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The Kalam argument is an altered form of the cosmological argument. It is an argument that intends to circumvent the infinite regress problem contained within the traditional version by altering the premises.



William Lane Craig's version:

  1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

The distinction between this and the traditional cosmological argument is that it distinguishes effects in general from those that have a beginning. This qualification leaves open an interesting possibility that some things in the universe might exist that never began to exist. But Craig is not that sloppy, so before we jump on this observation we need to address the kalam argument's second premise and its support.


  1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
  2. A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite
  3. Therefore, the universe cannot have existed infinitely in the past, as that would be a beginingless series of events.



The mathematical meaning of the term 'actual' in 'actual infinity' is synonymous with 'definite', not to be mistaken for physically existing. The question of whether natural or real numbers form definite sets is therefore independent of the question of whether infinite things exist actually in nature.




In order to say something "comes" into existence, then we must be able to distinguish between two sets of affairs in which that something exists, and a state of affairs in which it does not exist.

X = The universe

S1 = not X, or a state of affairs in which the Universe does not exist

S2 = X, or a state of affairs in which the Universe exists

We also must show that there must be a distinction made between these two states, as if there was no difference (x & not x) then there would be a logical contradiction (Law of non-contradiction)

Frame of reference and causality

If we use time as a frame of reference, where Moment 1 would be S1, and Moment 2 is S2, we can meaningfully say that they are true at different moments. The problem with this is the objective of Hawking that there was no "before" the universe - that the big bang brought into existence time and space. Thus, time cannot be a meaningful way to distinguish between S1 and S2. The only other causality is atemporal causality, if there is such a thing, where cause and effect are simultaneous. However, this leads to a straight contradiction as both S1 and S2 are true at the same time.

Problems with actual infinites

Mathematicians such as Georg Cantor and Michael Dummett have argued that actual infinites can, in fact, exist. This is a problem within mathematics, not a solved problem that the kalam argument can use without protest. As Arnold T. Guminski has elsewhere argued, the application of "Cantorian set theory to the real world…does not generate counterintuitive absurdities." In the mathematical sense, Craig's premise that an "actual infinite cannot exist" does not appear to be the case unequivocally. The question is whether it is in this sense that Craig really intends to use it or not.

In this sense, the entity in question seems to be time, or more correctly space-time, which the following:

  1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
  2. A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite

designed to support the kalam argument's second premise;

2. The universe began to exist.

seems designed to support. So the real question is whether time itself is infinite, which seems to be what Craig and other proponents of the kalam argument seem to be answering as "no."

One of Craig's examples of an actual infinite is a bookshelf with no end, but the same point is made. The idea is that there must be a point where the books end, otherwise they would fall, either over or down (to where, I wonder).

Scientific research about the universe's origins seem to point to a beginning to the universe in its current form, but not necessarily to the beginning of matter itself, and thus not of time either. Considerable debate exists over this question among scientists, so it is premature to declare that space-time is, by default, a thing with a beginning. The events at the singularity itself, as predicted by the big bang theory, are not understood by current cosmologists. Before a certain point, we cannot say what happened, let alone any possible events that took place before the singularity. This having been admitted, ignorance is not a justification for an insertion of supernatural causation.

Our inability to comprehend the nature of this enigma, however mind-boggling it is, is not sufficient to insert an answer that would require the same explanation. This god of the gaps argument—that because we don't know some supernatural deus ex machine must intervene—is not reasonable. There is no reason to reject, out of hand, that the universe can't be an actual infinite (or, for that matter, that it is incapable of self-cause) no matter how non-sensible it sounds. Without a conclusion as to why an actual infinite can't exist or why time cannot be infinite we cannot accept kalam's second premise.

Furthermore, the disputed fact that an "actual infinite cannot exist" does not prove that there was time before the Universe in which God created the universe. It just proves that there could not be an infinite amount of time between the first moment of the Universe and now.

Special pleading







"Comparing apples and oranges"


In an article titled Cosmological Kalamity, Dan Barker writes:



False dichotomy


So what


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