A Response to Homar Murillo’s Critique of the Kalam Cosmological Argument
By: Omar Rushlive L. Arellano
Last February 14, Homar Murillo posted a video in the Philippine Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularism (PATAS) Public Forum about the Kalam Cosmological Argument. He claims that “the kalam cosmological argument for the existence of god is unconvincing despite its attempt to be scientifically grounded.”¹
In this essay, we intend to respond to Homar Murillo’s critique of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. What we will do is, first, we will represent his critique of the argument, second, we will give our rebuttal of his critique.
Murillo’s Critique of the Kalam
In the video, Murillo represented the Kalam Cosmological Argument as:
“1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe (all space, time, and matter) began to exist (The Big Bang)
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause
This cause is necessarily spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and powerful; plausibly personal; and, known, conceptually, as God.”
In this representation, he made a remark that the God in question is biased in favor of the Christian God.
After that, he gave his criticisms. He claimed that Craig’s argument can be collapsed easily. Then, he proceeded to say that Craig said that all of the things that begin to exist have a cause. Consequently, Murillo responded that the first premise is unproven. He said that Craig just took it as axiomatic. Murillo then said that not necessarily that everything, including the universe, that began to exist, has a cause. One example he gave is random radioactive decay. Murillo argued that this example does not necessarily have a cause. In addition, Murillo argued that we do not know if the universe has a cause, because what the Big Bang theory says is that the universe started from a singularity, and we do not know whether there’s a previous universe that exists. Murillo explains that the Big Bang assumes an infinite density and mass of the universe, which he deems to be similar to a black hole. He then mentions that other apologists claim that it came from nothing, and so they ask how could something come from nothing. Murillo responds to it by saying that it does not necessarily mean that it’s ‘nothing’, since it could be explained through quantum fluctuations.
After this, Murillo said that the main point is that it’s not necessarily the case that just because the universe really have a beginning, that it must have a prior cause. If it does, it could either be something infinite or a prior universe that exists. He then says that the current universe may not have a beginning.
For the second premise, Murillo affirms that this is correct as far as science is concerned. Since Murillo did not object to this, we will not discuss the second premise in detail. Murillo then affirmed when he talked about the conclusion that the syllogism is logically valid, he then remarked that this means that it is not the case that something is logically true just because it is logically valid. Thus, Murillo argued that the main contention that he is really against in the argument is the first premise.
After this, it seems that he made a recap where he states that: (1) we do not know whether the universe has a beginning or not; (2) that it is not necessarily the case that just because we observe all things in the universe, that it has a beginning (cellphone or computer), that it necessarily means that the parts apply to the whole. Murillo argued that this reasoning is fallacious. Murillo also claims that, since we have no evidence that the universe has a cause because our universe is the only universe that we can observe, the first premise is not established or is factual.
Critique of Murillo’s Argument
Now that the representation of Murillo is clear, let us now proceed to discuss the argument. For starters, he was able to present the syllogism of the argument correctly. Nevertheless, it’s not clear to me what he means by the word “necessarily” when he claimed that the cause is necessarily spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and powerful; plausibly personal; and, known, conceptually, as God. Since this is not specified, we will not focus on our discussion with his wording here. What we will do is to respond to his specific claims, such as: (1) That the Kalam is biased in favor of the Christian God; (2) That the first premise is unproven; (3) That it is not necessarily the case that just because we observe that all things in the universe have a beginning, that it necessarily applies to the universe as a whole (fallacy of composition); (4) That we have no evidence that the universe has a cause because our universe is the only universe that we can observe.
The Kalam is biased in favor of the Christian God
It seems to me that Murillo’s claim that the Kalam is biased in favor of the Christian God, is merely an assertion. He does not substantiate the reason why he thinks that Craig’s argument is biased in favor of Christianity. It’s true that William Lane Craig is a Christian philosopher, however, if we look at his writings about the Kalam Cosmological Argument, we can see that Craig is not limiting the argument that it could only positively favor Christianity. In fact, Craig deemed the argument as a “Christian-Jewish-Muslim argument” in his book On Guard (2010).² Craig informed us about the origin of the Kalam. He said,
“The kalam cosmological argument originated in the efforts of ancient Christian philosophers like John Philoponus of Alexandria to refute Aristotle’s doctrine of the eternity of the universe. When Islam swept over Egypt, it absorbed this tradition and developed sophisticated versions of the argument. Jews lived alongside Muslims in medieval Spain and eventually mediated this tradition back to the Christian West, where it was championed by St. Bonaventura. Since Christians, Jews, and Muslims share a common belief in creation, the kalam cosmological argument has enjoyed great intersectarian appeal and helps to build bridges for sharing one’s faith with Jews and especially Muslims.”³
With this in mind, it’s clear that even though Craig is a Christian, he acknowledges that the kalam could be used to argue for theism in general. If this is the case, then Murillo’s comment about the kalam argument being biased in favor of Christianity is false.
The First Premise is Unproven and the Fallacy of Composition
Regarding this argument, Murillo said that Craig just took the first premise as axiomatic. He then argued that not everything that began to exist has a cause, and the support he gave is random particle decay. In fact, when I clarified the specific term that he used in the forum of PATAS, PATAS replied that random particle decay is something that we could not consider that it has a cause, including the virtual particles that pop in and out in a vacuum. They claimed that it’s totally random at the quantum level, that there is no linear causality happening. With this in mind, I checked an article about radioactive decay. In an article entitled, “Why Does Radioactive Decay Occur?” written by Anne Helmenstine, she answered the question of why some nuclei decay and why others don’t. She said:
“It’s basically a matter of thermodynamics. Every atom seeks to be as stable as possible. In the case of radioactive decay, instability occurs when there is an imbalance in the number of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. Basically, there is too much energy inside the nucleus to hold all the nucleons together. The status of the electrons of an atom doesn’t matter for decay, although they, too, have their own way of finding stability. If the nucleus of an atom is unstable, eventually it will break apart to lose at least some of the particles that make it unstable. The original nucleus is called the parent, while the resulting nucleus or nuclei are called the daughter or daughters. The daughters might still be radioactive, eventually breaking into more parts, or they might be stable.”⁴
With this in mind, when Helmestine mentioned that the decay of some nuclei is basically a matter of thermodynamics, it’s clear that there’s a sort of mechanistic way or rule that is being followed when decay happens. What this shows us is that even if we are not aware of how the timeframe of the radioactive decay, we can see that the process still has a cause. With this in mind, it seems that Murillo is confusing ontology with epistemology, that just because we do not know when exactly an atom would suddenly change, that it automatically means that it has no cause. But this is false because even if we are not aware of the details of the cause of something (timeframe of the radioactive decay), it could be said that something still has a cause. Hence, the support that Murillo gave does not really help his case.
In addition, it’s also false to claim that Craig just took the first premise that is taken for granted without argument. In fact, Craig gave us three reasons to believe that it’s undeniable that whatever begins to exist has a cause. He argued that: (1) Something cannot come from nothing; (2) If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing; (3) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1.
Regarding (1), Craig argued that to claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. He said:
“To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise 1, you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.”⁵
Craig also reasoned that the fundamental principle of metaphysics is that nothing comes from nothing.⁶
In addition, what PATAS said that “virtual particles that pop in and out in a vacuum” is something that Craig anticipated as well in his book. Craig mentioned that sometimes the skeptics respond to (1) that virtual particles come into being from nothing. In a sense that the universe becomes the exception to the proverb that there is no free lunch. Craig responds that this is a deliberate abuse of science. He argues:
“The theories in question have to do with particles originating as a fluctuation of the energy contained in the vacuum. The vacuum in modern physics is not what the layman understands by “vacuum,” namely, nothing. Rather in physics the vacuum is a sea of fluctuating energy governed by physical laws and having a physical structure. To tell laymen that on such theories something comes from nothing is a distortion of those theories.”⁷
Furthermore, Craig clarifies that “nothing” does not mean empty space, rather nothing is the absence of anything, which includes space. Thus, since nothingness does not have any properties, then indeed, it could not really cause anything.
Regarding (2), basically Craig argues that since nothingness does not have any properties, then why does it become so discriminatory in favor of universes? Why are we not seeing bicycles, Beethoven, or root beer just popping into existence from nothing? With this in mind, it does not really make sense since nothingness does not have any properties, thus there is nothing about nothingness that will make it favor universes more than any other being. Furthermore, nothingness could not be constrained because there is nothing to be constrained.⁸ In view of this, Craig anticipates an atheist responding that premise 1 is true of everything in the universe, but not of the universe itself, which is basically what Murillo said that it is not necessarily the case that just because we observe all things in the universe to have a cause that this means that the whole universe is caused. Hence, the theist could be accused of committing the fallacy of composition, which is a fallacy where someone infers that something is true for the whole, because of what is true for the part. But this is something that Murillo has not established that Craig is committing. In fact, this argument of Murillo is already refuted by Dr. Craig in a video entitled, “Objections So Bad I Couldn’t Have Made Them Up (Worst Objections to Kalam Cosmological Argument)”.
Craig said that he never argued that because every part of the universe has a cause, that therefore the universe has a cause. Craig said that this particular rendering is fallacious. He clarifies rather that his argument is that everything that begins to exist has a cause because of the same three reasons that we are discussing to show that Craig did not take for granted the first premise without argument, such as: (1) Something cannot come from nothing; (2) If something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing; (3) Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1.⁹
In addition, it could be countered that Murillo is committing the taxicab fallacy. Craig said in On Guard:
“I’ve heard atheists respond to this argument by saying that premise 1 is true of everything in the universe but not of the universe. But this is just the old taxicab fallacy that we encountered in chapter 3. You can’t dismiss the causal principle like a cab once you get to the universe! Premise 1 is not merely a law of nature, like the law of gravity, which only applies in the universe. Rather it’s a metaphysical principle that governs all being, all reality.”¹⁰
In context, chapter 3 is about the cosmological argument of Leibniz, and the taxicab fallacy is a reply against the notion that the proposition that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence is something that is true only of what is inside the universe and not the universe as a whole. The term taxicab is used because the person seems to dismiss what they are saying once they arrive at their desired destination, in the same way that you leave a taxicab. In that chapter, basically Craig is showing that it’s arbitrary for the atheist to claim that the universe is the exception to this rule. In fact, the thought experiment that Craig showed about a translucent ball being discovered in the woods, then it is increased in size until it has the same size as the universe, does not really remove the need for the explanation of the existence of the universe.¹¹
Hence, this proves that it’s actually Murillo that is committing a fallacy and not Craig, and that the principle that “if something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing”, is something that is reasonable.
Lastly, regarding (3), that common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1, Craig argues that the proposition that whatever that begins to exist has a cause is constantly verified and not falsified in the practice of modern science.¹² Though (3) is something that Craig has not elaborated further in his book, we can agree with his assessment, because indeed when we think of a chair beginning to exist, the reason it became a chair is that there’s a carpenter that has done something to a wood. The wood did not magically become a chair for no reason. This is also the case when scientists do their best to understand different phenomena. With their instruments and their tools for reasoning, they are able to discern how a certain thing in nature has caused a certain phenomenon to happen. Hence, whatever begins to exist has a cause.
With these three things in mind, we can establish that it’s false for Murillo to claim that Craig just assumed the first premise without argument. In summary, aside from the first premise being proven by Craig, we are also able to show that the charge of the fallacy of composition against him is also false.
No Evidence That The Universe Has a Cause Because Our Universe is the Only Universe We Can Observe
Related to this claim, Murillo stated that we have no evidence that the universe has a cause because the universe is the only universe we can observe. In addition, he also said that we do not know if the universe has a cause, because what the Big Bang theory says is that the universe started from a singularity, and we do not know whether there’s a previous universe that exists. Murillo explains that the Big Bang assumes an infinite density and mass of the universe, which he deems to be similar to a black hole. He then mentions that other apologists claim that the universe came from nothing, but he responds that ‘nothing’ really means that it could be explained through quantum fluctuations.
As a response, Murillo’s remark about the universe is the only one we can observe does not invalidate the proposition that the universe has a cause. If we have not observed a certain event or thing, it does not necessarily follow that the certain event or thing that caused something is not there. In fact, if you see a machine on Mars, and you see that there are tracks of the machine on the land, that is enough for you to conclude that the tracks on the land are caused by the machine. The design on the machine is also enough for you to conclude that there is an intelligent agent that brought it there even if you don’t know what that agent is. Regarding the existence of the universe, Murillo did not dispute the truthfulness of the second premise, which is that the universe began to exist. But if he grants that the universe began to exist, then there must be something that caused the universe to begin to exist. If not, then it just popped out into existence for no reason whatsoever. But this is illogical since nothingness does not have any properties that make it able to cause anything. And if there’s a cause of the existence of the universe, of course, people will surely give their alternatives in order to explain the phenomenon. With this in mind, I would just want to share about the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem. Craig cited this in his book in order to show its implications that the universe has a beginning. In Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes (2006), the physicist Alexander Vilenkin explained that the remarkable thing about their theorem is its sweeping generality. He explained that they did not assume that gravity is described by Einstein’s equations. This means that even if Einstein’s gravity is modified, their conclusion will still hold. Vilenkin also said that the only assumption that they made was the expansion rate of the universe never gets below some nonzero value, no matter how small. Vilenkin said that this assumption should certainly be satisfied in the inflating false vacuum. Vilenkin then concluded that past-eternal inflation without a beginning is impossible. In addition, he also argued that the same conclusions apply even to the cyclical universe. With that said, Vilenkin finally remarked:
“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”¹³
Furthermore, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem is also applicable to the multiverse. Craig cited this as a response to the multiverse as well in his book. He said:
“Some cosmologists speculate that our observable universe is just an expanding bubble in a much wider sea of energy, which is also expanding. Since this wider universe contains many other bubbles in addition to ours, it is often called a multiverse. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem also applies to the multiverse as a whole, not just to the individual bubbles within it. Thus, even if there is a multiverse, it cannot be eternal in the past but must have had a beginning.”¹⁴
Now, if the universe began to exist, and everything that begins to exist has a cause, of course, it would be logical for us to conclude that the universe has a cause. But what could best qualify to be the cause of the universe? Murillo proposes that the cause is quantum fluctuations. Craig responded to this in the article entitled, “The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe“:
“Vacuum Fluctuation Models did not outlive the decade of the 1980s. Not only were there theoretical problems with the production mechanisms of matter, but these models faced a deep internal incoherence. According to such models, it is impossible to specify precisely when and where a fluctuation will occur in the primordial vacuum which will then grow into a universe. Within any finite interval of time there is a positive probability of such a fluctuation occurring at any point in space. Thus, given infinite past time, universes will eventually be spawned at every point in the primordial vacuum, and, as they expand, they will begin to collide and coalesce with one another. Thus, given infinite past time, we should by now be observing an infinitely old universe, not a relatively young one. About the only way to avert the problem would be to postulate an expansion of the primordial vacuum itself; but then we are right back to the absolute origin implied by the Standard Model. According to Isham this problem proved to be “fairly lethal” to Vacuum Fluctuation Models; hence, these models were “jettisoned twenty years ago” and “nothing much” has been done with them since.”¹⁵
There are also other proposed possible causes of the universe. But in general, since time, space, and matter, came to be when the Big Bang happened, then the cause must be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. And the two things that fit this description are abstract objects and God. Indeed, mathematical entities such as numbers, sets, and functions are timeless, spaceless, and immaterial, but they are causally effete, which makes them not really able to make any effects happen. But God is also timeless, spaceless, and immaterial, but He is a being that is immensely powerful and personal, which makes Him able to decide to cause any effects if He wants to. Hence, if the universe began to exist then we have good reasons to believe that God caused the universe to begin to exist from nothing.
With this in mind, we can say that the kalam cosmological argument is something that has a logically valid syllogism, from which the premises are grounded scientifically and is also true that leads to the conclusion that the universe has a cause. The nature of the universe points us to the nature of the cause, which we understand to be God. William Lane Craig explains his intention in this argument beautifully:
“The way I have expressed the support which science might lend to theistic belief is not to say that science proves God or that you introduce God as a hypothesis into a scientific theory. The way I put it is this: science can provide evidence in support of a premise in a philosophical argument leading to a conclusion that has theological significance.”¹⁶
This is Craig’s intention with his argument.
References:
[1] Homar Murillo, “the kalam cosmological argument for the existence of god is unconvincing despite its attempt to be scientifically grounded,” Facebook, February 14, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/groups/patasforum/posts/3006116292987315.
[2] William Lane Craig, On Guard (Canada: David C Cook, 2010), 75.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Anne Marie Helmenstine, “Why Does Radioactive Decay Occur?”, ThoughtCo, accessed March 11, 2022, https://www.thoughtco.com/why-radioactive-decay-occurs-608649.
[5] Craig, On Guard, 75.
[6] Craig, On Guard, 75–76.
[7] Craig, On Guard, 76.
[8] Craig, On Guard, 77.
[9] Craig, William. “Objections So Bad I Couldn’t Have Made Them Up (Worst Objections to Kalam Cosmological Argument),” February 3, 2012. 21:06, https://youtu.be/gtfVds8Kn4s?t=1266
[10] Craig, On Guard, 77.
[11] Craig, On Guard, 57.
[12] Craig, On Guard, 78.
[13] Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 176.
[14] Craig, On Guard, 92.
[15] William Lane Craig, “The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe,” Reasonable Faith, accessed March 11, 2022, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/the-ultimate-question-of-origins-god-and-the-beginning-of-the-universe.
[16] “Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne: Science vs. Religion Part 2”, Reasonable Faith, accessed March 11, 2022, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/sam-harris-and-jerry-coyne-science-vs.-religion-part-2.
