In this post I will attempt to summarize numerous reasons the KCA fails.
First, the KCA itself:
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause (“the law of causality”).
- The universe began to exist (even scientists say so).
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
- The entire KCA is based on a category error (the fallacy of composition).
If my steering wheel alone can’t get me from point A to point B, and neither can my axles, or my starter, or my fuel pump, can we conclude that a vehicle made of nothing but parts that individually can’t function as a vehicle therefore doesn’t function as a vehicle? Of course we can’t conclude that. That’s the fallacy of composition: asserting that characteristics of the components must also apply to the whole. That’s what the KCA does: by taking the (erroneous) notion that there is a “law of causality” within the universe, the “law of causality” must apply to the universe as a whole. Thus, the KCA is based entirely on the same “reasoning” that concludes that your car can’t possibly work. - The argument doesn’t tell us anything about the alleged cause.
This one is pretty simple. Even if we accepted the argument in its entirety, it tells us nothing about the characteristics of the cause. Many KCA proponents recognize this and attempt to add to it with other silly arguments, but the KCA itself doesn’t get them anywhere. Other KCA proponents insist that the cause is “God,” but “God” doesn’t appear anywhere in the syllogism and therefore can’t logically be a part of the conclusion of the syllogism. - Premise 1 is just untrue; there is no “law of causality.”
Again, this is pretty simple, but anti-scientists will refuse to believe it: Some quantum events, as far as we can tell, are uncaused. Some of these uncaused events produce particles which did not previously exist. For example, excepting bombardment with other particles, there is no way to tell when a radioactive nucleus will undergo decay; this is because that decay event is uncaused. - The argument equivocates with the phrase “begins to exist.”
There are [spoiler alert: more than] two different ideas about what “begins to exist” can mean. Consider a backpack. Before the backpack existed, those same atoms and molecules existed as thread, nylon, zippers, etc., but not in backpack form. Somehow, at some point during the construction of the backpack, the backpack began to exist as a backpack, even though the components existed beforehand.
Alternatively, “begins to exist” might instead refer to the idea that a particular item did not exist in any form, and then later existed. There might be some quibbling here about quantum cases like neutrinos spun off from a decay event, but in my experience most KCA proponents consider that one of the previous idea because the “stuff” already existed, just in non-neutrino form.
Remember that in order for the structure of the argument to be valid, “begin/s to exist” must mean exactly the same thing in Premise 1 as it means in Premise 2; failure to do so is the fallacy of equivocation.
In Premise 1, KCA proponents mean “begins to exist” as in the backpack example. Recall the fallacy of composition presentation: Premise 1 is based on the KCA proponent’s (seeming) experience in the world that any happening is an effect that has a cause. The backpack exists as an effect of someone or something causing the parts to be arranged into a backpack. But in Premise 2, “begins to exist” definitely does not mean “exists now due to rearranging pre-existing parts.” No, essentially all KCA proponents push the idea that at first there was no universe, and then there was; there was nothingness, and then there was a universe. Ignore for now what is actually true about the universe’s beginning; the fact that the KCA proponent means two different things by “begins to exist” means that the argument logically fails. - Eliminating the equivocation breaks the argument.
If Premise 1 is adapted to mean, “Everything that pops into existence from nothingness has a cause of its beginning to exist,” the premise is completely unsupported. We have exactly zero examples of anything popping into existence from nothingness. (In my experience, people using the cosmological argument get very angry when I point out that science already tells us this with the first law of thermodynamics, contrary to their insistence that the Big Bang theory violates the laws of science.) If the only alleged example of anything popping into existence from nothingness is the universe (which is the only option if we are to accept the first law of thermodynamics), then the argument becomes circular, wholly dependent upon the bare assertion that the universe was caused to pop into existence from nothingness.
If instead Premise 2 is adapted to mean, “the universe came into existence from previously existing proto-universe components,” this is (a) another unsupported assertion, (b) attempting to kick the can down the road, and (c) opening the door for a non-god cause. KCA proponents definitely don’t mean (c), and (b) doesn’t help them. Of course, neither does (a); this is the same problem as the KCA not giving us any info about the cause, but this makes it plainly explicit that the cause need not be some kind of deity. - It rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the universe.
This one is almost-last for a reason, despite the fact that — in my opinion — it’s the one most fun to use. Until you understand the nuances, it’s difficult to grasp how this rebuttal works. Indeed, it’s rare for a KCA proponent to accept this as a valid counterargument precisely because they are predisposed to not know what is true about the universe.
The problematic preconception is the idea that, at some point in time, there was no universe, and then later there was a universe. For as long as anyone — KCA proponent or not — is working on that preconception, they will never grasp this correctly. Get rid of that preconception now. If you are reluctant to give up that preconception, consider two things: First, you have no sound reason for holding that preconception. That should be enough. But fine: Second, you’re wrong, and we’ve known you’re wrong since 1905.
One of the mind-bending predictions of Einstein’s theory of relativity is that time is a component of the universe. It is not an external constant; it flexes and bends or contracts with movement and nearby matter. These predictions have been confirmed a gazillion times over; without compensating for this time dilation, GPS wouldn’t work, and you couldn’t use your smart phone for navigation.
The takeaway here is that time doesn’t exist independently of the universe; it is a component of the universe. They are inextricably linked. One cannot exist without the other.
Before we put together most of the above arguments, let’s take one last pseudo-detour to think about what “time” allows. Think about the notion of “change.” Change refers to some difference over time. If a system is in one condition, and no time passes, there can be no change. If a system is in one condition, and somehow the system is in some different condition, that necessary required time to pass.
Now let’s put this together: Time is a component of the universe. Without a universe, there is no time. Without time, there cannot be change. A universe-less nothingness wouldn’t have time and therefore couldn’t change; if this were the starting condition, we could not end up with a universe. The only way around this is to assert that time exists independently of the universe, but that is contrary to every single test of relativistic theory ever conducted.
Or to put it a different, possibly more understandable way: Arguing that there was a time when the universe didn’t exist is self-contradictory because time is a part of the universe. That’s like saying that there existed a time when there was no time. Or, that’s like saying “before time,” but “before” is a word of temporal comparison meaning “earlier in time,” so “earlier in time than time” doesn’t make any sense. In order for the KCA to work, we must accept that there was a time when there was no such thing as time. - “All of time” doesn’t mean “for an infinite amount of time.”
This one is last because it's easier to present it after you have read what's immediately above.
Now that we’ve established that it’s not the case that some ethereal “nothingness” pre-existed the universe, and that the first law of thermodynamics tells us that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed, what can we conclude? We can conclude that all matter and energy have always existed; they have existed for all of time.
This is where the KCA proponents who think that they understand thermodynamics will snootily tell you that the universe can’t be infinitely old because by now we’d be at the inevitable thermodynamic heat death of the universe, and none of us would be around. That means that is where you need to explain that “all of time” doesn’t mean “an infinite amount of time,” in the same way that “all of my life” doesn’t mean “an infinite amount of time.”
Just like your life, the universe did indeed (as far as we can tell) have a beginning. Let’s call it time 0. (For simplicity’s sake, never mind for now the whole Planck time limitation; suffice it to say that if any KCA proponent wants to go that direction, they’re just admitting that we can’t know what the universe was like at time 0, which only helps refute the KCA anyway.) However, unlike your life, it’s not the case that things happened earlier in time than the universe’s existence. Making a timeline of your life is possible, but you can extend that line further back in time to your parents’ births, for example, without breaking any rules of science or logic. But you can’t do that for the universe; remember, there’s no such thing as “before time,” so there’s no such thing as “before the universe.” You can go back to time 0, but there’s no negative time. That’s different than there “being nothing.” It’s logically impossible to have negative time. The timeline literally cannot go back any further. The universe had a “beginning” in that it had a first moment of existence; it didn’t “come from nothing,” and it didn’t “come from anything,” because it didn’t “come from” at all. It never didn’t exist. This is that aforementioned extra idea of what “begins to exist” can mean, and it’s a logical necessity!
The KCA is as a whole, or contains, or entails, or optionally contains or entails: a category error, multiple equivocation fallacies, unsupported assertions, already-falsified assertions, self-contradictory positions, and whatever other balderdash is added to it in order to attempt to make it say still more things that it doesn’t say.
I hope you feel empowered to humiliate all the William Lane Craig-wannabes you run into.