Ah, I see.

You are saying that even in a possible world (W) where both the resurrection (R) and it's sole deliverance by the RCC (C) are facts, it would not be the case that a person with free will can arrive at those beliefs for no reason at all.

Even in a possible world where perusing Pascal's Wager results in a favorable outcome, it would not be the case that the Wager is a good argument for believing in R and C because we are, ourselves, wired in such a way such that it would be against our nature to have beliefs that are contrary to facts (and that these facts are outside of our control).

Did I get that right?

He did say that one need not be a determinist or a compatibilist in order to agree with him though which is why I did not pursue that line of thought.

The problem though is that aside from an argument against free will, I can see no other obvious point that the article is making (other than Jane) so I asked for a clarification.

Cheers, Garrick.

Are you saying that Jane is being irrational for being a Catholic (and that she is not exercising her free will by being one)?

My sentiments precisely.

I don't think he's saying that secularism is intolerant by nature, just that there is a tendency by secularists to be intolerant. Take, for example, your average internet militant atheist for whom intolerance is basically the norm (just aimed at different targets, e.g. religion).

That's not an unreasonable observation.

Secularists aren't immune to the defects found in your average fundamentalist. For example, the USSR.

1. From James Sinclair, "One can avoid this, as the Aguirre-Gratton model does, by reversing the arrow of time at the boundary (as Vilenkin told AA). But if you do this, then the mirror universe on the other side of the BVG boundary in no sense represents a past out of which our current universe evolved. Thus our universe would begin-to-exist, should the A-theory of time be true."

James also points out, "the Aguirre-Gratton model is not even suggested by its authors to be a model of our universe. Rather, they hope that it can serve as a springboard for the birth of our universe through some other physical process (some of which they briefly mention in their academic paper)".

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/current-cosmology-...

2. What Craig means by "topologically prior" can be understood by taking it to mean "causally prior", that is, the story of the evolution of the universe includes the state that is prior to the origination of time (and by implication, the universe).

However, I too am having problems with this as it strikes me as being circular.

Part 2

And finally, there's:

(4) Conceptual analysis of the properties of this first cause yields characteristics that are of theological significance.

This one is where our chief disagreement lies. You maintain that (4) is plausibly false by virtue of the fact that this hypothetical first cause need not be a personal mind. This implies that nothing of theological signifiance actually follows from the initial conclusion (3) of the KCA.

An ultramundane cause of the universe that is not a person but is enormously powerful, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, beginningless, changeless, uncaused need not actually have any notable theological implications since a UGM seems a perfectly plausible alternative.

I've three problems with this conclusion:

1. It does not follow from the fact that the FC need not be a person that the FC is, in fact, non-personal. It's a non-sequitur. There's a large difference between a KCA that fails completely in proving theism to a KCA that points to an FC that might be God.

2. You point out that conceding that probabilistic causes are possible is sufficient to explain how a temporal effect could have come from a timeless cause. This is false (though I missed it before) since the FC is changeless (at the very least, prior to the universe's origination).

The FC is changeless because an infinite regress of events is impossible (and change is an event). This prima facie rules out probabilistic causation as regards to the FC.

3. Moreover, change implies temporality as the UGM transitions from one probabilistic event to the other (that either actualizes or fails to actualize). A further postulate necessary for your probabilistic UGM is, in fact, the existence of time (directly contradicting some of your earlier statements). In fact, a succesion of events is pretty much definitive of what time is (especially on the relational view).

The arguments for the personhood of the FC stills stands. Cheers. :)

Part1

Let's recap. Let's deal with each premise in turn and address your objections to each in turn.

(2) The universe began to exist.

Much of the confusion stems from the fact that we seem to be using two different definitions for the word 'universe' so let's define it here. I propose that the most plausible definition of the word 'universe', as contained within the discourses typically broached when discussing the KCA, would be as 'the set of all contingent objects (whether abstract, platonic or concrete)'.

This does not, for example, rule out your UGM. Much of my reservations (regarding your objections) are also rendered moot since we are, it seems to me, in agreement that the universe began to exist but differ as regards to what caused it.

That brings us to the first premise:

(1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Self-explanatory. This is the metaphysical underpinnings that provide the foundation of the KCA and what differentiates it from other formulations of the Cosmological Argument. This is basically a non-local Causal Principle (CP)

Again, we seem to be in agreement here since your UGM postulation requires this premise to be true.

(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Shouldn't be controversial since this conclusion necessarily follows from the truth of premises (1) and (2) which seems to me that we are in agreement on.

Sorry but I can't really reply as much as I want to as IntenseDebate is pushing me to my wit's end (what with these constant "your login session has expired" and "your connections has timed out" crap). I literally am rendered incapable of posting most of the time.

Anyway, the Aguirre-Gratton Model is a model that evades the theorem by stipulating that "the arrow of time reverses at the t = –infinity hypersurface, so the universe ‘expands’ in both halves of the full de Sitter space". In other words, time flows in both directions (both 'forwards' and 'backwards') from the initial singularity.

The problem? As Craig points out, the other side of the de Sitter space is not our past. The other side of the de Sitter space bears no temporal relation with anything on our side (not even the possibility of it).

Besides, as Craig surmises, the primary reason this scenario fails is that "this gross reconstruction of time denies the evolutionary continuity of our universe which is topologically prior to t and our universe".

1. Even Garrick's UGM concedes that the universe must have had an absolute beginning.. Anyway, the basic presupposition that the BGV Theorem proves that the universe had an absolute beginning isn't wrong (and I'm sure you already know that I have quotations from Vilenkin to that effect). When you want to get into subtleties, of course there are exceptions to the theorem but the problem is that none of those exceptions work (since they universally run into intractable problems) so I'm still not wrong when I say that the BGV Theorem proves that the universe must have had an absolute beginning.

Here, let me simplify it for you:

(1) If the exceptions to the GBV Theorem do not work, then the BGV Theorem proves that the universe must have had an absolute beginning. (x -> y)
(2) The exceptions don't work. (x)
(3) Therefore, the BGV Theorem proves that the universe must have had an absolute beginning. (∴y)

2. They evade the theorem because their average expansion rates aren't greater than zero.

3. That remains to be proven, of course. :)