Alex O'Connor on The Kalam cosmological argument
O'Connor challenges the Kalam by questioning whether 'begins to exist' applies to the universe and whether the conclusion entails God.
O'Connor has engaged extensively with Craig's Kalam argument, treating it with more philosophical seriousness than many popular atheists. His criticisms target both premises and the inference from the conclusion to God.
On premise one ('everything that begins to exist has a cause'), O'Connor questions whether 'begins to exist' applies to the universe in the same way it applies to objects within the universe. Objects begin to exist by rearrangement of pre-existing matter within time. The universe's beginning — if it had one — is a beginning of time itself, which may be a categorically different phenomenon.
On the jump from 'the universe has a cause' to 'that cause is God,' O'Connor presses Craig on the gap. Even granting that the universe had a cause, why must that cause be personal, conscious, or loving? Craig's answer — that only a personal agent can make a timeless decision to create — strikes O'Connor as special pleading rather than a logical necessity.
“The Kalam gives you a cause of the universe — it does not give you a God. The distance between 'something caused the Big Bang' and 'that something is a personal, loving, trinitarian deity' is enormous.”