The Kalam Cosmological Argument: Craig's reply

Update: I posted a more detailed analysis of Craig's reply in this post

In an earlier post, I argued that the Kalam Cosmological Argument provides no support for theism.

Someone raised one of my objections - the main one, actually - in William Lane Craig's website.

Craig states: "The reason I give for so restricting the range of “event” is that I’m talking about changes, and changes take time to occur."

That's actually my point.

He actually claimed that changes take time to occur.

In fact, he claimed that there are no instantaneous events precisely because any change takes time.

I pointed out that the change from a state S at which God does not know any tensed facts (because there aren't any), to a state at which God knows some tensed facts (at t=0) is, well, a change, and changes take time to occur.

Yet, he now claims that God's gaining knowledge of tensed facts is instantaneous, and therefore it's not a change in "this technical sense".

But there is no such "this technical sense" of "change" in Craig's arguments.

Once again, in his book, Craig did not define "change" at all.

On the contrary, he defined "event" in terms of change.

More precisely, he defined "event" as "any change"[2], using "change" in the usual sense in English, and then claimed that there are no instantaneous events precisely because any change takes time.

The changes I'm talking about are obviously changes in the usual sense of the word "change" in English, and the contradiction follows as explained.

That aside, Craig claims that in any case, one can change the definition of "event" in the second premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and clarify that the events in question are events of non-zero, finite, equal duration.

Of course, if he did that, he would be actually withdrawing his claim that any change takes time.

However, as I showed in my previous argument, if the changes in question have a zero duration, then a contradiction still follows.

I guess he might then claim that these changes - and they are changes - do not have either a zero duration, or a non-zero duration, but somehow they're timeless or partially timeless, and somehow for that reason one shouldn't speak of duration.

But if he did that, I would take issue with the meaningfulness of his claims.

So, what is he saying?

He claims that the changes are "instantaneous", but somehow they don't have a zero duration?

What does that even mean, then, by "instantaneous"?

And those changes are somehow "timeless" changes?

But then, what does Craig even mean by "timeless"?

If by "X is timeless", he means that X does not stand in any temporal relations, then the question is: how can that prior state - which then changes - be timeless?

And if "timelessness" is something like "absence of all events" (i.e., an absence of all changes), then there cannot be a timeless change, so the changes I take into consideration either have a non-zero duration (and so, a contradiction follows) or a zero duration (and still, a contradiction follows).

If he means something else, then what does he mean by "timeless" - and/or "timelessness" -, and how does "timelessness" differs, ontologically speaking, from an initial point at t=0?

To be more specific, let's consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1:

First state of the world:

Timeless state S. The only object is O.

Second state of the world:

Temporal state. t=0. The objects are O and U, and O is the cause of the existence of U.

Third state of the world:

Temporal state; t=r > 0. The objects are O, U and, perhaps some other objects.

Scenario 2:

First state of the world:

t=0. The only object is O.

Second state of the world:

Temporal state. t=a>0. The objects are O and U, and O is the cause of the existence of U.

Third state of the world:

Temporal state; t=r > a. The objects are O, U and, perhaps some other objects.

A key question here is: What is the ontological difference between the two?

Saying that one has a timeless state and the other does not, so there is an ontological difference, would miss the point. The point is that this so-called "timeless" state seems to behave exactly like a temporal state at t=0, except that a claim of timelessness is made, somehow allegedly allowing the claim that God did not have a beginning.

Craig makes the following claim:

William Lane Craig: [1]

If not, then since the universe cannot ever have existed in an absolutely quiescent state, the universe must have had a beginning.

But in which sense can object O be in an “absolutely quiescent” state in scenario 1, but not in scenario 2?

In both cases, what we have is one causally first state of affairs that changes into another state of affairs. How would any of them be any more "quiescent" than the other?

Update: I posted a more detailed explanation of why there is no difference in later posts, for instance in this post, and also here.

[1]

Source: William Lane Craig and J.P. Sinclair, "The Kalam Cosmological Argument", in "The BlackWell Companion to Natural Theology", Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-17657-6. Page 106.