as "all of existence".”

Objection: As far as I know, there is no formal scientific definition for the concept of ‘Reality,’ and there will not be one until a successful unified theory (or something like it) emerges in physics. Right now it’s very much a concept that’s open to both scientific and philosophical speculation. As I’ve shown from the beginning, it doesn’t matter how you define Reality for our purposes. The Cosmological Argument fails with whatever definition you want to adopt; the only thing that’s important is the requirement that Reality come into existence in the first place.

Comment: “When I say "the Universe" I do not mean "observable universe", I mean the *totality* of spacetime and its contents. It wasn't just the observable universe that began at the Big Bang, it was the *totality* of spacetime and its contents.”

Objection: I understand that’s not what you meant, nor did I ever accuse you of having that position. My point was that what you and I mean by the term ‘the Universe’ is irrelevant. What’s important is that, in the public imagination, it’s a term that’s become heavily associated with the observable universe. It’s only natural to want to use a different word to express the same underlying message of the Cosmological Argument. Until we have a unified theory, it’s very difficult to place the inflationary event (‘the Big Bang’) almost 14 billion years ago in a proper scientific context. What came or didn’t come as a result of inflation may remain a mystery for a bit longer. But your comments here puzzled me a little bit. You seem to view the inflationary event as the central moment in the history of Reality (ie. the moment that lead to everything else).

This view, however, contradicts the possibility that Reality could be more complicated than the Universe, which is a possibility you have acknowledged. If it’s a possibility you do in fact acknowledge, then it implies that the inflationary event could have been the side-effect or the result of some other process. In M-theory, for example, it’s multi-dimensional branes colliding every once in a great while that can produce the conditions which lead to our universe. The inflationary moment all those billions of years ago is a drop in the bucket under this scenario. I’m not saying that M-theory is right, nor does it have to be right to highlight my point. I’m just arguing something very simple: if there’s something more complicated out there, then obviously the inflationary event 14 billion years could not have been ‘totalistic’ in any sense. To use our terminology here, inflation would have been contingent on some other physical process. So to be absolutely crisp and clear in this argument, we have to drop the assumption that the inflationary event was somehow central (or even important) in the history of Reality. It could have been, sure, but it could just as easily have been something totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. And again, we won’t know what that ‘grand scheme’ is until there’s a unified theory. For the purposes of generalization, the term ‘Reality’ still shows powerful utility.

Comment: “Yes it does. In premise one, we discover that if something begins to exist, it will have a material cause for that, an efficient cause for that, or both. Which cause it has depends on *how* it begins to exist (ex materia or ex nihilo).”

Objection: But this is not how Premise 1 was phrased. All you’re doing is applying after-the-fact interpretations to a premise which was poorly stitched together. The fact remains that in your original formulation of Premise 1, there is ambiguity regarding which causes are associated with what types of creation. The only way we know what you mean is because you explained your intentions after giving us a confusing premise. And you’ve given us a confusing premise to justify a particular conclusion.

Comment: “In premise two, we discovered the means by which the Universe begins to exist. We discovered that it begins to exist ex nihilo. This means that the only type of cause that the Universe can have is an efficient cause. There can't be a material cause of something that begins to exist out of nothing, so "material cause" and "or both" is ruled out, leaving only an efficient cause as the plausible answer. Thus, the conclusion "therefore, the Universe must have an efficient cause" is logically deduced from the two aforementioned premises.”

Objection: We didn’t ‘discover’ anything; you just assumed the Universe came into ex nihilo creation. And I don’t object to that assumption logically speaking (even though it’s ontological non-sense), just avoid using the word ‘discover’ for this context. But the most important part of this statement is that fourth sentence, where you show your method of ruling out material causes or both causes for ex nihilo creation. This analysis is an ex post facto justification for what Premise 1 means to say, not for what it actually says. The way you have phrased Premise 1 allows for the possibility that ex nihilo creation can have a material cause. Both of us agree for metaphysical reasons that ex nihilo creation should be associated with transcendent causes, so Premise 1 should be rephrased to remove such absurd possibilities. It seems bizarre that we’re arguing about this, since you’ve already accepted the logical validity of one version of the Cosmological Argument I’ve presented above. Thus it doesn’t matter if we disagree on the logical validity of this particular version; if there’s just one for which we do agree, why can’t we just analyze that one? That is, let’s just look at the following:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a transcendent cause.
Reality began to exist ex nihilo.
Therefore Reality had a transcendent cause.

It’s easier if we just continue the argument over the ontological validity of this one, since we both agree this version is logically correct. It’s up to you.

Comment: “This premise does not work, because something which begins to exist out of literally nothing (no material) can't, thereby, have a material cause. This means that the only type of cause that it can have is an efficient cause. as I pointed out above, the second premise gives us the means by which the Universe began to exist (ex nihilo), this giving us the conclusion that it began to exist via an efficient cause only. If something begins to exist out of nothing, that means there is no material from which it came, which rules out a material cause.”

Objection: I had a small typo in my original post. Obviously I meant ‘Conclusion’ and not ‘premise’ when I wrote ‘Premise 3.’ You’re still having a hard time understanding something very basic: this is not an argument about ontology. It’s primarily an argument about linguistics. Butchering the latter ruins your ontological conclusion. We both agree ontologically that ex nihilo creation cannot have material causes, but this is not how you phrased Premise 1 of your original argument. What about that is so difficult to get? Just rephrase your argument to my version and everything is good, logically speaking. Now, I understand why you would support your current equivocating argument: it muddles and hides the blatant weakness of Premise 1, which is that nothing actually comes from ex nihilo creation. If you had the guts to let the premise stand on its own, this weakness would be more apparent for the world to see. But because you don’t want to highlight this weakness, of course, you equivocate by allowing the possibility that all kinds of creation can have all kinds of causes (individually or in combination). And that’s silly too, obviously.

Comment: “This wouldn't be how I'm wording my argument, though. Consider the following argument, which would be a correct analogical argument to my own.
1.) If you have either a male or female sibling, then you have either a brother or a sister.
2.) You have a female sibling.
3.) Therefore, you have a sister.”

Objection: It’s moments like these that I wish people had read Kant more carefully. This last argument is not equivalent to your formulation of the Cosmological Argument for one simple reason: the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. What you’ve presented here are a series of analytic statements, and from those you’ve reached a tautological conclusion. The subject of ‘male sibling’ or ‘female sibling’ automatically includes the concept of ‘brother’ or ‘sister.’ That’s what allows us to say that ‘a male sibling is a brother’ while ‘a female sibling is a sister.’ But this is fundamentally different from Premise 1 in your version of the Cosmological Argument, where the subject of ex nihilo creation has been attached to the predicate of transcendent and material causes. Thus you cannot claim that ‘ex nihilo creation is a material or a transcendent cause,’ but rather that ‘ex nihilo creation emerges from material or transcendent causes.’ Perhaps another variation could be that ‘ex nihilo creation is the result of material or transcendent causes.’ Either way, these are synthetic statements. To use the structure of your own example, this is what you’re trying to do:

1) If you are either ex nihilo creation or ex materia creation, then you have either a transcendent cause or a material cause.
2) You are ex nihilo creation.
3) Therefore you have a transcendent cause.

But this is fallacious, precisely because the association of ex nihilo creation with transcendental causes is an ontological or metaphysical realization, not a logical connection. Now, I agree that ex nihilo creation should be associated with transcendental causes, for metaphysical reasons. But what you’re trying to do is to say that ex nihilo creation equals transcendental cause in the same cavalier manner one might say that 5 = 5 or that ‘female sibling’ equals ‘sister.’ And if this is really what you mean, then your argument becomes amusing indeed:

1) If you are either a transcendent cause or a material cause, then you have either a transcendent cause or a material cause.
2) You are a transcendent cause.
3) Therefore you have a transcendent cause.

So you’re left, once again, with deciding what you mean. Either you mean to reach this tautological conclusion or you mean to express the synthetic statement that ex nihilo creation is associated with transcendent causes. And that just takes you back to:

Everything that begins to exist ex nihilo has a transcendent cause.
Reality began to exist ex nihilo.
Therefore Reality had a transcendent cause.

Comment: “Not having any examples of something that begins to exist ex nihilo does not in turn render ex nihilo creation metaphysically absurd. This is a fallacious inductive argument known as the non-sequitur fallacy, for it does no follow from the premise "we have no examples of creatio ex nihilo" that "therefore creatio ex nihilo is metaphysically absurd". In order to grant the latter, you must demonstrate that "creatio ex nihilo" is, actually, metaphysically absurd by pointing out any logical flaws with something beginning to exist ex nihilo.
But I ask again, what material did J.K. Rowling create Harry Potter out of?”

Objection: You keep repeating things like a broken record, almost as if you’re refusing to read certain parts deliberately. I’m not arguing that ex nihilo creation is absurd because it has never been seen; I’m arguing that it’s absurd because it cannot be causally modeled. Nobody can say what ex nihilo creation ‘is like’ in any sense that can be reconciled or understood in context with what ex materia creation ‘is like.’ And this is an automatic problem whenever you claim that Reality had an ex nihilo creation. Logic alone has no bearing on whether ex nihilo creation is sensible; what you would need is an ontological understanding of ex nihilo creation, which so far neither you nor anyone else has provided. Beyond meaningless platitudes such as ‘transcendence is independence,’ there is no causal model you’ve given for ex nihilo creation. If you’d like to provide one, I’m all ears.

JK Rowling created Harry Potter from the neurological structures in her brain. I’ve already answered this question; I don’t understand why you keep repeating questions I’ve already answered. I’m noticing you’re a fan of the George W. Bush strategy of ‘repeat something until it becomes true.’ Let’s make a deal: you keep asking me what the answer to 5 + 5 is a million times, and I’ll keep answering ‘10’ a million times. Eventually it’ll sink in, I hope. I’ll have a lot more to say about some issues related to your question later in this post as well.

Comment: “"Transcendent cause" does not translate to "efficient cause", a transcendent cause is a cause that transcends, or exists independently, of its effect, as is the cause in any and all forms of causation. If a cause is contingent upon its effect, then it cannot cause its effect. This would imply self-causation, which is logically impossible.
For instance, my mother is the transcendent cause of me, because her existence is not contingent upon mine, thus she transcends me. But I still began to exist ex materia!”

Objection: As I’ve highlighted in various parts throughout this post, there are serious problems with your definition of ‘transcendent.’ Given these basic definitional problems, it’s very difficult—for me or anyone else—to actually say what a transcendent cause is. The best we can do is to pick some arbitrary definition, which may or may not be equivalent to ‘efficient cause.’ I cover this subject in extensive detail later in this same post.

But again, you are abusing your our own understanding of the concept of ‘transcendence.’ First you say that a transcendent cause exists independently of its effect. This statement, by the way, is not a definition of anything; you’ve just written down a property of a transcendent cause (ie. something that a transcendent cause possesses). You haven’t told us just what a transcendent cause actually is. Noting down properties about something is not the same thing as defining it. For example, I can say that the Eiffel Tower has a great height, but that’s not a plausible definition for the Eiffel Tower (ie. it’s silly to say that ‘the Eiffel Tower is a great height’). Then you continue by claiming that a mother is the transcendent cause of a child, but what does that really mean? According to your very own definition, it just means that mothers exist independently of their kids. Nowhere in there does it say that a mother caused the existence of the child. Let’s apply this same understanding to the ‘transcendent cause’ that created Reality. According to you, this transcendent entity exists independently of Reality; nowhere in your understanding of ‘transcendence’ does it imply that this entity created Reality itself. What doesn’t exist in any of this mumbo jumbo is a precise definition of ‘transcendent cause.’ We’re all waiting on one from you.

Comment: “What you're doing is attempting to define the difference between a *sound* argument--an argument in which its conclusion follows logically from its premises--and a *valid* argument--an argument in which the premises are actually correct. The argument you have presented is sound, but not valid. It is sound because its conclusion logically follows from its premises, but it is not valid, because premise one is not true. In fact, this argument is a perfect example of the fallacy of begging the question, for the conclusion is assumed true in the first premise. So, you are correct in your contention that an argument can be sound, but not valid (ontologically absurd). As both of the arguments here demonstrate.”

Objection: First I want to point out that you screwed up the definition of validity and soundness. It’s the other way around, actually. Here is the IEP (http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/):

“A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true.”
“An argument is valid if the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the conclusion.”

So recap: validity guarantees proper structure, soundness guarantees proper content. It’s fun going back to Philosophy 101. Secondly, my joke argument was just supposed to be that: a joke. I didn’t imagine you’d find a ‘fallacy’ in it, but now that you think you did things are more interesting. For how can you think the argument about the unicorns begs the question while the same structural argument about transcendent causes doesn’t? After all, when we claim that all ex nihilo creation has a transcendent cause, doesn’t that ‘presuppose’ the conclusion? It seems like that’s what you’re arguing. A version of the unicorn argument that might beg the question would be:

If it’s Saturday, then unicorns exist.
Unicorns are beautiful existing creatures with pink manes.
It’s Saturday today.
Therefore, unicorns exist, and they’re beautiful creatures with pink manes.

The second premise begs the question in this version. But I don’t see anything logically wrong with the argument in the original version.

Comment: “You've got to remember, an efficient cause is not *always* personal. In the case of the fusion of hydrogen into helium, I would regard the extreme thermal energy exciting the particles to such a degree that they fuse as the efficient cause, and the material cause would be the particles. As per Aristotle, the efficient cause is what does the causing, whilst the material cause is what is being acted upon.”

Objection: Of course efficient causes don’t have to be ‘personal’ in the way Aristotle understood them. But they do have to be ‘personal’ for the version of the cosmological argument that you’re supporting. Think about it: if they weren’t, they would be no different from material causes. Then you would have the same non-sense that we’ve already dismissed: material causes responsible for the ex nihilo emergence of all Reality. The only way to eliminate this possibility is to insist that efficient causes act exactly like personal ‘transcendent’ causes (whatever the latter means, which isn’t certain at this point). This is a major reason why I’ve used ‘effective’ and ‘transcendent’ causes in the same way for the purposes of this debate.

As far as my example is concerned, you’ve described everything in terms of material causes. There’s no sense of will or agency there on the part of anything; you’ve provided a perfectly valid explanation of hydrogen fusion in terms of natural causes. Congratulations. The explanation can be expanded to include other phenomena, but all of them are material in nature. But just to clarify it beyond doubt: saying that the fusion happened as a result of high thermal energy is not an efficient explanation because the thermal energy itself is a material phenomenon with a material cause (in this case, the gravitational potential energy that concentrated mass at the center of the spinning nebula). This is just to highlight the obvious: that the high thermal energy didn’t get there by ‘magic.’ The effect of hydrogen fusion is perfectly explainable in terms of material causes alone.

Comment: “Remember, an transcendent cause is not *necessarily* a personal cause. The word "transcendent" as it is being used here simply means "to exist independently from". A cause cannot be dependent upon its effect and cause that same effect to begin existing. This would imply a form of self-causation which is logically impossible.”

Objection: Obviously we do not share the same understanding of the word ‘transcendence’ in the context of this debate. And I’m not surprised; I looked around for a bunch of definitions to ‘transcendent’ and didn’t find anything consistent from source to source. Sometimes there were inconsistencies from the same source. For example the good religious people at Compelling Truth (http://www.compellingtruth.org/transcendent.html) tell us, ‘Transcendent means above, higher than, and/or independent from all others.’ But the last phrase to this definition of transcendence is different from the first, since something can be independent from something else while being ‘above’ or ‘lower’ in some sense. Under this definition, a grain on an asteroid somewhere would be ‘transcendent’ to a human being since the two entities are completely independent. And they complicate things by throwing that ‘or’ in there, which means transcendence can just be something ‘above’ something else. That’s a fairly meaningless definition; it hardly has any ontological content. For your preferred definition using independence, I suppose we still have the problem of determining what it means to say that two things are independent from one another.

Let’s get to my understanding of the word: I have been using the word with a religious understanding behind it. That is, I’ve understood ‘transcendent cause’ to mean something like a supernatural process that can produce an effect in Reality. If a transcendent cause is not fundamentally connected to supernaturalism in some sense, then I doubt it could have any metaphysical significance. To presume that it’s something which can be understood through concepts found in Reality itself would imply that it’s just another kind of material cause. All of the distinctions we’ve made up to now would then fail completely. The general point is that definitions of transcendence which emphasize independence seem to be useless for the purposes of the Cosmological Argument.

Comment: “By "Harry Potter" I mean the immaterial concept that is Harry Potter. I do not mean the book, nor her brain. For the concept of Harry Potter is not constructed of paper, otherwise it wouldn't be a concept. But, neither is the concept of Harry Potter constituted of neurological structures within J.K. Rowling's brain. She may have used her brain to think about the concept, but the concept (of Harry Potter) is not, itself, constituted (made up of) the neurons in her brain. Otherwise it wouldn't be a concept. She created Harry Potter out of nothing, in the sense that Harry Potter is an immaterial concept not constructed of any physical particles or physical material constituents.”

Objection: There’s a lot of confusing stuff here; I hardly know where to begin. First I would deny the idea that Harry Potter is an ‘immaterial concept’ in any sense. Think about all the possible instantiations of ‘Harry Potter.’ Perhaps it’s an idea in your head right now; in that case it’s just your neurology thinking of Harry Potter because you happened to read this text and that triggered some electrical activity in response. Perhaps it’s the image of the boy wizard on a video in your TV screen; in that case it’s a visual recreation of data that was read digitally (such as on a blue-ray or DVD). Perhaps it’s a book about the boy wizard; in that case it’s just paper made from trees. There is no such thing as Harry Potter being an ‘immaterial concept.’ The ‘concept’ of Harry Potter, if by ‘concept’ you mean an ‘idea,’ is a material set of interactions unfolding in your neurology; it’s analogous to how pain and joy are material effects resulting from neurological interactions with external stimuli. Just like pain and joy result from a particular arrangement of neurons in your brain, the idea of Harry Potter results from a different arrangement of neurons in your brain. The mere fact that Rowling’s neurology created Harry Potter doesn’t mean she created him out of nothing. Of course there was something in her life (some experiences perhaps) which inspired her to start thinking about magic and wizards. For example, right now this conversation about fictional characters has inspired me to create a fictional character of my own, so I’ve just made one up. I call him Mr. Pickles: he’s a big fat grumpy goose with a red baseball cap on, and he really likes telling inappropriate sexual jokes. Mr. Pickles had a material cause: my neurology interacting with this experience (ie. debate) happening online.

If you are trying to defend some version of Cartesian dualism, good luck! By now dualism has been empirically refuted, and convincingly too. One of the things modern neuroscience has shown is that our decisions—to scratch our ears, to turn our heads, to look up at the sky, to blink—are always preceded by neurological changes in the brain, which can be imaged directly in the act. You can thank MRI and PET scans for that. In fact, even religious and supernatural beliefs are dictated by special neurological structures in the brain, and we’ve imaged those too. Modern neuroscience has also shown some of the following things: conscious awareness can be affected and reduced from brain damage in certain key areas, some animals are capable of some cognitive processes that were exclusively thought to reside in the human mind, and simulated phenomena can often confuse people when they decide if a particular action came from a human being or a computer. In other words, this is exactly the stuff you’d expect to see if you assumed that qualia perceptions came from the neurological structures in our brain. And this isn’t just my opinion. Here is an excerpt from page 4 of the classic textbook Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science (2003):

“Contemporary neuroscience has established a fundamental correlation between brain function and mental activity; the data support the basic monistic premise that human intellectual and emotional life is dependent on neuronal operations.”

But we’re not done yet. Let’s consider, for the sake of argument, the supposition that ideas and qualia perceptions have some sort of transcendent cause. One thing that’s immediately clear is that qualia perceptions differ between different individuals. Color represents perhaps the best example. To use the recent infamous example that set the Internet ablaze, some people might look at a dress and see white while others look at the same dress and see blue. Why is that? Why do qualia perceptions such as color or taste vary between different people? I consider this variation between individuals to be perhaps the most important fact about qualia, so it definitely needs an explanation. Assuming that our ideas of color or taste were transcendently given to us, would it be more plausible to believe that these ideas should be the same or that they should differ? It’s patently obvious that it’s more plausible to believe that transcendently-derived qualia perceptions should be the same. If God, for example, gave us our understanding of color, taste, and smell, then presumably he gave the same understanding to everyone. It’s very improbable that God gave every individual a different qualia filter through which to perceive the world. It’s metaphysically possible, sure, but the alternative seems more likely.

It’s more plausible to argue that a transcendent cause behind qualia should have given us the same perceptions of the world. But the fact that we witness great diversity in our qualia perceptions is a strong indication that this diversity can be explained through natural and materialistic causes. The fact that our neurological structures in the brain differ, however slightly, explains why some people saw the dress as blue and purple while others saw it as white and gold. It explains why we experience joy and pain differently, why we laugh or cry differently. Qualia perceptions can therefore be explained successfully in terms of material causes, whereas the idea that they are derived from transcendent causes introduces metaphysical contradictions—at least far greater ones than the alternative.

Comment: “The emergence of Harry Potter may be explained through material causes, but still, what is Harry Potter made of? What physical particles is he constructed of? What is his weight? These questions cannot be answered, simply because Harry Potter is not physical. He is an immaterial concept. Thus, J.K. Rowling physically constructed Harry Potter out of nothing. She did not use any material to make Harry Potter, because Harry Potter is not made up of material, if he was, then he would be a physical entity, not an immaterial concept.”

Objection: There is a certain line of thinking in this argument which is eerily similar to the ontological argument. And just like the classical ontological argument fumbles because it doesn’t make the distinction between things that actually exist and things that only exist in the mind, this understanding of Harry Potter also equivocates in the same way. In saying that Harry Potter is an immaterial concept, you yourself implicitly acknowledge that Harry Potter is only an idea which exists in the mind. That is, Harry Potter is not real (or ‘not physical,’ in your words), in the sense that there’s no boy wizard who’s actually running around in Reality playing quidditch. But Harry Potter is physical in the sense that the idea of Harry Pottery is a set of neurological functions in the brain. These are two different senses of ‘physical,’ however. One is a physical event happening in the brain, the other (the one you’re talking about) is an actual boy wizard with magical properties, which is something that doesn’t exist.

So there is Harry Potter in the brain (exists) and Harry Potter in external reality (doesn’t exist). A comparable counter-example would be my car, which right now exists both as an idea in my brain and also exists in external reality. So if Harry Potter is not physical in the latter sense, then he does not have a physical weight. He is not made of any physical particles. And for the other sense of physical, your questions would have to be transformed into: What is the weight of the neurons participating in thinking about Harry Potter? How are they interacting together? How much energy was used to generate the idea of Harry Potter in my brain? It goes on and on like that. And the answer to those specific questions (ie. the exact neuronal interactions responsible for one particular thought) is very difficult to nail down empirically, but it exists in principle. Identifying those answers is just a matter of developing more advanced technology. Right now neuroscience has gotten to the point of identifying which types of thoughts are caused by which regions of the brain (and even how in some cases), but pinpointing specific thoughts is difficult to do with current technology.

Your questions could thus, in principle, be answered for the mental Harry Potter, but obviously they’re non-sense for the ‘actual’ Harry Potter (who doesn’t exist). The final point is that you still haven’t shown any instantiation of Harry Potter which is immaterial. All the ‘concepts’ of Harry Potter that have been featured in this debate have been explained entirely through material properties and phenomena.

Comment: “This, however, is not what the word transcendent means, though. It means to exist beyond or without, as in existing independently or externally from. You are conflating transcendence with efficiency (in terms of transcendent cause vs. efficient cause).”

Objection: This part here isn’t an explanation of anything, because as I showed above the concept of ‘transcendence’ suffers from many definitional problems. I presume you think there’s something ontologically relevant to using a definition like ‘existing independently,’ but I disagree. That just introduces more problems. There are a million things in the Universe which are independent from one another; does that mean they all transcend each other? Which transcends which, the Andromeda over the Milky Way or the Milky Way over Andromeda? Actually just a moment’s thought reveals that this definition is completely bland, because it relates what should be a special concept like transcendence to a common-sense notion like ‘independence’ between things (whatever that means). I still prefer my definition based on supernaturalism from above.

The inclusion of efficient causes in the debate was purely an academic exercise, since the only metaphysical position which is sensible is that causes in Reality are exclusively material causes. Thus the primary causal distinction I’ve made is between material and transcendent, although of course I’ve often used ‘efficient’ and ‘transcendent’ interchangeably—perfectly realizing that it’s not necessarily the same idea Aristotle had in mind. Thankfully I never really cared for much of what Aristotle had in mind, mostly because he reached a shameful number of terrible conclusions about the world. Thus I’ve been using the word efficient in the sense of what Aristotle meant to say instead of what he actually said (ie. viewing efficient causes as the ‘primary sources’ of things). To say that an efficient cause is the primary source behind something is just another way of saying that it’s a material cause. For example, what does it mean to say that Michelangelo was the ‘efficient cause’ of David? It just means that the neurological structures in his brain thought of David and guided his motor functions into sculpting David, which of course was made out of marble. Thus only material objects participated in the creation of David: the atoms and molecules inside Michelangelo’s brain, along with those in the rest of his body, as well as the atoms and the molecules of the marble. The emergence of David was an exclusively natural phenomenon.

Comment: “What Dr. Craig is saying is that if something begins to exist, it can't begin to exist again; it already exists. Something which already exists can't begin to exist again. But, in the case of your Lego scenario, the Lego construction is being destroyed (going out of existence), so that it can begin existing again. If something begins to exist, it goes from a state of non-existence to a state of existence, thus its existence has a point of origin.”

Objection: I reject this interpretation on the following basis. Your interpretation implies that an entirely new Lego set came into existence the second time. But how is this ‘second’ Lego set different? It’s composed of the same material arranged in exactly the same way. Thus it’s the same Lego set coming into existence at time t and then again at time t1 in the future. I understand what Craig is saying; I get the English words going into his definition. What I’m arguing is that this definition of causation is ridiculous, since things that begin to exist once can also begin to exist again. Do you understand why Craig picked this definition? It’s not because he reached some nirvana that allowed him to understand causation while everyone else missed it. It’s purely by construction: to ensure that Reality only comes into existence once. It’s a definition that was especially built for Premise 2, but is obviously garbage for Premise 1.

Comment: “There are causes that are temporally bound, and there is timeless causation. However, with timeless causation, there will be no point at which the cause is *not* causing the effect. For instance, a ball sitting on a couch cushion will cause a concavity in the couch cushion; now, if this ball and cushion exist timelessly, then the ball is *always* causing the concavity. But, a difference will arise when speaking of personal vs. impersonal causes. A personal cause can freely will to cause something, even from a timeless state. But, an impersonal cause cannot, and will simply be causing its effect tenselessly; in other words, it will *always* be causing its effect. But, in the case of a personal cause, it can will a cause to happen from a timeless state. For instance, a man sitting down in a timeless state can freely will to stand up.”

Objection: There’s a lot of metaphysical acrobatics going on here. How do you define a ‘timeless state’ in this passage? It’s amusing that you make direct reference to personal causes in ‘timeless states’ (whatever that means) when we have absolutely no idea how personal causes behave in such states, or even what personal causes are. I’m not familiar with the concept of a man sitting on a bench existing in a timeless state. I am familiar with a man sitting on a bench definitely having a determined point in spacetime. Likewise I am not familiar with balls and cushions existing timelessly. I cannot even conceive of your thought experiments; it’s non-sense from the get-go. It’s like asking me to imagine a square circle. It seems like a lot of what you’ve written here is just not cogent in any way; it doesn’t express any meaningful ontological idea. This entire passage, in fact, is like something out of a postmodernist sociology journal: a bunch of ambiguous terms (‘timeless causation’ and ‘personal causes’) thrown together to reach some fantastical conclusion.

One thing that I can stitch together from what you’ve written here is that you believe some causes can exist in time. From here it’s conjecture, but presumably you think these are all the causes in our universe. And then you would claim that God is the timeless cause. Under this view then, God brought time into existence. It seems like you are implying that there was a ‘first moment’ in time. But in order to believe that there was a first moment, you must assume that it was not preceded by any other moments. And the only way to make that presumption is to say that no other moments came before this moment, which implies that time exists before the first moment. Thus there cannot be a first moment in time. Your views also fundamentally rely on presentism, the idea that time flows from past to future and that only present events are real. But presentism has some huge philosophical weak points, such as the flow rate problem. We also know, thanks to relativity, that presentist ideas about time are empirically false. There are virtually no reputable physicists who believe in presentism, and only a small minority of philosophers still holds the view. In an important recent paper (http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf) where they looked at the positions of professional philosophers, Bourget and Chalmers found that only 15% of them believed in the so-called ‘A theory’ of time. The rest believed in the ‘B theory’ (ie. eternalism) or something else. On an unrelated but interesting note: 73% of them said they were atheists. This data doesn’t prove anything by itself, but it’s still very interesting.

Comment: “No, for the very fact that their existence is contingent upon God renders them immediately less powerful, for God could remove them from existence with ease.”

Objection: How are you defining ‘contingency’ here? I would also like to see some applications of whatever definition you come up with to the real world. Unless there’s some sensible ontological content behind these definitions, you’re effectively saying nothing here. Buzzwords such as ‘above’ and ‘independence’ do not count as definitions, by the way.

Comment: “No. God is necessarily existent. Existence is a trait of maximal greatness.”

Question to Comment: What is ‘maximal greatness’ exactly? I’m not familiar with the concept, so I can’t really comment on any of this until I understand what you mean.

General observations: I would like to note, for the record, that you ignored and avoided several points I raised in my previous post. For example, you said nothing about the implications of non-cognitivism on our debate. This point is important because it reveals how much ontological significance you believe our linguistic constructions have. The logical positivists, and most analytic philosophers, would tell us it’s silly to search for definitions to words like ‘transcendence.’ The Wittgenstein of the Tractatus would say metaphysical debates are largely absurd whereas the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations (PI) would say the entire debate hinges on how we decide to use our words (ie. whether we take ‘transcendent’ to mean something like ‘independent’ or whether it means something like ‘supernatural’). I myself tend to believe more in the Wittgenstein of the PI, although I go back and forth too. I believe we can have metaphysical arguments, but they hinge very critically on how we use our words. This very debate has essentially proven that.

If we can’t use the same words in the same way, what are we arguing about?

Second, you asked me (rhetorically I presume) how it was possible for contingent beings to be greater than their creators, and I gave you a concrete example referencing robotics technology. You said nothing about this. My impression is that you’re special pleading on God, claiming it’s always superior to its contingent creations while the same rule does not apply for other forms of creation. But since a fallacious resource like special pleading is the last thing that theists have left, your reaction doesn’t surprise me in the least. And finally, you didn’t address anything about the implications that you arguments have towards pantheism, since you seem to be adopting pantheist positions in order to defend the Cosmological Argument. I suppose I will accept your concession on these points.

Finally the last observation is for people following this debate, since I know there are quite a few tuning in. I would like to point out a few things: SoG has committed numerous logical fallacies throughout this debate (including equivocation, special pleading, and begging the question, among others), SoG has no given no convincing empirical evidence that that ex nihilo creation is real, and SoG has apparently adopted radical theological positions (such as pantheism) in order to try and defeat naturalism. Furthermore he has ignored numerous responses to his questions while raising the questions again, as if nothing was written to begin with. And by ‘ignore’ I mean precisely that; it’s not like he’s refuted these statements, he has simply ignored them. He has just cherry-picked the parts of my thesis he wanted to address, even if the parts he addressed were not always the most important. He has also shown a poor understanding of basic philosophical concepts. Very rarely have I seen someone try to stretch truth and evidence so far in order to defend the indefensible. Rest assured that I’m just as amused as the rest of you.

My arguments and objections follow below.

Comment: “I refuse to comment further, because you've demonstrated to me that you have a serious misunderstanding of the argument(s) that I was making, as well as playing semantics games with what I said all in an attempt to refute or make easier to refute what I've said, a logical fallacy in and of itself. To comment any further would be to perpetuate your misunderstanding of my position, which I will not do for *your *sake. I do appreciate your fervency, though, as well as your intellectually engaging discussion. But I refuse to continue to make a point that I've made thrice now.”

My Take: It’s your choice. I’m happy to go for as long as you want, and I’ll be responding below to the latest arguments you’ve presented. Philosophy is one of the greatest joys of the human intellect, and I can tell you share this spirit as well despite our fierce disagreements. At the very least we can agree on that if nothing else. Certainly no one can accuse you of being a dull debater, and I want you to know you’ve made me think more than twice about some ideas which I believed were rock solid. I hope I’ve done the same for you, even if it seems that we’re ending this conversation on a sour note. I can safely say I had a lot of fun in this debate. You take care!

For others who are still following this debate winding down, I will keep my responses brief and to the point.

Comment: “Physicists define "reality" as to totality of spacetime and its contents. This is because the totality of spacetime and its contents, without invoking the supernatural, is everything that is real. Thus, per the definition of reality (that which is real) is the totality of spacetime and its contents.”

Objection: This is news to me. I would have appreciated a reputable source here for this definition (and no nothing from Wikipedia counts). For physicists, the idea of ‘reality’ is a concept embroiled in metaphysics, and hence few would even dare to give a definition to something so complex. A string theorist, for example, might object that a definition of reality which only makes reference to four-dimensional spacetime leaves out other tiny dimensions which are invisible to the naked eye.

Comment: “The inflationary epoch was not the Big Bang. The inflationary epoch came after the Big Bang (the physical emergence of spacetime reality) happened; it took place from 10^-36 to 10^-34 seconds after the Big Bang.”

Objection: I never stated what your first sentence here accuses me of. But it stands to reason that the inflationary event provided the ‘bang’ behind the ‘Big Bang.’ Inflation was the central event in the early history of our universe, hence my decision to make it a central part of the story.

Comment: “Yes it was. Premise one opens up the possibility for any type of cause for any type of causation. Once we figure out what type of causation we're dealing with, only then are we able to deduce specifically what type of cause it will have.”

Observation: I can’t even object to this, because your second sentence here essentially admits what I’ve been saying: your version of Premise 1 allows for the possibility that ex nihilo creation can have both material and transcendent causes. If ‘any type of cause’ (material, transcendent) can be associated with ‘any type of causation’ (ex nihilo, ex materia), then it’s reasonable to conclude that Premise 1 allows for the metaphysically confusing position that ex nihilo creation can have a material cause. I don’t know how else to interpret this!

Comment: “There is not. Material causes are associated with creatio ex materia, but so are efficient causes, because material cannot cause itself to do something. For instance, a tree cannot turn itself into a table. Likewise, efficient causes (and only efficient) causes are associated with creatio ex nihilo, because there is no material on creatio ex nihilo. This is what is established in the first premise; if something begins to exist, depending on how it begins to exist, it will have a certain type of cause or causes.”

Objection: The fact that trees cannot turn into tables spontaneously (ie. with the absence of external work) does not mean that we have an efficient cause whenever they do. It just means that external work (in the form of human brain and muscle power) was provided for the transformation. So again, the transformation had a purely material cause. As I’ve said before, it’s useless to talk about what causes are associated with something for which you have no causal model. If you even bothered to search for such a model, you would be forced to conclude that these ‘efficient causes’ here are nothing but transcendent causes—of the kind I’ve been speaking about all this time.

Comment: “The Universe beginning to exist ex nihilo is not an assumption, it is an implication. The implications of the Big Bang theory are that *all* of contiguous physical spacetime reality and its contents physically came into existence 13.8 billion years ago, with a literal nothingness existing sans. This is why cosmologists are trying to establish a pre-Big Bang era, because they can't work with a literal nothingness, and it doesn't make sense that the Universe just came to be from non-being (a logical impossibility) without the invocation of the supernatural. But, every model attempting to extend the history of the Universe past the Big Bang has failed.”

Objection: This is nothing but a philosophical interpretation of the Big Bang theory, and quite a bad one at that. Not only do most theoretical physicists no longer believe that ‘everything’ came into being with the Big Bang, even most philosophers refuse the idea that a ‘literal nothingness’ preceded the Big Bang. There are several theories which have successfully extended physics beyond the Big Bang, in principle. Whether these theories are ontologically correct or not is another issue entirely. One such example is the recent cyclic model of Steinhardt and Turok, which overcame the entropy density issues associated with previous cyclic models. Actually, it’s very easy to extend physics beyond the Big Bang once you focus exclusively on quantum mechanics. Only when you throw general relativity in there do things get messy and complicated.

Comment: “Not at all. Once again, my first premise opens up the possibility for any form of causation to have any type of cause, only to avoid the commission of a logical fallacy. It will be in premise two of the argument that we discover by what means that the Universe begins to exist, thus giving us the grounds for deciding, then, which type of cause it will have. If the Universe begins to exist ex materia, then it has a material cause from which it was made, and an efficient cause which made it from that material. But, if the Universe begins to exist ex nihilo, then it has an efficient cause only which brings it into existence.”

Objection: Rinse and repeat, I suppose. There’s enough linguistic confusion in your version of the premise that only the version of the cosmological argument I presented makes sense.

Comment: “I do not agree with this argument, because it doesn't tell us what type of cause reality has. All causes are transcendent, because all causes exist independently of their effects, per the definition of the word "transcendent". Secondly, using the word "reality" in place of "the Universe" is blatant commission of the straw-man fallacy; per the definition of the word "reality", if God exists, then he is apart of reality because he would be real. Thus, this cannot be used in place of "the Universe" in the second premise. And what we mean by "the Universe" is all of that which is contiguous physical spacetime reality and its contents. It commits the straw-man fallacy because it is misrepresenting the original argument and attacking the misrepresented argument instead of the original one. Also, since I know by "transcendent cause" you mean "efficient cause" I will grant that for the discussion at hand.”

Objection: This will shock you, I know, but I don’t agree with that argument either! It’s funny that you accuse me of attacking a straw-man version of the cosmological argument when you are doing the exact same thing to my refutation. If you had even bothered to read my original post with any clarity you could’ve spared both of us a lot of time. I can’t say it any better than I already did, so here is me in the very first post of this thread:

“To show absolute and consistent favoritism towards the Cosmological Argument (remember I said I would try to rescue it!), we will insist on a strict dichotomy between Reality and the monotheistic God. So when we say that Reality is the existence of at least something, that something cannot be God under our generous formulation of the problem. If God were included as part of the something of Reality, the Cosmological Argument would rapidly evaporate since Premise 2 would just read, ‘God began to exist.’ Thus Reality is the existence of at least something which is not God. The same dichotomy would be required for Version 1 (ie. the ‘Universe’ cannot include God).”

I am, in fact, still addressing the fundamental point of the original cosmological argument (just with a generalization).

Comment: “Yet again, this is a complete misrepresentation of my argument. Here's how it should go:
1.) If you are either ex nihilo creation or ex materia creation, then you have either a material cause, an efficient cause, or both.
2.) You are ex nihilo creation.
3.) Therefore, you have a transcendent cause.”

Objection: And yet again, just fallacious. Because Premise 1 doesn’t explicitly specify what is associated with what, the conclusion needs to say that “you have a material cause, an efficient cause, or both.” Also still leaves open the ontological possibility that material causes can be associated with ex nihilo creation.

Comment: “This is simply not the case. Premise one of my argument does not subject the subject of ex nihilo creation to both efficient and material causes. It is you that is subjecting it to that. Once again, this is the straw-man fallacy, by misrepresenting my argument and attacking the misrepresented argument instead of the actual argument, though you may not realize that you're doing this, and that is OK. This is why we're having the discussion. Premise one simply leaves open the possibility of a type of cause for a specific form of causation, but does not ascribe that cause to any form of causation, because we have not yet deduced what type of causation said entity came into existence under, thereby, to ascribe a type of causation to it would be fallacious, namely the presuppositional fallacy, by presupposing a type of cause to a form of causation that has not yet been discovered; that is why my first premise is worded the way it is, to avoid the commission of said fallacy, which you attempt to ascribe to it anyway by saying that premise one ascribes both material and efficient causes to ex nihilo creation. It does not. I'll reiterate, premise one simply leaves the door open to allow for any cause to be ascribed to its specific form of causation.”

Objection: You do not need to ‘presuppose’ that ex nihilo creation is associated with material causes for your argument to crumble. The mere fact that you are acknowledging the POSSIBILITY of ex nihilo creation being associated with material causes is reason enough to reject your version of Premise 1. It’s just that simple! It all goes wrong when you say ‘leaves open the possibility.’ That’s what I object to: don’t leave open that ontologically ridiculous possibility. Just say what you mean and remove all doubts.

Comment: “I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Are you trying to say that we don't know how ex nihilo creation can happen? Because if so, then that still does not render creatio ex nihilo absurd in any sense. That, again, is a non-sequitur because it does not follow from the premise "we have no causal model of creatio ex nihilo" that "therefore, creatio ex nihilo is absurd". That would be like saying "we have no causal model for the Big Bang" thus "therefore, the Big Bang is absurd".
But, in any sense, creatio ex nihilo demands agency, and agent causation requires no antecedent determining conditions; it can happen spontaneously. In the case of the Universe, God creates it simply by acting upon His causal power to create. He wills to create, thus a Universe is created.
Secondarily, I have to keep repeating things because it seems like you're misunderstanding what I'm saying and thereby rendering what I say invalid or fallacious, which is not the case. But, I would not grant this idea that we do not know what creatio ex nihilo is like. We do. It is the creation of something out of physically nothing.”

Objection: But your statement that we have no causal model for the Big Bang is absolutely false. We have several: quantum gravity, M-theory, cyclic models (some based on M-theory), etc. I don’t understand how ‘agent causation’ can happen ‘spontaneously.’ That seems to be negating the whole point of ‘agent causation.’ It’s a direct contradiction of the idea that God ‘willed to create’ all of Reality.

Comment: “No, J.K. Rowling did not create harry potter *from* neural structures in her brain, in the sense that a carpenter builds a table *from* wood. She used her brain to do the creating, in the same sense that a carpenter uses his hands to do the creating, but the table he creates isn't made of his hands, it's made of the wood! Essentially what you're trying to say is that Harry Potter is constructed of neural structures in the sense that a carpenter constructs a table from his hands, but that's simply not right. So, I would ask, yet again, what material did J.K. Rowling construct Harry Potter from? Nothing. She created him from no material. This means that Harry Potter was created ex nihilo. You can still attempt to assert that he was created from neural structures in her brain, but that would not be true. She used those neural structures to do the creating, but did not act on any material to form Harry Potter. Thoughts are immaterial. They may be *caused* by material (structures in the brain), but they are not *constructed* of material (structures in the brain), in the sense that a table is constructed of wood. Thus, Harry Potter is an immaterial concept created out of physically nothing.”

Objection: Your first few sentences represent a gaping analogical fallacy (or I should say biological perhaps). A carpenter ‘uses’ hands because the brain sends electrical signals for the hands to be used. But there is nothing outside of the brain sending electrical signals to the brain telling the latter what to do. Thoughts originate in the brain itself. Thus, for the umpteenth time, Harry Potter very much came from the neurological structures in the brain of JK Rowling. Thoughts are very much material substances related to the neurological structure of our brain.

Comment: “I have already met this demand. A transcendent cause is a cause which exists independently from (per the word transcendent) its effect. Again, it seems like you're playing semantic games just to be able to pick everything I'm saying apart. Don't take this as me claiming with certainty that this is what you're doing, I'm saying that it seems to me like you're doing this.”

Objection: It’s just a meaningless definition. It’s the kind of definition that allows all independent causes in the Universe to be ‘transcendent’ to each other. Surely this is not what you want to imply.

Comment: “No, it's actually not, because an argument can be sound, but not valid, or valid, but not sound. A sound argument is one where the conclusion follows logically from the premises. A valid argument is one in where the premises are actually true. The follow argument is sound, but not valid:”

Objection: The simple truth is you fumbled the definition of validity and soundness. That’s all I was pointing out in that part. And you’re doing it again. I know what you mean, the whole world does. Just use the right words for it, the words used in the rest of philosophy. Valid arguments are those where the conclusions logically follow from the premises; sound arguments are those that are ontologically believable.

Comment: “1.) The Universe began to exist.
2.) If the Universe began to exist, then it began to exist either ex nihilo or ex materia.
3.) If the Universe began to exist ex nihilo, then it has only an efficient cause.
4.) If the Universe began to exist ex materia, then it has both an efficient and a material cause.
5.) The Universe began to exist ex nihilo.
6.) Therefore, the Universe has only an efficient cause.”

Objection: But it’s still ontologically absurd. It removes the logical fallacies and leaves everything else in. Premise 4 is absolutely indefensible: things that exist ex materia only have material causes (I submit as evidence: all of modern science). There are no transcendent causes in Reality (leave out the ‘efficiency’ stuff and say what we all know you mean). Premise 2 is also suspect ontologically, since it admits the possibility that the Universe could have begun to exist ex materia.

Comment: “Firstly, if you're going to deny that Harry Potter is immaterial, then you are admitting that he is material; so then what is his physical mass? How much does he weigh, and where in space does he exist? Hopefully this reveals to you the absurdity that ideas are not immaterial. As far as electrical activity is concerned, I use that activity to *think about* Harry Potter, but he is not *constituted* or *constructed* of those impulses in my brain. I am not denying that we use these various material impulses to *think about* our thoughts, but the thought *itself* is not made up of those impulses.”

Objection: Totally misreading my argument. My argument is that every instantiation of Harry Potter is material and has a material cause. Thus I am admitting that Harry Potter is some kind of material sensation in the brain (linked to our neurological structures), but obviously I am not saying (as you are implying) that Harry Potter is ‘material’ in the sense that he ‘exists in Reality.’ Thoughts are physical structures in the brain, tied to our neurology.

Comment: “Not true. For the thought is not made up of these impulses, they *cause* the thought, but the thought is not *constructed* of those impulses. Likewise, the *feeling* of pain (or any other emotion) is *caused* by these impulses, but pain *itself* is not a physical thing. Thoughts are immaterial constructions of the brain. Remember, I'm not discussing brain chemistry, I'm discussing thoughts themselves. If thoughts are physical, how much do they weigh? Where in space do they exist? When you think, you're not aware of brain tissue and neural impulses, no. You're aware of the thought that they create. Just think about something, and ask yourself, am I thinking about electrical impulses? No, you are not. I would consider taking a read of this, i'ts pretty compelling. It is not an argument for mind/body dualism (which you bring up and I will not address because that would extend this comment even longer than I'd like it to be, but will freely discuss on a separate thread), but it argues that thoughts are *themselves* not material (even if what causes them is).”

Objection: I know what you’re discussing, and what I’m telling you is that thoughts themselves have a physical structure inherent in the brain. And as I’ve already explained, some of your questions cannot be specifically answered because of current technological limitations, not because they don’t have answers in principle.

Comment: “She did not act on any material to form Harry Potter, so yes, he was created out of nothing. She used her brain, but she did not act on her brain matter to construct Harry Potter from it. Once again, thoughts are non-physical aspect of our brain.”

Objection: Well all of modern neuroscience, which very much says that our thoughts emerge from our physical brain, contradicts what you’re saying here. You are also equivocating on the word ‘act,’ since her brain very much ‘acted on’ the experiential stimuli which eventually lead to the formation of the idea of Harry Potter.

Comment: “Harry Potter may not exist *physically*, but that does not mean he does not exist. He was instantiated when J.K. Rowling thought about him, simply because this is immaterial instantiation doesn't mean there isn't any instantiation happening.”

Objection: But when Rowling ‘thought’ about him, it just means her neurological structures became active. So it’s a perfectly material instantiation of Harry Potter.

Comment: “Once again, it seems you're playing petty semantic games to try and demonstrate some invalid point in the definition of my word, which I did provide, and which does not have any definitional problems. I'm not talking about objects existing independently of objects, I'm talking about a *cause* existing, by default, independently from its *effect*. Please stop with these games, they're rather annoying and do not grant you any kudos in this discussion.”

Objection: You are using a conventional understanding of the word transcendent that permits many inconsistencies. That’s what I’m objecting to. You want God to be independent from Reality while refusing to acknowledge that the same definition of transcendence in Reality itself is absolute non-sense. Thus you again run into the Causal Dilemma.

Comment: “Correlation does not equal causation. To assume so is to blatantly commit the false cause fallacy.”

Objection: Yawn! Almost on cue. Of course correlation doesn’t mean causation. Neuroscience has also shown plenty of causal neuronal-qualia connections as well. But it would not be enough as of now to say ‘fundamental causation.’ In a century or so, I have no doubt the textbooks will be revised.

Comment: “This is not true. Michelangelo was definitely the efficient cause of the of the Statue of David, whilst the marble was the material cause.”

Objection: I explained convincingly why this view is false. The atoms and molecules of Michelangelo acting on David meant that the creation of David had material causes only.

Comment: “No, you're forcing that implication on it. If I buy a Lego set for a pirate ship and build it, then pirate ship has begun to exist. Now, if I tear it apart and rebuild it, are you trying to tell me that a completely new pirate ship has begun to exist? Not at all. That just doesn't make sense.”

Objection: Sometimes I wonder if you’re even reading what I’m writing. Of course it doesn’t make sense; that’s what I’ve been saying. The same pirate ship comes into existence again, a second time. And thus that contradicts Craig’s definition.

Comment: “Are you really asking me to define what a timeless state is? At this point I feel you're raising objections for the sake of raising objections. The term "timeless" is pretty self-explanatory. A timeless state is a state of no temporal duration.
A personal cause is a cause that is personal (has freedom of the will). Personal causes act the same timelessly as they do temporally (ex./ a man sitting down in a timeless state can freely will to stand up).”

Objection: The reason why I love these definitions is because they introduce more questions than they answer. I would certainly like to know what this magical ‘freedom of the will’ entails. I take it you are not a compabitilist, by what you’ve written here. I still can’t visualize your understanding of ‘timeless state’ since I’m only familiar with states that unfold in time, one way or another.

Comment: “This would be a false analogy fallacy, because comparing that which is not logically absurd to that which is logically absurd doesn't work. A square circle is a logically inconsistent state-of-affairs, but you haven't yet given any reason to think that any of the example I've given are logically inconsistent states-of-affairs; to do that, you have to demonstrate (successfully) that there are logical inconsistencies with them. I assure you there are not. If there were I wouldn't have used them as examples.”

Objection: The examples you gave were ontological non-sense, just like a square is ontological non-sense in that one does not and cannot exist. Either way, your thought experiments are practically unimaginable, thus I would revise them.

Comment: “I think at this point I can definitively say you are playing semantic games to render what I'm saying absurd (appeal to the absurd fallacy). There is a first moment of time, and I would not say there is nothing before it, because there is no before this moment. There would be nothing *without* this first moment. This means that, *without* time (not before) there are no moments. You're using the entirely wrong terminology here.”

Objection: You can cry ‘semantics’ all you want, but this is a veritable metaphysical problem that any idea which posits time came into being has to face. And you don’t resolve it here either, since in saying that ‘there is no before this moment’ you are making reference to a temporal concept (‘before’) to define what did or didn’t precede the ‘first moment in time.’ You’re essentially facing another version of the Causal Dilemma even here, trying to define ideas and principles ‘outside’ of Reality in terms of metaphysical concepts relevant only in Reality itself.

Comment: “Here you propound the B-theoretical view of time. On this view, time does not really exist, which means that nothing really changes, which means that the Universe doesn't really expend its energy, which means that the second law of thermodynamics does not really exist. This goes against all of fundamental physics as we know it.
Secondarily, STR does not *prove* the B-theoretical view of time, which faces the monumental problem I just posed, as well as the problem of me being alive and dead simultaneously. Also, there is nothing wrong with the flow of time. Many argue that, because time can be dilated, that there is no absolute reference frame for time, but see, it isn't time that is affected, it is the *measure* of time that is effected. Thus, the B-theoretical view of time faces problems, whilst the A-theoretical view of time faces no problems. This objection can, thusly ,be completely disregarded.”

Objection: It’s funny that eternalism goes against ‘all fundamental physics’ and yet most physicists are eternalist in one sense or another. At the very least, relativity provides a strong empirical refutation of presentism. I don’t necessarily claim that it provides evidence that eternalism is ontologically correct, but it leads in that direction for sure. Also, your supposition here that the flow of time is acceptable contradicts other statements that time is contingent on causal change between things.

Comment: “I'm defining contingency the same way the dictionary does. Whatever God creates is contingent upon him, which automatically renders him more powerful than that which he creates.
What is maximal greatness? Being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.”

Objection: Unfortunately for you, the dictionary does not provide a definition of ‘contingent’ that references God. Thus you’re essentially saying nothing here when you claim that ‘whatever God creates is contingent upon him.’ Also Merriam gives some of the following definitions:

Full Definition of CONTINGENT
1
: likely but not certain to happen : possible
2
: not logically necessary; especially : empirical
3
a : happening by chance or unforeseen causes
b : subject to chance or unseen effects : unpredictable
c : intended for use in circumstances not completely foreseen
4
: dependent on or conditioned by something else
5
: not necessitated : determined by free choice

Some of these definitions are related to what you mean, others aren’t. I could have a field day with the metaphysical absurdities if I picked the #3 definition.

Comment: “Um, no. Not at all. I am far from a pantheist. I think you're having a really hard time understanding any of the arguments I make. Secondly, naturalism is self-refuting. It holds that if you cannot empirically prove it, then it is false, but you cannot empirically *that* statement true! Naturalism is self-refuting.”

Observation: You argued earlier that all ex materia creation required efficient causes (alongside material causes), which for the purposes of this argument I’ve demonstrated are nothing but transcendent causes. Thus you’re effectively arguing that all ex materia creation requires transcendent causes. That sounds pantheist to me.