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title: "Julia Sweeney on The Kalam cosmological argument"
description: "Sweeney found the Kalam argument's conclusion — that the universe's cause must be God — an unjustified leap from its premises."
canonical: https://opendoubt.com/people/julia-sweeney/on/kalam-cosmological-argument
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# Julia Sweeney on The Kalam cosmological argument

> Sweeney found the Kalam argument's conclusion — that the universe's cause must be God — an unjustified leap from its premises.

Position

# Julia Sweeney on _The Kalam cosmological argument_

Argues againstActress and comedian

Sweeney found the Kalam argument's conclusion — that the universe's cause must be God — an unjustified leap from its premises.

Julia Sweeney encountered the Kalam cosmological argument during the period of intensive reading that accompanied her deconversion. While she found the first two premises — that everything that begins to exist has a cause, and that the universe began to exist — initially reasonable, the leap to God as the cause struck her as unwarranted. Even if the universe has a cause, she reasoned, nothing in the argument establishes that the cause is a personal being, let alone the God of Christianity.

Sweeney's treatment of the Kalam reflects her broader intellectual approach: she is not a philosopher and does not pretend to offer a technical refutation. Instead, she describes the experience of thinking through the argument carefully and finding that each step, while individually plausible-sounding, does not compel the conclusion. The premises might be true, and the conclusion might still not follow — because the word 'cause' is being used in a way that stretches it beyond its everyday meaning.

Her account is valuable as a portrait of how ordinary, intelligent people engage with philosophical arguments for God. The Kalam sounds powerful in a debate setting, but Sweeney found that its persuasive force depended on not thinking about it too carefully — on accepting the conclusion before examining the reasoning.

Continue exploring

[

Julia Sweeney

Full profile — positions, quotes, and key moments.

](/people/julia-sweeney)[

The Kalam cosmological argument

The full argument — stated fairly, then answered.

](/arguments/kalam-cosmological-argument)

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