Methuselah’s Diary and the Finitude of the Past

Waters, Ben

doi:10.5840/pc201315240

Cited by 4 publications

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“…10. For an earlier version of this argument and its relationship to the literature that has accumulated around Craig's Tristram Shandy argument, see Waters (2013). 11.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a new kalām cosmological argument

Waters

2015

Cogent Arts & Humanities

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William Lane Craig has revived interest in the medieval kalām argument to the point where it is now one of the most discussed arguments for God's existence in the secondary literature. Still, the reception of Craig's argument among philosophers of religion has been mostly critical. In the interest of developing an argument that more philosophers of religion would be inclined to support, I will lay the philosophical groundwork for a new kalām cosmological argument that, in contrast with Craig's argument, does not adopt such controversial positions as the dynamic theory of time and the metaphysical impossibility of an actual infinite.

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“…10. For an earlier version of this argument and its relationship to the literature that has accumulated around Craig's Tristram Shandy argument, see Waters (2013). 11.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a new kalām cosmological argument

Waters

2015

Cogent Arts & Humanities

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Arguments for a First Cause

Loke

2022

The Teleological and Kalam Cosmological Arguments Revisited

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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.

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Is the Number of Prior Causes and Durations Infinite? An Assessment of the Current Literature

Loke

2017

God and Ultimate Origins

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Methuselah’s Diary and the Finitude of the Past

Abstract: There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

Toward a new kalām cosmological argument

Toward a new kalām cosmological argument

Arguments for a First Cause

Is the Number of Prior Causes and Durations Infinite? An Assessment of the Current Literature

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