God’s Existence: The Kalam Cosmological Argument

In this article I want to discuss an argument for the existence of God called the “Kalam Cosmological Argument”. The argument is rather simple:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Point one is rather obvious, something cannot come into existence out nothing with no cause. Everyday life confirms this.

Point two is where evidence is needed. One argument that the universe began to exist is from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that energy in a closed system will over time reach equilibrium[i]. For the universe this means that given enough time all the energy in the universe will spread out evenly throughout the entire universe. When this happens the universe will enter “heat death” which means that the temperature is the same throughout the entire universe.[ii] If the universe existed eternally then it should have reached heat death by now, but it hasn’t. We know that it hasn’t because we can see our sun and other stars still burning energy. Therefore the universe began a finite time ago.

Point three is very interesting because of the attributes of the “cause”. The universe is comprised of time, space, and matter so the “cause” is outside of these things. To create the universe it has to be incredibly powerful. Last it would have to be personal because it made the choice to create the universe, let me explain. If the cause of the universe had the ability to create the universe, then why didn’t it create the universe sooner? I think of it this way, if there is a timeless or eternal cause (because time was created in the Big Bang so that means the cause is outside of time) that started the universe then over 100 million trillion years have already passed with that cause[iii], I’m not kidding when I say this. If given that amount of time, any amount of chance would have been achieved if the creation of the universe was just some random fluke. If that amount of time has passed then our universe should be much older. The problem is that our universe is relatively young, 13.7 billion years old[iv] at current estimates. That leaves only an agent that has the ability to freely choose to create the universe as the only alternative. It couldn’t have been something acting on this cause because then the question becomes why didn’t whatever acted on the cause act sooner if it an eternity to do so. So whatever caused the universe is outside of time, space and matter, is incredibly powerful and is personal with the ability to make free choices. I would call that cause God.