You have argued that, in addition the the universe having a cause, that the cause possesses certain unique properties
Archaeopteryx, you are one of the few people here who actually seem to be interested and sincere in your questions, and all of them are worthy of all the attention and time I can put into them. Forgive me for delaying in responding to you, I have been quite busy here on my end.
Several things of note regarding your statement above:
1. We utilize what is known in philosophy as an inference to the best explanation to develop an understanding of what
some of the properties of the Cause of the universe
must be. The cause can be no less than these:
i. Immaterial, timeless, and spaceless
Note that we can gather from understanding what we mean when we speak of "universe" which is all material reality including space and time, that the cause of said universe must possess at least the above attributes. This cause cannot be material, for all matter came into existence at the Big Bang. If the cause was material, it would have had to exist before matter was created, but this is of course absurd. Matter could not have existed before matter came into existence. This cause also could not have been in time or temporal because there would have had to have been a time before time came into existence. For the above reasons, this too is metaphysically absurd. There was no space time material before space time. This cause must also be spaceless, or non-spatial, for all space came into being at the Big Bang along with time and matter. There could not have been a "space" which existed co-dependently with time and matter as the GTR concludes, before space which exists co-dependently with time and matter came into existence. To maintain that the cause of the universe could have been material, spatial, or temporal, is to maintain that it was not a cause of the universe at all! For it has properties correspondant to the universe. The Standard Model makes this simply impossible, for it demonstrates that all space-time, all matter, and all energy came into existence at some point in the finite past in an explosion of light and energy from an initial singularity.
possess certain unique properties that are not shared with any other known use of the word "cause".
It seems to me that you are implying that the cause of the universe must necessarily possesses certain properties that are shared by other causes that we know of for the explanation to be logically coherent.
Several things can be said here:
1. The KCA points to an efficient cause which possesses causal powers and that stands in causal relations to entities outside of itself. It points to a cause that possesses a volitional capacity, and it points to a cause that is an intelligent mind (I will be elaborating on this below). All of the above are attributes which every human including you and I possess! So the cause in this way, is
exactly like every other efficient cause that we know of! So in this manner the cause is not dissimilar to human beings which we observe every day to be efficient causes.
2. In the absence of some epistemic warrant defeater for the three main attributes inferred, we must logically conclude that the best explanation for the cause of the universe be one that is immaterial, spaceless, and timeless. This is in no way logically incoherent but coherent. For we understand that the cause of the universe must in at least three ways be wholly unlike the universe itself, for if it were not, it would just be a part of the universe. This discussion can be therefore, tackled from the angle of what exists necessarily and what exists contingently. The cause of the universe must exist necessarily and not contingently. From the argument, we see that the universe must exist contingently and therefore, owes it's existence to an entity that exists necessarily.
And yet those are exactly the properties that you ascribe to your "cause" - the properties that would define it as no-thing. Which leaves you in the bizarre position of arguing that no-thing is really something and that no-thing really is the cause of everything.
It seems to me that you are suggesting that the use of negative preidcates necessarily equates with unintelligibility and or nothingness.
Several things can be noted here:
1. If I were to tell you that I was penni
less, that statement is clearly intelligible and in no way bizarre. It simply means that I have no pennies or in common idiomatic usage, "broke".
2. If I were to tell you that I was
impatient, that statement is clearly intelligible and in no way bizarre. It simply means that I have no patience or am not very patient.
You see that in our usage of language, we oftentimes use negative predicates to make positive statements of fact. They are in no way unintelligible and actually very informative.
To elaborate:
1. Nothing is nothing, and therefore possess no properties for it is literally no-thing. To say that the universe was caused by nothing is to say that the universe was uncaused, which is the exact opposite of the arguments conclsion. The argument argues that the cause be no-thing
material, not nothing. In other words, the argument calls for an immaterial entity which possess causal powers.
2. The KCA argues for a cause of the universe. This conclusion is a
positive existential affirmation. The cause must possess incredible causal power for it brought the universe into being without any material cause. The attribution of negative predicates is enormously informative and metaphyscially significant. From it's timelessness and immateriality, we can induce from these, it's personhood.
In the below video, Dr. Craig speaks on this exact question.
9. Worst Objection to Kalam Cosmological Argument: Negative Attribues of God is Nothing - YouTube
I repeat what I said earlier: You are leveraging the meaning of the word "cause", but ignoring the context in which it finds meaning.
Aristotle in his works, distinguished between two main types of causes:
1. Efficient Causes - What brings an effect into being, i.e what produces an effect. In philosophy this is specifically referred to as "agent causation".
2. Material Causes - the stuff out of which an effect is brought into being.
For example:
The statue of David had as it's efficient cause, the artist and sculptor Michaelangelo. It's material cause was the block of marble from which he carved it.
How do you deduce personhood from timelessness and immateriality?
Excellent question Archaeopteryx! Let me see if I can unpack this neatly for you. I shall do so in three different arguments.
1. Al Ghazali, the Muslim Philosopher who in the Middle Ages propounded the Kalam Cosmological Argument, argues that the cause must be personal because if it is anything else, it is impossible to explain how you can get a temporal effect with a beginning (the universe) from a changeless eternal cause. If a cause is sufficient to produce it's effect then if the cause is there, then the effect (the universe) should be there, otherwise the cause is not really sufficient.
If the necessary and sufficient conditions (the cause) for the production of the effect are eternal, then why isn't the effect eternal? How can all the causal conditions sufficient for the production of the effect be changelessly existent and yet the effect (the universe) not also be existent along with the cause? How can the cause exist without the effect?
For example, suppose that the cause of water's freezing is that the temperature be below 0 degrees centigrade. Now if the temperature were below 0 degrees centigrade from eternity past, then any water that was around would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for it to begin to freeze only a finite time ago because once the sufficient conditions for the effect are given, then the effect must be there as well, otheriwise the conditions are not sufficient but must be caused by that which is sufficient to bring the conditions about. But we see that the effect (the universe) came into existence a finite time ago by a cause that is timelessly eternal. How can this be reconciled?
Al Ghazali reasoned that the only way out of this dilemma, is to say that the cause of the universe's beginning is a
personal agent who freely
chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation "agent causation," and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions which were not previously present.
For example:
A man sitting changelessly from eternity could freely will to stand up; thus, a temporal effect arises from an eternally existing agent. Similarly, a finite time ago a Creator endowed with free will could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. By "choose" one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning. By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist. So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The second argument is as follows:
1. The only things that are timeless and immaterial are either minds or abstract objects. Examples for the latter are mathematical entities like sets or numbers.
2. Numbers however are causally impotent. They do not have the property of causation. The number "7" has no potentiality for bringing or choosing to create anything or willing any action.
3. Therefore an immaterial or unembodied mind must have been the cause of the universe. More on what "mind" is below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The third argument is as follows:
Oxford professor and philosopher Richard Swinburne demonstrates that there are two broad types of explanations in philosophy:
1. Scientific - given in terms of laws of nature and initial conditions.
2. Personal - given in terms of an agent and his or her volition.
The first state of the existence of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation because there are no laws of nature or initial conditions from which that first state could be explained from or appealed to because it is the first state, there are no antecedent conditions from which one could derive a scientific explanation!
Therefore, the explanation must be personal.
