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Cosmological models which postulate an infinite past, such as eternal inflation model, Ekyroptic universe, and Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, face various difficulties related to the Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics (Aron Wall), and arguments against an infinite regress of causes and events: (1) The argument from the impossibility of concrete actual infinities. (2) The argument from the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite. (3) The argument from the viciousness of dependence regress. (4) The argument from the Grim Reaper paradox. Any one of these arguments would be sufficient. Bounce cosmologies which postulate entropy reversal (Sean Carroll) neglect the problem of causal dependence at the interface. I show that Linford’s suggestion that the universes to either side of the interface might be interpreted as the simultaneous causes of each other entails a vicious circularity. Likewise, a closed causal loop (Gott and Li) is viciously circular. Given that an infinite causal regress and a closed loop is not the case, there is a First Cause.
Cosmological models which postulate an infinite past, such as eternal inflation model, Ekyroptic universe, and Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, face various difficulties related to the Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics (Aron Wall), and arguments against an infinite regress of causes and events: (1) The argument from the impossibility of concrete actual infinities. (2) The argument from the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite. (3) The argument from the viciousness of dependence regress. (4) The argument from the Grim Reaper paradox. Any one of these arguments would be sufficient. Bounce cosmologies which postulate entropy reversal (Sean Carroll) neglect the problem of causal dependence at the interface. I show that Linford’s suggestion that the universes to either side of the interface might be interpreted as the simultaneous causes of each other entails a vicious circularity. Likewise, a closed causal loop (Gott and Li) is viciously circular. Given that an infinite causal regress and a closed loop is not the case, there is a First Cause.
This paper considers two problems -one in philosophy of religion and another in philosophy of physics -and shows that the two problems have one solution. Some Christian philosophers have endorsed the views that (i) there was a first finitely long period of time, (ii) God is in time, and yet (iii) God did not have a beginning. If there was a first finitely long period of time and God is in time then there was a first finitely long period of time in God's life. But if God's life includes a first finitely long period of time, then, on one initially intuitive conception of beginning to exist, God began to exist. Thus, at first glance, (i)-(iii) are not mutually compatible. Meanwhile, on a variety of proposals for quantum gravity theories or interpretations of quantum theory, space-time is not fundamental to physical reality and instead can (somehow) be explained in terms of yet more fundamental physical substructures. As I show, there is a strong intuition that if space-time is not fundamental to physical reality, then, even if there were a first finitely long period in the life of physical reality, physical reality would be beginningless. Thus, both theistic philosophers and philosophers of physics have developed theories on which some beginningless entities have a first finitely long temporal period in their lives and so both groups should be interested in developing criteria that distinguish such entities from entities with a beginning. In this paper, I offer one necessary (but not sufficient) condition, namely, that entities that begin to exist are absent from the closest possible worlds without time. The view that I defend has one significant upshot: no sound argument can use the mere fact (if it is a fact) that past time is finite to reach the conclusion that the totality of physical reality had a beginning. PENULTIMATE DRAFT -FORTHCOMING IN ERKENNTNISthe view that while there is a first finitely long period of time in God's life, God's life was beginningless (Craig [2001a], Erasmus [2021], Loke [2017]). This view is conceptually problematic because, prima facie, to begin to exist just means that one's life included a finitely long initial period of time. On the other hand, as discussed below, a variety of contemporary physical theories and research programs are committed to the claim that the Cosmos is not fundamentally spatiotemporal (
This paper offers a critical assessment of the Successive Addition Argument (SAA) in support of past finitism, i.e., the thesis that the past of the universe is finite in duration. This old philosophical argument, re-popularized by William Lane Craig in modern times, contends that the universe’s past cannot be infinite because an infinite series cannot be formed by successive addition. I first address a recently popular objection to the argument, namely the Zeno Objection, showing that it can be easily dismissed once each addition is taken to have the same duration. Nevertheless, I contend that the onus of the proof lies on those who propose the SAA, and that their main argumentative strategies fail. Indeed, many of their arguments are based on the supposedly uncontroversial claim that one cannot traverse the infinite by starting somewhere. I argue that a complete traversal of the infinite, with a beginning infinitely far from its end, is logically and metaphysically possible. Other popular arguments against traversed infinities are based on thought experiments such as the backward counter or the Tristram Shandy thought experiments. I argue that, once infinitely far beginnings are granted, none of the arguments based on such thought experiments prove effective, so that the SAA must be rejected.
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