The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment

Some thinkers in the Christian and Islamic traditions assert that God doesn’t only create the universe ex nihilo, but that he also continuously recreates the universe in order to preserve its existence. This chapter will discuss randomness vis-à-vis the doctrine of continuous creation as understood in both religious traditions. We argue that the doctrine of continuous creation in its version that is held by both Christians and Muslims would preclude ontic quantum randomness. The reason is that in the doctrine of continuous creation, God is ultimately and meticulously responsible for the existence of objects and properties at every single moment.

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Arguments for the Causal Principle

Loke

2022

The Teleological and Kalam Cosmological Arguments Revisited

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I develop an argument for the Causal Principle: If x begins uncaused, y would also begin uncaused, which is not the case; therefore, the antecedent is not the case, and reply to objections by Oppy, Almeida, Linford, and others. I refute the claim that x (the initial state of reality: ISOR) begins uncaused as brute fact, and I refute the claim that pre-existing abstract objects provide the required metaphysical grounding. I demonstrate that there isn’t any concrete object that can provide the required grounding because (i) there would not be any causally antecedent condition which would make it the case that x rather than y (e.g. electric fields increasing in strength; energy-conserving changes) begins uncaused, (ii) the properties of x and the properties of y which differentiate between them would be had by them only when they had already begun to exist, and (iii) the circumstance is compatible with the beginning of y. I also defended an alternative Modus Tollens argument which shows that if x (e.g. our spacetime block) begins uncaused, then some other possible spacetime blocks (e.g. y) would also begin uncaused initially and collide with ours, causing massive disruption, which is not the case; therefore, the antecedent is not the case.

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The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment

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Recent Work on Traditional Arguments for Theism I

Recent Work on Traditional Arguments for Theism I

Creatio Continua and Quantum Randomness

Arguments for the Causal Principle

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