According to the first stage of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA),

P1. Anything that begins to exist has a cause.

P2. The Universe began to exist.

C. So, the Universe has a cause.

KCA proponents typically proceed to a second stage, where they argue that the cause of the Universe must be God, who, they maintain, exercised libertarian free-will in creating the Universe. In defense of P2, KCA proponents have traditionally argued that actually infinite series — such as an actually infinite regress of past events or causes — is metaphysically impossible. Inspired by an old article from William Rowe (1987), this morning, I came up with a new objection to the KCA. Importantly, I think there is tension between the following three statements maintained by KCA proponents:

1. Anything that begins to exist has a cause (the Causal Principle, CP).
2. Actually infinite series are impossible.
3. God exercised libertarian freedom in creating the Universe.

Statements 1-3 form an inconsistent trilemma. To see this, note that endorsing any two appears to imply that the third is false.

For example, suppose that (1) and (3) are true. When an agent freely performs action ɸ, they have a volition to ɸ and nothing impedes the agent from acting in accord with their volition. Since the agent went from not having some volition, to having some volition, the agent’s volition began to exist. And since, according to the CP, anything that begins to exist has a cause, the agent’s volition must have a cause. Libertarians would tell us that the agent is the cause of their own volition. But what about the agent’s-causing-her-volition? The agent’s-causing-her-volition must also have begun to exist, since there was once a time when the agent was not yet causing her volition. So, by the CP, the agent’s-causing-her-volition must also have a cause. We are now off to the races with an infinite causal regress; if any action is libertarian free — such as God’s creation of the universe — then there is an actually infinite causal series. Hence, (1) and (3) imply that (2) is false.

But suppose instead that (1) and (2) are true. In this case, since the CP is true, it would still be true that if there are any libertarian free actions, then there is an actually infinite series. But since (2) tells us that there are no actually infinite series, by modus tollens, we have that there are no libertarian free actions. Hence, there are no libertarian free actions.

Now suppose that (2) and (3) are true. In this case, since, by (3), there’s at least one libertarian free action, either there’s a cause for the agent’s-causing-her-volition or there isn’t. If there isn’t, then the CP is false. If there is, then we can again ask whether there’s a cause for the agent’s-causing-her-causing-her-volition. And so on. By (2), there are no actually infinite regresses, and so this chain must end somewhere. Wherever it ends, we have a thing that begins without a cause, and so we have that the CP is false.

Since (1)-(3) form an inconsistent trilemma, at least one of the statements must be false. Each of the three is an important part of the defense of the KCA: (1) is the KCA’s first premise, (2) is an important part of the case for P2, and (3) is an important part of the KCA’s so-called “second stage”, where KCA proponents argue that God is the only plausible cause of the Universe.

Though this argument was inspired by Rowe, Rowe appears to have rejected it. In footnote 16, Rowe tells us that though the agent’s volition began to exist, the agent’s-causing-her-volition did not begin to exist. If Rowe is right, then the KCA proponent can avoid my trilemma. However, I confess that I don’t understand why Rowe thought that the agent’s-causing-her-volition did not begin to exist. Surely, there’s a time when the agent has not yet caused her volition and a time after which the agent has caused her volition? And, if so, surely the agent’s volition did begin to exist.

Perhaps the KCA proponent can avoid the trilemma by saying that God’s volitions (or perhaps some initial set of volitions) were not caused and also did not begin to exist. KCA proponents typically think that God entered time via God’s act of creation. And so perhaps they’d say that, without God’s creation, God timelessly and necessarily possesses God’s volitions and that God’s volitions became temporal when God became temporal. I’m still considering whether this is a sensible objection for KCA proponents to make to the trilemma.

Disclaimer: The posts on the Cosmotherium should never be taken as definitive and I am typically not completely convinced of what I post here. This is my place for working out my views without the pressure or rigor of publication.

References

William Rowe, 1987, “Causality and Free Will in the Controversy Between Collins and Clarke”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 25(1), pp. 51-67.