How Successful is the Kalam Cosmological Argument in Establishing an Existence in God

          The idea that the universe has an infinite past, stretching back in time into infinity, is both philosophically and scientifically problematic. All indications are that there is a point in time at which the universe began to exist, eg/ the big bang. This beginning was either caused or uncaused. The cosmological argument takes the suggestion that the beginning of the universe was uncaused to be impossible. The idea of an uncaused event is absurd; nothing comes from nothing. The universe was therefore caused by something outside it, God.

Without God there would be one entity, the existence of which we could not explain, namely the universe; with God there would be one entity the existence of which we could not explain, namely God. Positing the existence of God, then, would raise as many problems as it solved, and so the cosmological argument would leave us in no better position than it found us.

But there is a distinction drawn between the universe and God is that the universe has a beginning in time. Everything that has a beginning in time, the kalam cosmological argument claims, has a cause of its existence. The uncaused existence of God, who does not have a beginning in time, is consistent with it’s claim. If the argument is correct then God must have made a decision to create this world. Either in or out of time, an action has come after a decision. If this is the case then God is subject to ‘time’. On the basis of the Kalam Cosmological Argument God would have had to begin to exist as well. The argument also states that actual infinite things cannot exist. Therefore God, as an actual infinite Being, cannot exist either.

It might be that God is the reason for the universes existence even if the universe is finite or even infinite. It still seems logical for a theist to argue that an infinite universe might not exist if there was no God. 

But, the kalam argument, as I presented here, questions the possibility of the universe being infinite for two main reasons

• It is not possible that the universe has no beginning yet present events are leading towards infinity. Either the universe is actually infinite now or it is not. It cannot be + 1 + 1 etc… = infinity.
• It is not possible that the universe is potentially infinite as this means moments are being added. This implies that there was a starting point in the past (you add to something). If this is the case then the universe is not infinite but is finite and has a beginning.

In many respects the argument makes sense. For instance, it is not logical to claim that the universe is infinite yet also claim that successive moments are being added to it.