If my attic is just a box and I can see everything inside it (no hidden areas), then I could say "There is no man" with just as much confidence as I could say "There is a man" depending on the actual facts of the matter.

How would you verify the first one? I can tell you that you are simply hallucinating, dreaming, or imagining him.

Edit: It may be correct to be very skeptical of our ability to prove a positive or negative a posteriori statement, but if we say we can verify a positive one in some cases, then we should say we can verify a negative one in some cases as well.

If you're talking about something that scientists purport to be in a 'universe' outside ours (the precursor to the space-time universe that we're in), there's *NO* evidence one way or the other for whether something that begins to exist having a cause or not.

And as pointed out ITT, there's things *in this universe* that begin to exist 'without a cause'.

So I would say that evidence from this universe points to things beginning to exist without a cause, and for things outside this universe, who knows? We have no observations, no evidence, nothing to guide our thoughts.

The first step in the KCA only seems plausible because of our experiences in the macro world. That is, with big, massive objects. If you get down to the quantum level, or realize that our universe (according to scientists) isn't everything, well...

Where?

Look earlier ITT.

Oh gawd. I thought you were talking about radioactive decay - were you?

Assuming you were talking about radioactive decay, you said:
Doesn't the radiation emitted by, say, alpha decay, already exist (just in a different form) and are you confusing something happening without a cause and something beginning to exist without a cause?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay

I wondered about this as well and figured it dealt with what the cause was, and wasn't arguing that it's an example of something coming from nothing (since the latter is not the case with RA decay). My understanding is that it cannot be determined which atoms, and when, will suddenly decay, hence the "lack" of cause.

Well, if you read *my* post, you'll see I was talking about virtual particle creation (and by extension Hawking radiation).

Thank you, but I know what the **** radiation is.

Psychology forum is that (^) way.

I'm pretty sure that your understanding of the KCA is incorrect here. You seem to be saying that it is Craig's view that it is possible for something to begin to exist without being caused to exist, but that as a matter of fact nothing actually has begun to exist without being caused to exist.

However, I think it is Craig's view that it is not possible for something to begin to exist without being caused to exist. I think cosmological arguments in general rely on this causation claim being interpreted as a metaphysical principle rather than a empirical result (which is all it would be on the reading you propose).

Jibninjas didn't word his post that well, but I think what he was saying is "Maybe it isn't a metaphysical principle that things cannot begin to exist uncaused, but doesn't the universe make more sense if it is?".

The problem I have with this line of argument, which was the point of my post that he quoted, is that the universe would also make more sense if everything occupied a defined position in space, but that doesn't make it true. It just means that our intuitions are not good guides to the laws of the universe. As luckyme insinuated, it's also a terrible idea to generalise from the behaviour of things inside the universe to the behaviour of the universe itself. I think appealing to everyday ideas of cause and effect to understand the behaviour of the entire universe is a total non-starter.

Okay, I’ll take a stab at it.

1. Only that which does not necessarily exist has a cause (of its existence).
2. Whatever begins to exist does not necessarily exist.
3. Therefore, whatever begins to exist has a cause (of its existence).

I need to flesh out an argument in support of (1) but for the time being I'm essentially asserting that whatever has a cause (of its existence) does not necessarily exist but only possibly exists. In other words, causation of existence infers or denotes only possible existence, from which it would follow that that which necessarily exists could not possibly have a cause (of its existence).

I think (2) is fairly evident. For something to begin to exist there must be a time t or state s when it had yet to exist, otherwise we couldn’t say it began to exist. Hence, if it failed to exist at any possible time in any possible world, then it does not necessarily exist.

As ChrisV pointed out, my wording was sloppy. I think that you will see Craig often does point to his arguments being plausibility arguments though. In other words, many of his premises while they are not formally proven they are more plausible than their negation.

Yes, thank you.

While I agree with you that not all of our intuitive notions of the universe are true, they are a good starting point and the onus would be on the person rejecting the intuitive claim.

I also think that it is important to point out that the KCA is not the only argument for God's existence. It is only one of many that makes the God hypothesis a very plausible one. Outside of mathematics I think that you will be hard pressed to find any knock down arguments for anything significant.

Personally, I think the onus ought to be on the one making the argument. Especially when the 'intuition' extends to something completely and fully outside of any human's experience.

wha. Isn't it the opposite? We've now understand that our intuitive notions of the universe are bloody awful and you'd be hard pressed to think of any of them standing up to scrutiny. That makes them terrible starting points and certainly not worth building anything on and then thinking you've established something.

Even if some did stand up, you would need to establish that the one you're using stands up or it's just fruit of the poisoned tree.

Yeah, that probably is something like what Jibninjas wanted to say. However, I am not sure that he correctly understands what Craig means when he says that he will only be trying to show that his premises are more plausibly true than not (based on an earlier conversation).

Basically, when Craig talks about "plausibility" I understand him as making a purely epistemic point--he is accepting a relatively weak burden of proof for showing that the premises of his arguments are true. However, jib (and especially NotReady), seemed to understand Craig as modifying the actual claims involved. That is, they seem to think that the conclusion of the KCA is properly understood as something like, "God plausibly exists" or "Probably God exists." But I'm reading into Jibninjas post, so I could be misinterpreting him here.

I agree with this. I find natural theology interesting, but also so epistemically weak as to be practically useless as a method for learning about the nature of the universe.

This seems unnecessarily complicated. Craig's premise seems fine to me--we just should understand him to be making a metaphysical claim about the nature of ontology--everything that begins has a cause (i.e. the principle of sufficient reason).

The KCA only helps (if you think the argument is sound) the plausibility of a deist god existing. My main issue with it (besides disagreeing with it entirely ) is Christians use it in an attempt to strengthen their position, when really the argument doesn't strengthen any particular god's plausibility, just a deist/unknown god.

Define "significant", please.