Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Principle of Dwindling Probabilities and the Kalam

The blog Debunking William Lane Craig mentioned a very interesting problem with Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument:

"If it’s impossible for something to arise from nothing – and impossible for nothing to exist in the first place – then how can Craig justify the belief that God created the universe from nothing"

The blogger later added something to the effect of: Craig must argue that a God creating something from nothing is more plausible than nothing creating something from nothing, but of course if that is true then God creating from nothing seems to be (at best) only marginally more plausible than nothing creating something from nothing. I posted a comment:

"I think that this is part of what is perhaps the most fatal objection to Craig’s argument: Craig is continually forced to argue that this or that premise of his argument is more plausible than its contradictory. But often we find that his premises are, at best, only marginally more plausible than their contradictories. And so Craig’s argument falls on the horns of the Principle of Dwindling Probabilities.

"Because he must rely on several propositions which are open to MUCH doubt (infinities cannot exist, A-Theory of time is correct, your example, etc.) his conclusion necessarily contains as much doubts as all of the premises do. And the total amount of doubt is quite high. Indeed, it is high enough to completely sink the whole argument."

1 comment:

Samphire said...

My view is more simplistic, as simplistic as it gets really. Simple is as much as I can manage.

Einstein derived a thought experiment concerning what he would experience if he rode a beam of light. Out of that idea arose his theory of relativity.

My thought experiment at the age of 16 was what would it have been like to have hung on to the ankles of Jesus as he took off from the mountain on his ascension towards heaven a few days after his resurrection (how many days is a matter of dispute).

My conclusion was that, ignoring the lack of any possible form of verticular propulsion, we would have both exploded before we had even got to 50,000 feet through lack of atmospheric pressure. Even at the age of 16 I knew that heaven was much, much, much further away than 10 miles so I concluded that perhaps heaven did not exist at all. No heaven, no God; no God no Son of God; no Son of God no virgin birth, no virgin birth no crucifixion; no crucifixion no resurrection; no resurrection no ascension, no ascension no Christian God…..

So I got on with the rest of my life.