The problem is the ultimacy of the universe or whatever impersonal absolute you want to name. That problem doesn't exist with God because he's personal. If you want to believe the absolute is impersonal then the problem is how it can create something. Again, WLC explains this in the longer version of the KCA - basically, the impersonal has no will so how can it act?

Unless you accept an infinite regress of the contingent something must exist without explanation from anything else. Pick the impersonal if you like, I will go with the personal.

Yes, you can accept that the impersonal is absolute and necessary. FWIW, WLC says he knows few if any philosophers who will take the position that the universe is necessary. They may say it's eternal, or that it popped up out of nothing for no reason, but they reject its necessity. What the argument does is illustrate the options.

Personally (and I say that because I have a documented tendency towards non-cognitivism across wide swathes of philosophy), I am not sure I understand "necessarily exist" as a meaningful statement I can assign a truth value to, at least in the context of gods and universes and the like.

In some domains, I understand the concepts of the same name. For instance, the completeness axiom for the real numbers means that for bounded nontrivial subsets there necessarily exists a least upper bound. . There is this correspondence between such subsets (which at some level at least I understand) and this other concept (which I also understand) and so I can meaningfully interpret this statement.

But I don't really know what is meant by saying a god or universe necessarily exists.

So far, based on this thread, this is what the argument seems to be telling us:

- That the universe may or may not be contingent.
- If it is contingent, then it created by "something" non contingent.
- That "something" may or may not be personal, absolute, and necessary.
- If "something" was personal, absolute, and necessary, then some people would define it as God.

Do I have it right?
If so, then it would seem that the argument is rather pointless. I can summarize much more simply as:

- The origin of the universe is a mystery.
- Some people believe God exists, and God created the universe.
- Other people don't.

It means that it can't not exist. I don't know that any fuller explanation is possible. As I said before, if God has an explanation, he isn't God. Another way to think about it is that he is the explanation for everything else. I think logically this concept must apply to something. The choice is whether you think it applies to a person or the impersonal.

I don't think it's pointless because it serves to clarify what can and ought to be thought about existence. To show that the absolute must be either personal or impersonal allows one to understand the nature of what he believes. If you are an atheist then you should be willing to admit the consequences of your position. If you choose the impersonal then all kinds of difficulties arise - meaning, purpose, morality, reason itself. Very few people are willing to live consistently with the logical implications of atheism.

Meh, Christian apologists like Craig present a bunch of false dichotomies where the only choices are God or some straw man position. Even if he doesn't accept middle-ground explanations for things like morality or purpose, it's dishonest to pretend they don't exist, and to foster ignorance of them in his followers.

You articulated this thought really well in this thread. My question is that if "logically this concept must apply to something", where that something is not consistent with our logic, doesn't that imply that our logic is questionable?

Logically there has to be something illogical, a non contingent God or Universe, neither of which make sense through our framework (I think). Wouldn't that suggest that our sense of logic is limited and it is futile to argue which of the two is best?

Or is there a way to apply what we know to make these options reasonable within our framework of how things work?

I believe that God is absolute reason but we are not. We are finite and sinful and should always be ready to question our intellectual ability.

I think Christianity is not-illogical but can't be reduced to (human) reason. God's existence is not-illogical but can't be explained in human terms. Logic is an expression of who God is, not a process to which he is subject.

It's really difficult to explain or justify reason on atheistic presuppositions. If the absolute isn't reason how does reason have any ultimate validity?

The choices WLC presents are those articulated by others. He doesn't make them up. Nor does he say that they can't be true. It's just a question of plausibility and consequences. And he certainly doesn't foster ignorance of them. He discusses them extensively in his podcasts and written material and debates them in public. He addresses his opponents positions far more often and deeply than they address his.

I'm not so sure about that.

I find "a personal God did it" or "an impersonal rice crispy treat did it" still leaves me quite unsatisfied, and that it being personal doesn't solve any problems at all (and leaves me with even more questions).

A personal God of creation would be more wondrous of a thing to exist than the entire universe. If it is hard to imagine that a thing as wondrous as the universe just is, how am I supposed to find it easier to imagine that something more wondrous than the universe just is?

If you choose the personal then you will see difficulties for someone that chooses the impersonal that they may or may not see. (the counter to this, I'd say, is if you choose the impersonal, you don't understand why or how someone can even consider a personal explanation).

I put it to you that atheists [with whom I share the same or similar conclusions] did not choose the impersonal, but concluded it because of at least some of the very things you list as being problematic. I wonder how many would say they are living inconsistently with their position? Rather few, I think. Regardless, many people live inconsistent lives - what does that change?

This is misleading. My guess is that most philosophers reject the coherence or sense of a necessarily existing being whether it is supposed to be God or the universe (they'll quote Kant and say that existence is not a predicate). Thus, to get an accurate response from nontheistic philosophers you would have to pose the question as a hypothetical, that is, if a necessarily existing being is possible, could the universe exist necessarily. I suspect Craig would get a different answer to this question.

This is why I don't get your last statement. What is implied for atheism following from the cosmological argument? If you are an atheist, you can think that the universe exists necessarily (as far as I can tell, there is no cost to the typical atheistic worldviews from this commitment). Or, you can think that it doesn't. Here, the only cost is that you have to give up the principle of sufficient reason, but I think most atheists are willing to do so.

You are placing the emphasis on the wrong part of the argument, turning it into an argument from reason (or morality, etc). The cosmological argument really is meant to show that there is a First Cause that has features inconsistent with the natural universe, not that atheists can't justify morality.

Edit: Another way of putting this. Taking the cosmological argument alone, what are the logical consequences of rejecting the conclusion that God exists?

this just pushes my comment back a half step.

It's hard to imagine that anything exists, or why. The question is what are the options? I can think of only two - personal and impersonal. The absolute personal may not have an explanation but we can reasonably believe that he is the explanation for everything else. The absolute impersonal gives no reason to believe that anything else has an explanation.

It's at least theoretically possible to live consistently from theism - at least one has done so. I don't think it's even theoretically possible to be consistent from atheism.

Yes, the human intellect has limitations.

I can’t see how anyone could consider the physical universe a candidate for necessary being. For those that do, what premise (below) do they think is false?

P1. No contingent being could be a necessary being.
P2. Every material being is a contingent being.
C1. No material being could be a necessary being.
P3. The universe is a material being.
C2. The universe could not be a necessary being.

You mean "purpose" when you say "reason," right?

P2 and P3 (P1 is more or less a definition).

I don't want to interrupt the discussion you guys are having, can you just quickly elaborate on how P2 could be false?

I consider the physical universe a candidate for necessary being. I view P2 as unknown. I'll note that this is not my preferred phrasing (the physical universe is a "being" in only a very weak sense, like saying all the objects in the Empire State building is a "being.").

The reason for my skepticism about P2 is that I am generally skeptical that any being necessarily exists. However, if we could find solutions to the problems with this idea, then I see no reason these solutions couldn't in principle apply to physical beings as well as non-physical beings like God.

For instance, the reason people often assume of any, or even all physical objects that they are contingent is that they can imagine a world in which those physical objects don't exist. However, it seems to me that I can imagine a world in which God doesn't exist as well. If this is not considered an successful objection to the necessity of God, I don't see why it should be for physical objects.