Hello everyone. Welcome to this public lecture.
My name is Yujin Nagasawa. I’m Professor
of Philosophy and a co-director of the John
Hick Centre for Philosophy and Religion at
the University of Birmingham. I’m one of
the organisers of this event. It’s my great
pleasure and great honour to introduce Professor
William Lane Craig tonight. Professor Craig
is currently Research Professor of Philosophy
at Talbot School of Theology and Professor
of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University.
He did his PhD at the University of Birmingham
under the supervision of the late John Hick.
Professor Craig has published over thirty
books, including the Kalam Cosmological Argument,
Time and Eternity, and Reasonable Faith. He
has also authored more than one hundred articles
in professional journals, including the Journal
of Philosophy, New Testament Studies and the
British Journal for Philosophy of Science.
Professor Craig is now recognised as one of
the most influential philosophers of religion.
The topic of Professor Craig’s lecture tonight
is the Kalam Cosmological Argument which was
originally introduced by medieval Islamic
theologians. Professor Craig has developed
a contemporary version of this argument and
significantly strengthened the argument by
incorporating contemporary Big Bang Cosmology
and the mathematics of infinity. The Kalam
Cosmological Argument is now one of the most
discussed arguments for the existence of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Professor
William Lane Craig.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
I have so enjoyed delivering the Cadbury Lectures
this week at the University of Birmingham
and was delighted that Professor Nagasawa
invited me to give this public lecture on
the Kalam Cosmological argument as well and
I’m looking forward to a stimulating evening
together.
As a boy I wondered at the existence of the
universe. I wondered where it came from. Did
it have a beginning? Has it always existed?
I remember lying in bed at night trying to
think of a beginningless universe. Every event
would be preceded by another event, back and
back into the past, with no stopping point—or,
more accurately, no starting point! An infinite
past, with no beginning! My mind reeled at
the prospect. It just seemed to me inconceivable.
There must have been a beginning at some point,
I thought, in order for everything to get
started.
Little did I suspect that for centuries—millennia,
really—men had grappled with the idea of
an infinite past and the question of whether
there was a beginning of the universe. Ancient
Greek philosophers believed that matter was
necessary and uncreated and therefore eternal.
God may be responsible for introducing order
into the cosmos, but He did not create the
universe itself.
This Greek view was in contrast to even more
ancient Jewish thinking about the subject.
Hebrew writers held that the universe has
not always existed but was created by God
at some point in the past. As the first verse
of the Hebrew holy scriptures states: “In
the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Eventually these two competing traditions
began to interact. There arose within Western
philosophy an ongoing debate that lasted for
well over a thousand years about whether or
not the universe had a beginning. This debate
played itself out among Jews and Muslims as
well as Christians, both Catholic and Protestant.
It finally sputtered to something of an inconclusive
end in the thought of the great eighteenth
century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
He held, ironically, that there are rationally
compelling arguments on both sides, thereby
exposing the bankruptcy of reason itself!
I first became aware of this debate only after
graduating from university. Wanting to come
to terms with this question, I decided upon
completion of my Master’s degree work in
philosophy to find someone who would be willing
to supervise a doctoral thesis on this question.
The person who stood out above all others
was Professor John Hick at the University
of Birmingham, and we did come to Birmingham
and I did write on the cosmological argument
under Professor Hick’s direction, and eventually
three books flowed out of that doctoral thesis.
I was able to explore the historical roots
of the argument, as well as deepen and advance
the analysis of the argument. I also discovered
quite amazing connections to contemporary
astronomy and astral-physics.
Because of the historic roots in medieval
Islamic theology, I christened the argument
“the kalam cosmological argument” (“kalam”
is the Arabic word for medieval theology).
Today this argument, largely forgotten since
the time of Kant, is once again back at centre
state. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism
in 2007 reports, “A count of the articles
in the philosophy journals shows that more
articles have been published about the Kalam
argument than have been published about any
other contemporary formulation of an argument
for God’s existence. Theists and atheists
alike ‘cannot leave the Kalam argument alone’”
(p. 183).
What is the argument which has stirred such
interest? Well let’s allow one of the greatest
medieval protagonists in this debate to speak
for himself. Al-Ghazali was a twelfth century
Muslim theologian from Persia, or modern day
Iran. He was concerned that Muslim philosophers
of his day were being influenced by ancient
Greek philosophy to deny God’s creation
of the universe. After thoroughly studying
the writings of these philosophers, Al-Ghazali
wrote a withering critique of their views
entitled The Incoherence of the Philosophers.
In this fascinating book, he argues that the
idea of a beginningless universe is absurd.
The universe must have had a beginning, and
since nothing begins to exist without a cause,
there must be a transcendent Creator of the
universe.
Ghazali formulates his argument very simply,
I quote “Every being which begins has a
cause for its beginning; now the world is
a being which begins; therefore, it possesses
a cause for its beginning”. Ghazali’s
reasoning involves three simple steps:
Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist has a
cause of its beginning.
Premise 2: The universe began to exist, from
which it follows ….
Premise 3: Therefore, the universe has a cause
of its beginning.
Let’s look at each step of this argument.
Notice that Ghazali does not need a premise
so strong as (1) in order for his argument
to succeed. The first premise can be more
modestly state as 1':
“If the universe began to exist, then the
universe has a cause of its beginning”
This more modest version of the first premise
will enable us to avoid distractions about
whether subatomic particles, which are the
result of quantum decay processes, come into
being without a cause. This alleged exception
to Premise 1 is irrelevant to 1', for the
universe comprises all contiguous space-time
reality. Therefore, for the whole universe
to come into being without a cause is to come
into being from nothing, which is absurd.
In quantum decay events, by contrast, the
particles do not come into being from nothing.
As Christopher Isham, Britain’s premier
quantum cosmologist, cautions:
“Care is needed when using the word ‘creation’
in a physical context. One familiar example
is the creation of elementary particles in
an accelerator. However, what occurs in this
situation is the conversion of one type of
matter into another, with the total amount
of energy being preserved in the process”
Thus, this alleged exception to (1) is not
an exception to (1').
Let me give three reasons in support of premise
(1'): First, something cannot come from nothing.
To claim that something can come into being
from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician
pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve
got the magician, not to mention the hat!
But if you deny premise 1', you’ve got to
think that the whole universe just appeared
at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever.
But nobody sincerely believes that things,
say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just
pop into being without a cause.
Second, if something can come into being from
nothing, then it becomes inexplicable by just
anything and everything doesn’t come into
being from nothing. Think about it: why don’t
bicycles and Beethoven and root beer come
into being out of nothing? Why is it only
universes that can come into being from nothing?
What makes nothingness so discriminatory?
There can’t be anything about nothingness
that favours universes, for nothingness doesn’t
have any properties. Nor can anything constrain
nothingness since there isn’t anything to
be constrained!
Thirdly, common experience and scientific
evidence confirm the truth of premise 1'.
The science of cosmogeny is based on the assumption
that there are causal conditions for the origin
of the universe, so it’s hard to understand
how anyone committed to modern science could
deny that 1' is more plausibly true than false.
So I think that the first premise of the kalam
cosmological argument is surely true.
The more controversial premise in the argument
is premise 2, that the universe began to exist.
This is by no means obvious. So let’s examine
both philosophical arguments and scientific
evidence in support of premise 2.
First, the philosophical arguments. Ghazali
argued that if the universe never began to
exist, then there has been an infinite number
of past events prior to today. But, he argued,
an infinite number of things cannot exist.
Ghazali recognized that a potentially infinite
number of things could exist, but he denied
that an actually infinite number of things
could exist.
When we say that something is potentially
infinite, infinity serves merely as an ideal
limit which is never reached. For example,
you could divide any finite distance in half,
and then into fourths, and then into eighths,
and then into sixteenths, and so on to infinity.
The number of divisions is potentially infinite,
in the sense that you could go on dividing
endlessly. But you would never arrive at an
“infinitieth” division. You would never
have an actually infinite number of parts
or divisions.
Now Ghazali has no problem with the existence
of merely potential infinites, for these are
just ideal limits. But he argued that if an
actually infinite number of things could exist,
then various absurdities would result. If
we’re to avoid these absurdities, then we
must deny that an actually infinite number
of things exist. That implies that the number
of past events cannot be actually infinite.
Therefore, the universe cannot be beginningless;
rather the universe began to exist.
It’s very frequently alleged that this kind
of argument has been invalidated by developments
in modern mathematics. In modem set theory
the use of actually infinite sets is commonplace.
For example, the set of the natural numbers
(0, 1, 2, 3 and so on) has an actually infinite
number of members in it. The number of members
in this set is not merely potentially infinite,
according to modern set theory; rather the
number of members is actually infinite. Many
people have inferred that these developments
undermine Ghazali’s argument.
But is that really the case? Modern set theory
shows that if you adopt certain axioms and
rules, then you can talk about actually infinite
collections in a consistent way, without contradicting
yourself. All this accomplishes is showing
how to set up a certain universe of discourse
for talking consistently about actual infinites.
But it does absolutely nothing to show that
such mathematical entities really exist or
that an actually infinite number of things
can really exist. If Ghazali is right, then
this universe of discourse may be regarded
as just a fictional realm, like the world
of Sherlock Holmes, or something that exists
only in your mind.
The way in which Ghazali brings out the real
impossibility of an actually infinite number
of things is by imagining what it would be
like if such a collection could exist and
then drawing out the absurd consequences.
Let me use one of my favourite illustrations
called “Hilbert’s Hotel”, which is the
brainchild of the great German mathematician
David Hilbert. Hilbert first invites us to
imagine an ordinary hotel with a finite number
of rooms. Suppose, furthermore, that all the
rooms are full. If a new guest shows up at
the front desk asking for a room, the manager
says, “Sorry, all the rooms are full,”
and that’s the end of the story.
But now, says Hilbert, let’s imagine a hotel
with an infinite number of rooms, and let’s
suppose once again that all the rooms are
full. This fact must be clearly appreciated.
There is not a single vacancy throughout the
entire infinite hotel; every room already
has a real, flesh and blood person in it.
Now suppose a new guest shows up at the front
desk, asking for a room. “No problem,”
says the manager. He moves the person who
was staying in room #1 into room #2, the person
who was staying in room #2 into room #3, the
person who was staying in room #3 into room
#4, and so on to infinity. As a result of
these room changes, room #1 now becomes vacant,
and the new guest gratefully checks in. But
before he arrived, all the rooms were already
full!
It gets worse! Let’s now suppose, Hilbert
says, that an infinity of new guests shows
up at the front desk, asking for rooms. “No
problem, no problem!” says the manager,
and he moves the person who was staying in
room #1 into room #2, the person who was staying
in room #2 into room #4, the person who was
staying in room #3 into room #6 and so on,
each time moving the person into the room
number twice his own. Since any number multiplied
by two is an even number, all the guests wind
up in even-numbered rooms. As a result, all
the odd-numbered rooms become vacant, and
the infinity of new guests is easily accommodated.
In fact, the manager could do this an infinite
number of times and always accommodate infinitely
more guests. And yet, before they arrived,
all the rooms were already full!
As a student once remarked to me, Hilbert’s
Hotel, if it could exist, would have to have
a sign posted outside: “NO VACANCY (Guests
Welcome)”. Can such a hotel exist in reality?
Hilbert’s Hotel is absurd. Since nothing
hangs on the illustration’s involving a
hotel, the argument can be generalized to
show that the existence of an actually infinite
number of things is absurd. Sometimes students
reacted to Hilbert’s Hotel by saying that
these absurdities result because the concept
of infinity is beyond us and we can’t understand
it. But this reaction is mistaken and naïve.
As I said, infinite set theory is a highly
developed and well-understood branch of modern
mathematics. The absurdities result precisely
because we do understand the nature of the
actual infinite. Hilbert was a smart guy,
and he knew well how to illustrate the bizarre
consequences of the existence of an actually
infinite number of things.
Really, the only thing the critic can do at
this point is to just bite the bullet and
say that Hilbert’s Hotel is not absurd.
Sometimes critics will try to justify this
move by saying that if an actual infinite
could exist, then such situations are exactly
what we should expect. But this response is
inadequate. Hilbert would, of course, agree
that if an actual infinite could exist, the
absurdities with the imaginary hotel would
be what one would expect. Otherwise, it wouldn’t
be a good illustration! But the question is
whether such a hotel really is possible.
So I think because Ghazali’s first argument
is a good one, it shows that the number of
past events must be finite. Therefore, the
universe must have had a beginning. We can
summarize Ghazali’s argument as follows:
Premise 1: An actual infinite cannot exist.
Premise 2: An infinite temporal regress of
events is an actual infinite.
Premise 3: Therefore an infinite temporal
regress of events cannot exist.
In addition to this argument, Ghazali has
a second, independent argument for the beginning
of the universe. The series of past events,
Ghazali observes, has been formed by adding
one event after another. The series of past
events is like a sequence of dominoes falling
one after another until the last domino, today,
is reached. But, he argues, no series which
is formed by adding one member after another
can be actually infinite. For you cannot pass
through an infinite number of elements one
at a time.
This is easy to see in the case of trying
to count to infinity. No matter how high you
count, there is always an infinity of numbers
left to count. But, if you can’t count to
infinity, how could you count down from infinity?
This would be like someone’s claiming to
have counted down all the negative numbers,
ending at zero: -3, -2, -1, 0. This seems
crazy. For before he could count 0, he would
have to count -1, and before he could count
-1, he would have to count -2, before he could
count -3 and so on, back to infinity. Before
any number could be counted an infinity of
numbers will have to have been counted first.
You just get driven back and back into the
past, so that no number could ever be counted.
But then the final domino could never fall
if an infinite number of dominoes had to fall
first. So today could never be reached. But
obviously here we are! This shows that the
series of past events must be finite and have
a beginning.
Ghazali sought to heighten the impossibility
of forming an infinite past by giving illustrations
of the absurdities that would result if it
could be done. For example, suppose that for
every one orbit that Saturn completes around
the sun, Jupiter completes two. The longer
they orbit, the further Saturn falls behind.
If they continue to orbit forever, they will
approach a limit at which Saturn is infinitely
far behind Jupiter. Of course, they will never
actually arrive at this limit. But now turn
the story around: suppose Jupiter and Saturn
have been orbiting the sun from eternity past.
Which will have completed the most orbits?
The answer is that the number of their orbits
is exactly the same: infinity! And we can’t
slip out of this argument by saying that infinity
is not a number. In modern mathematics it
is a number. It is the number of elements
in the set {0, 1, 2, 3, and so on}. But that
seems absurd, for the longer they orbit, the
greater the disparity grows. So how does the
number of orbits magically become equal by
making them orbit from eternity past?
Another illustration: suppose we meet someone
who claims to have been counting down from
eternity past and is now finishing: -3, -2,
-1, 0! Whew! Why, we may ask, is he just finishing
his countdown today? Why didn’t he finish
yesterday or the day before that? After all,
by then an infinite amount of time had already
elapsed. So if the man were counting at a
rate of one number per second, he’s already
had an infinite number of seconds to finish
his countdown. He should already be done!
In fact, at any point in the past, he has
already had infinite time and so should already
have finished. But then at no point in the
past can we find the man finishing his countdown,
which contradicts the hypothesis that he has
been counting from eternity past.
Alexander Pruss and Robert Koons have recently
defended an engaging contemporary version
of Ghazali’s argument called the Grim Reaper
Paradox. Imagine that there are infinitely
many Grim Reapers who are bent on your destruction.
You are alive at midnight. Grim Reaper 1 will
strike you dead at 1:00 a.m. if you are still
alive at that time. Grim Reaper 2 will strike
you dead at 12:30 a.m. if you are still alive
then. Grim Reaper 3 will strike you dead at
12:15 a.m., and so on. Such a situation seems
clearly conceivable—given the possibility
of an actually infinite number of things—but
leads to an impossibility: you cannot survive
past midnight, and yet you cannot be killed
by any Grim Reaper at any time. Pruss and
Koons show how to re-formulate the paradox
so that the Grim Reapers are spread out over
infinite time rather than over a single hour,
for example, by having every Grim Reaper swing
his scythe on January 1 of each past year
if you have managed to live that long.
These illustrations only strengthen Ghazali’s
claim that no series which is formed by adding
one member after another can be actually infinite.
Since the series of past events has been formed
by adding one member after another, it can’t
be actually infinite. It must have had a beginning.
And so we have a second good argument for
premise 2, that the universe began to exist.
We can summarize this argument as follows:
1. A collection formed by successive addition
cannot be an actual infinite.
2. The temporal series of events is a collection
formed by successive addition.
3. Therefore, the temporal series of events
cannot be an actual infinite.
One of the most astonishing developments of
modern astronomy, which al-Ghazali would never
have anticipated, is that we now have strong
scientific evidence as well for the beginning
of the universe. The first scientific confirmation
of the universe’s beginning comes from the
expansion of the universe.
All throughout history men have assumed that
the universe as a whole was unchanging. Of
course, things in the universe were moving
about and changing, but the universe itself
was just there, so to speak. This was also
Albert Einstein’s assumption when he first
began to apply his new theory of gravity,
called the General Theory of Relativity, to
the universe in 1917.
But Einstein found there was something terribly
amiss. His equations described a universe
which was either blowing up like a balloon
or else collapsing in upon itself. During
the 1920s the Russian mathematician Alexander
Friedman and the Belgian astronomer Georges
LeMaître decided to take Einstein’s equations
at face value, and as a result they came up
independently with models of an expanding
universe. In 1929 the American astronomer
Edwin Hubble, through tireless observations
at Mt. Wilson Observatory, made a startling
discovery which verified Friedman and LeMaître’s
theory. He found that the light from distant
galaxies appeared to be redder than expected.
This “red shift” in the light was most
plausibly due to the stretching of the light
waves as the galaxies are moving away from
us. Wherever Hubble trained his telescope
in the night sky, he observed this same red-shift
in the light from the galaxies. It appeared
that we are at the centre of a cosmic explosion,
and all of the other galaxies are flying away
from us at fantastic speeds.
Now according to the Friedman-LeMaître model,
we are not really at the centre of the universe.
Rather an observer in any galaxy will look
out and see the other galaxies receding from
him. This is because, according to the theory,
it is really space itself which is expanding.
The galaxies are actually at rest in space,
but they recede from one another as space
itself expands. The Friedman-LeMaître model
eventually came to be known as the Big Bang
theory. But that name can be misleading. Thinking
of the expansion of the universe as a sort
of explosion could mislead us into thinking
that the galaxies are moving out into a pre-existing,
empty space from a central point. That would
be a complete misunderstanding of the model.
The theory is much more radical than that.
As you trace the expansion of the universe
back in time, everything gets closer and closer
together. Eventually the distance between
any two points in space becomes zero. You
can’t get any closer than that! So at that
point you’ve reached the boundary of space
and time. Space and time cannot be extended
any further back than that. It is literally
the beginning of space and time.
To get a picture of this we can portray our
three-dimensional space as a two-dimensional
disc which shrinks as you go back in time.
Eventually, the distance between any two points
in space becomes zero. So space-time can be
represented geometrically as a cone. What’s
significant about this is that while a cone
can be extended indefinitely in one direction,
it has a boundary point in the other direction.
Because this direction represents time and
the boundary point lies in the past, the model
implies that past time is finite and had a
beginning. Because space-time is the arena
in which all matter and energy exist, the
beginning of space-time is also the beginning
of all matter and energy. It’s the beginning
of the universe.
Notice that there’s simply nothing prior
to the initial boundary of space-time. Let’s
not be misled by words, however. When cosmologists
say, “There is nothing prior to the initial
singularity” they do not mean that there
is a state of affairs prior to it, and that
is a state of nothingness. That would be to
treat nothing as though it were something!
Rather they mean that at the boundary point,
it is false that “There is something prior
to this point”.
The standard Big Bang model thus predicts
an absolute beginning to the universe. If
this model is correct, then we have amazing
scientific confirmation of the second premise
of the kalam cosmological argument.
So, is the model correct, or more importantly,
is it correct in predicting a beginning of
the universe? Despite its empirical confirmation,
the standard Big Bang model will need to be
modified in various ways. The model is based,
as we’ve seen, on Einstein’s General Theory
of Relativity. But Einstein’s theory breaks
down when space is shrunk down to sub-atomic
proportions. We’ll need to introduce sub-atomic
physics at that point, and no one is sure
how this is to be done. Moreover, the expansion
of the universe is probably not constant,
as in the standard model. It’s probably
accelerating and may have had a brief moment
of super-rapid expansion in the past.
But none of these adjustments need affect
the fundamental prediction of the absolute
beginning of the universe. Indeed, physicists
have proposed scores of alternative models
over the decades since Friedman and LeMaître’s
work, and those that do not have an absolute
beginning have been repeatedly shown to be
unworkable. Put more positively, the only
viable non-standard models have been those
that involve an absolute beginning to the
universe. That beginning may or may not involve
a beginning point. But, on theories such as
Stephen Hawking’s “no boundary” proposal
that do not have a point-like beginning, the
past is still finite, not infinite. The universe
has not existed forever according to such
theories but came into existence, even if
it didn’t do so at a sharply defined point.
In a sense, the history of twentieth century
cosmology can be seen as a series of one failed
attempt after another to avoid the absolute
beginning predicted by the standard Big Bang
model. That prediction has now stood for nearly
100 years, during a period of enormous advances
in observational astronomy and creative theoretical
work in astrophysics.
Meanwhile, a series of remarkable singularity
theorems has increasingly tightened the loop
around empirically tenable models by showing
that under more and more generalized conditions,
a beginning is inevitable. In 2003 Arvind
Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were
able to show that any universe which is, on
average, in a state of cosmic expansion throughout
its history cannot be infinite in the past
but must have a beginning. That goes for multiverse
scenarios as well. In 2012 Vilenkin showed
that models which do not meet this one condition
still fail for other reasons to avert the
beginning of the universe. Vilenkin concluded,
and I quote “None of these scenarios can
actually be past eternal”. All the evidence
we have says that the universe had a beginning”.
The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem proves that
classical space-time, under a single, very
general condition, cannot be extended to past
infinity but must reach a boundary at some
time in the finite past. Now either there
was something on the other side of that boundary
or not. If not, then that boundary just is
the beginning of the universe. If there was
something on the other side, then it will
be a region described by the yet to be discovered
theory of quantum gravity. In that case, Vilenkin
says, it will be the beginning of the universe.
Either way, the universe began to exist.
Of course, scientific results are always provisional.
We can fully expect that new theories will
be proposed, attempting to avoid the universe’s
beginning. Such proposals are to be welcomed
and tested. Nevertheless, it’s pretty clear
which way the evidence points. Today the proponent
of Ghazali’s cosmological argument stands
comfortably within the scientific mainstream
in holding that the universe began to exist.
As if this weren’t enough, there is actually
a second scientific confirmation of the beginning
of the universe, this one from the Second
Law of Thermodynamics. According to the Second
Law, unless energy is being fed into a system,
that system will become increasingly disorderly.
Now already in the nineteenth century scientists
realized that the Second Law implied a grim
prediction for the future of the universe.
Given enough time, all the energy in the universe
will spread itself out evenly throughout the
universe. The universe will become a featureless
soup in which no life is possible. Once the
universe reaches such a state, no significant
further change is possible. It is a state
of equilibrium. Scientists called this the
“heat death” of the universe.
But this unwelcome prediction raised a further
puzzle: if, given enough time, the universe
will inevitably stagnate in a state of heat
death, then why, if it has existed forever,
is it not now in a state of heat death? If
in a finite amount of time, the universe will
reach equilibrium, then, given infinite past
time, it should by now already be in a state
of equilibrium. But it’s not. We’re in
a state of disequilibrium, where energy is
still available to be used and the universe
has an orderly structure.
The nineteenth century Austrian physicist
Ludwig Boltzmann proposed a daring solution
to this problem. Boltzmann suggested that
perhaps the universe is, in fact, in a state
of overall equilibrium. Nevertheless, by chance
alone, there will arise more orderly pockets
of disequilibrium here and there. Boltzmann
referred to these isolated regions of disequilibrium
as “worlds.” Our universe just happens
to be one of these worlds. Eventually, in
accord with the Second Law, it will revert
to the overall state of equilibrium.
Contemporary physicists have universally rejected
Boltzmann’s daring Many Worlds Hypothesis
as an explanation of the observed disequilibrium
of the universe. Its fatal flaw was that if
our world is just a chance fluctuation from
a state of overall equilibrium, then we ought
to be observing a much smaller patch of order.
Why? Because a small fluctuation from equilibrium
is vastly more probable than a huge, sustained
fluctuation which would be necessary to create
the universe we see, and yet a small fluctuation
would be sufficient for our existence. For
example, a fluctuation that formed a world
no bigger than our solar system would be enough
for us to be alive and would be incomprehensibly
more likely to occur than a fluctuation that
formed the whole universe we see!
In fact, Boltzmann’s hypothesis, if consistently
carried out, would lead to a strange sort
of illusionism: in all probability we really
do inhabit a smaller world, and the stars
and the planets that we observe are just illusions,
mere images on the heavens. For that sort
of world is much more probable than a universe
which has, in defiance of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, moved away from equilibrium
for billions of years to form the universe
we observe.
The discovery of the expansion of the universe
in the 1920s modified the sort of heat death
predicted on the basis of the Second Law,
but it didn’t alter the fundamental question.
Recent discoveries indicate that the cosmic
expansion is actually speeding up. Because
the volume of space is increasing so rapidly,
the universe actually becomes farther and
farther from an equilibrium state in which
matter and energy are evenly distributed.
But the acceleration of the universe’s expansion
only hastens its demise. For now, the different
regions of the universe become increasingly
isolated from one another in space, and each
marooned region becomes dark, cold, dilute,
and dead. So again, why isn’t our region
in such a state if the universe has already
existed for infinite time?
The obvious implication of all this is that
the question is based on a false assumption,
namely, that the universe has existed for
infinite time. Today most physicists would
say that the matter and energy were simply
put into the universe as an initial condition,
and the universe has been following the path
plotted by the Second Law ever since its beginning
a finite time ago. Of course, attempts have
been made to avoid the beginning of the universe
predicted on the basis of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. But none of them has been
successful. Sceptics might hold out hope that
quantum gravity will somehow serve to avert
the implications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
But in 2013, the cosmologist Aron Wall of
the University of California was able to formulate
a new singularity theorem which seems to close
the door on that possibility. Wall shows that,
given the validity of the generalized Second
Law of Thermodynamics in quantum gravity,
the universe must have begun to exist, unless
one postulates a reversal of the arrow of
time – that is to say time runs backwards
at some point in the past which, he rightly
observes, involves a thermodynamic beginning
in time which “would seem to raise the same
sorts of philosophical questions that any
other sort of beginning in time would”.
Wall reports that his results require the
validity of only certain basic concepts, so
that “it is reasonable to believe that the
results will hold in a complete theory of
quantum gravity”.
So once again the scientific evidence confirms
the truth of the second premise of Ghazali’s
cosmological argument.
On the basis, therefore, of both philosophical
and scientific evidence, we have good grounds
for believing that the universe began to exist.
It therefore follows logically that the universe
has a cause of its beginning.
What properties must this cause of the universe
possess? This cause must itself be uncaused
because we’ve seen that an infinite series
of causes is impossible. It is therefore the
Uncaused First Cause. It must transcend space
and time, since it created space and time.
Therefore, it must be immaterial and non-physical.
It must be unimaginably powerful, since it
created all matter and energy.
Finally, Ghazali argued that this Uncaused
First Cause must also be a personal being,
for it’s the only way to explain how an
eternal cause can produce an effect with a
beginning like the universe.
Here’s the problem: If a cause is sufficient
to produce its effect, then if the cause is
there, the effect must be there, too. For
example, the cause of water’s freezing is
the temperature’s being below 0 degrees
Celsius. If the temperature were below 0 degrees
from eternity, then any water that was around
would be frozen from eternity. It would be
impossible for the water just to begin to
freeze a finite time ago. Now, the cause of
the universe is permanently there, since it
is timeless. So why isn’t the universe permanently
there as well? Why did the universe come into
being only 14 billion years ago? Why isn’t
it as permanent as its cause?
Ghazali maintained that the answer to this
problem is that the First Cause must be a
personal being endowed with freedom of the
will. His creating the universe is a free
act which is independent of any prior determining
conditions. So his act of creating can be
something spontaneous and new. Freedom of
the will enables one to get an effect with
a beginning from a permanent, timeless cause.
And thus we are brought not merely to a transcendent
cause of the universe but to its Personal
Creator.
This is admittedly hard for us to imagine.
But one way to think about it is to envision
the creator existing alone without the universe
as changeless and timeless. His free act of
creation is a temporal event simultaneous
with the universe’s coming into being. Therefore,
He enters into time when He creates the universe.
The creator is thus timeless without the universe
and in time with the universe.
The kalam cosmological argument thus gives
us powerful grounds for believing in the existence
of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless,
changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful,
Personal Creator of the universe. And that
is what everybody means by God.
Thank you so much for a most intellectually
stimulating lecture. Now, I would like to
open a Q&A session. This is a great opportunity
for you to ask Professor Craig a question.
We would like to start from the back over
there, so if you have any questions please
raise your hand.
Hi, Dr Craig. Thanks very much, it was a fascinating
talk and very very clear as well. You seem
to suggest, and it seems quite obvious to
say, that either the universe went back forever
or it didn’t. And yet a number of people
say that the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning
of the universe, it wasn’t the beginning
of everything, there was something that caused
the Big Bang, there was something that the
Big Bang came out of, so you could call it
some kind of “quantum cauldron“ or “quantum
soup” or something that the Big Bang came
out of. This would itself not be temporal
because as I understand it, and I might be
wrong, the time and space began with the beginning
of the universe, with the Big Bang, and so
the thing that the Big Bang came out of wasn’t
itself temporal. If that’s the case, does
it make any sense to talk about it going back
forever because with no time, there’s no
back forever, as it were? And so maybe the
distinction between either it began or it
went back forever doesn’t quite work there,
or how would it work?
No, I think it does apply and your point is
quite well taken. If it literally is atemporal
then it doesn’t go back forever and that’s
why Vilenkin says either the universe begins
at that boundary of classical space-time or
if you do have this sort of quantum regime
on the other side of the boundary, that doesn’t
go back forever. And in, for example, the
[H…-Hawking - 0:53:08] Model, you have this
finite quantum region prior to the [0:53:17]
time, early time in the history of the universe,
that is finite and geometrically closed, just
like in the standard model: it doesn’t involve
a singularity. Now this is where the philosopher
I think does need to begin to offer criticism
because when it is said that this region is
not temporal, the scientist cannot mean that
in the same literal sense that the philosopher
means, for example, that mathematical objects
are atemporal, changeless and static. He can’t
mean it in the same sense that the theologian
means that God is atemporal, transcending
time. What the scientist actually means is
that it isn’t in classical time as time
in non-quantum physics, but this is a region
of violent quantum activity. There is before
and after in this period and so it cannot
be literally timeless in the way that the
philosopher theologian means. But in that
case, this quantum era cannot have endured
forever in a sort of metaphysical time because
it’s unstable. It would be impossible for
this era to last for eternity and then 14
billion years ago transition to classical
space-time. So I think this would just simply
underline the point that that era doesn’t
restore the past eternality of the universe.
It is something that still has a beginning
in this time, in the philosophical sense of
the word, if not in the sense of the word
that plays a role in classical physics. I
know that’s a rather technical answer but
this is pulling the thread on one of the most
important issues I think in this whole discussion.
If you’re interested in following this up,
take a look at the debate that I had with
the Cosmologist, Shaun Carol. It’s on YouTube
on the Evidence of Current Cosmology for the
Existence of God.
Thank you.
OK, as far as I understand it, the laws of
cause and effect say that a cause cannot be
greater than its effect, and vice versa. So
if God is the cause of the universe, surely
he’s a greater cause than its effect if
the universe is the effect?
I didn’t quite understand that. Can you
help me?
I think the idea is that if God is the creator
of the universe then because God is the cause
of the universe, it has to be greater than
the universe itself.
Oh, OK. Now as your question was explained
to me, the idea is that a cause needs to be
greater than its effect and I would agree
with that in this case, that we have to have
a cause which is endowed with incomprehensible
power in order to produce space, time, matter
and energy, without any pre-existing material.
So this would be a being which is not omnipotent,
of incomprehensible power and greatness. So
I think that that’s absolutely correct.
This has to be something that is greater than
the finite universe.
I was thinking through the idea, I believe
that the creation, that the earth is a young
earth and I was trying to think about how
that ties in your idea of the Big Bang, how
that ties into my understanding and so basically
my question is, when you come to Genesis Chapter
1:1, “in the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth” in your view, is that the
start of the creation of this earth or is
it the creation of the universe?
Good question. In Hebrew they did not have
a word for ‘the universe’. When the Ancient
Jew wanted to speak of everything there is,
he would say ‘the heavens and the earth’,
so Genesis 1:1 is about the creation of the
universe – in the beginning, God created
the universe – and it’s only beginning
with verse 2 that the focus dramatically narrows
to the earth and verse 2 says “and the earth
was without form and void” and the remainder
of the chapter describes how God turns this
desolate planet into a habitable environment
for human beings. So I would see verse 1 as
cosmic in its scope and verse 2 following
as very local in its scope.
Thank you. And so could there be a gap?
We need to move onto other questioners if
we’re going to get as many folks as possible
in our limited time.
Hi, Dr Craig, why only one creator and not
ten, or one million, of creators? I don’t
see from the argument that we could not have
one million of creators.
Yes, why not several creators? Why not polytheism
rather than one creator? I would appeal to
[Arkem’s Razor - 0:58:44]. [Arkem’s Razor]
is an explanatory principle which says “do
not multiply causes beyond necessity”. That
is to say you are justified only in inferring
those causes which are necessary to explain
the effect and you would be unjustified to
infer any more than that. And in this case,
one creator is sufficient to explain the effect
and is necessary to explain the effect, and
therefore [Arkem’s Razor] will simply shave
away any other sorts of creators.
Thank you very much for your great talk. The
last thirty years or so, it has been show
experimentally that in quantum mechanics you
can have creation without a cause. You mentioned
sub-atomic particles and at the very beginning
of the universe, as you also said, the universe
itself was sub-atomic. Why is it so inconceivable
that the mechanisms that work now, didn’t
work back then?
The reason is that in the so-called quantum
creation of sub-atomic particles, you always
have a material substratum, a physical system
from which these emerge. For example, the
quantum vacuum is not nothing as the layman
might think when he hears the word ‘vacuum’.
It is a sea of royalling energy and the particles
come out of the vacuum, so that the vacuum
is the cause of the existence of these particles.
In the case of the universe however, as we
just discussed a moment ago, we have an absolute
beginning of all physical reality so that
there isn’t any sort of prior thing that
could serve as a quantum substratum for the
creation of the universe. If there is this
sort of quantum gravity region in the early
universe, that will be part of the universe.
It’s an early stage of the universe but
it doesn’t explain where the universe itself
came from. I should also just add one other
point and that is, this appeal to these quantum
processes simply assumes without justification
that quantum indeterminacy is real rather
than merely epistemic in your mind. But there
are at least ten different interpretations
of quantum physics, some of which are thoroughly
deterministic and all of these are empirically
equivalent and mathematically consistent.
In fact it is only the deterministic interpretations
that are compatible with quantum cosmology
so that there is no justification for assuming
that even in the case of quantum creation
of particles, this is indeterminate and that
they do not have deterministic causes.
What inspirations can one derive from religious
texts such as the Koran where existence of
God – most teachings about the existence
of God are confirmed by a philosophical argument
and scientific discoveries?
I’ve debated Muslim apologists on a number
of occasions and I’m not persuaded by those
sorts of arguments for the divine inspiration
of the Koran. For example, it said that the
Koran predicts modern embryology because it
says that we came from a clot of blood. Well
you can read this sort of thing in ancient
medicine, ancient doctors like [Gaylan - 1:02:37].
So there’s not really anything there that
I think amounts to a substantive argument.
It’s either reading in between the lines
of the text or, I think, the text is so vague
that it could be interpreted in multiple ways.
But that’s quite off the topic of tonight
and I don’t care to address the truth of
the Koran any further.
I notice there were just males sticking their
hands up. Are there any ladies who would like
to ask a question? Ah, there we are.
Thank you for your talk. If you find the idea
of an infinite universe so inconceivable,
then why is the idea of an infinite being
so persuasive to you.
I’m going to need help with that one again.
If the concept of infinity cannot be applied
to the universe, how could you apply it to
God?
OK. If the concept of infinity cannot be applied
to the universe, how could it be applied to
God? It’s important to distinguish between
what we might call a ‘quantitative concept
of the infinite’ and a ‘qualitative concept
of the infinite’. I am talking in this lecture
about quantitative concepts – mathematical
concepts of the infinite where the infinite
is a collection composed of an infinite number
of definite and discrete parts or members.
When theologians talk about God’s infinity
they’re not using it in that sort of quantitative
sense. They don’t think that God is a collection
composed of an infinite number of definite
and discrete parts. Rather, what they mean
is that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent,
eternal, morally perfect and so forth - all
of these “omni” attributes. So the word
‘infinite’ there is used in a qualitative
sense, not a quantitative sense, to simply
describe superlative attributes and none of
those involve the existence of an actual infinite
number of things in the way that we’ve been
discussing this evening.
Hello Professor Craig. You explained to us
in your very intriguing talk that every being
that exists in the universe has a cause for
its beginning and that the agent that caused
the universe’s beginning is uncaused, but
I was wondering whether or not perhaps the
first premise might raise questions relating
to how the agent exists since everything that
exists in the universe has a cause and yet
the agent that existed that created it is
uncaused.
I didn’t get the very last part of that.
Did you?
Are you asking whether the first premise applies
to God?
Oh, the first premise certainly applies to
God. If God began to exist then God would
need to have a cause, otherwise that would
be special pleading. So what this premise
gets you back to, as I say, is a first uncaused
cause. The premise is not that everything
that exists has a cause, it’s that everything
that begins to exist has a cause. Something
cannot come into being without a cause so
it forces you back to what Al-Ghazali called
the eternal – a timeless transcendent cause
without beginning and therefore the first
uncaused cause.
Thank you. Just to again put some pressure
on that first premise, the sceptic might say
we never really experience anything beginning
to exist. You take for example like a horse,
you might say that the energy and matter necessary
for the horse already exists, they just changed
form if you like, so the horse was formed
rather than genuinely beginning to exist.
And so experience confirms the idea there’s
always a cause for the formation of things
but common experience doesn’t confirm that
when matter and energy begin to exist, they
have a cause. So the coming into being of
matter and energy is unique and an event unlike
any other in our experience, so it isn’t
covered by laws which we derive from our common
experience.
The question is based upon a terrible misconception
that if a thing has material constituents
which preceded its existence, then the thing
made of those constituents doesn’t begin
to exist and that’s clearly absurd. That
would imply that I am an eternal being, that
I never began to exist. So where was I during
the Jurassic age, I wonder? Where was I during
the year of galaxy formation? Simply because
things that begin to exist have material constituents
of which they are composed doesn’t mean
that those things have existed eternally and
are without beginning. So the whole question
is based upon a misconception of what it means
to begin to exist. Now in the first premise,
the premise doesn’t stipulate what kind
of cause there has to be for what begins to
exist. It’s just saying that something can’t
come into existence without some sort of a
cause – a material cause, an efficient cause,
whatever. The fact that the universe has an
efficient cause but not a material cause only
emerges when you get to the conclusion of
the argument and you see that as the cause
of space and time, matter and energy, the
cause of the universe cannot be a material
object. It has to be 
a transcendent, immaterial being, like for
example, a mind which brought the universe
into existence and that correlates nicely
with Ghazali’s argument that the creator
is a personal being, an unembodied mind who
freely creates the universe. And I think all
three of the arguments that I gave would hold
validly with respect to the necessity of such
a cause of matter and energy, that something
cannot come from nothing. If something could
come from nothing then it’s inexplicable
by just anything and everything doesn’t
do so. And then every day experience and science
confirms that things that begin to exist do
have causes. So it seems to me that the first
premise is more plausibly true than false
and that’s all we need for a good argument.
Professor Craig, it’s a pleasure to have
you speak here because I argued against your
Kalam cosmological argument in my extended
project and I can finally confront you! So,
you seem to kind of cherry pick different
theories, different physical and mathematical
theories. You used the Borde-Guth-Vilkenkin
theorem in your favour, saying that there
cannot be an infinite universe, but you failed
to address the fact that the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin
theorem says that virtual particles can materialise
out of fluctuations in sub-atomic vacuum and
this behaviour is completely random. Unopponents
of yours –
I take it you’re kind of repeating things
from your paper.
Yeah.
But these questions have already been addressed
this evening both in the talk and in the answer
to the questions at the back of the auditorium
where we said yes, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin
theorem shows that classical space-time goes
back to a boundary, right, and either there
was something on the other side or not, if
not the boundary was the beginning of the
universe. If there was, it was a quantum gravity
era and that is then the beginning of the
universe. But in neither case do you get a
universe that’s extended infinitely into
the past.
But this is a theory and there are plenty
of other theories. For example, you appeal
to mathematics in many cases but recently
there’s been a mathematical explanation
how the universe did not have a beginning
but it was actually infinite. Paul Marmer
for example states that the red shift is non-Doppler
mechanics and therefore it does not explain
that there was one singularity 13.74 billion
years ago when the universe was created. Nonetheless,
why wasn’t this preceded by another universe,
for example a Big Crunch?
Those models are ruled out by the sort of
singularity theorems that I discussed this
evening, as well as evidence that the universe
doesn’t have the density to re-contract
again, that the expansion is actually accelerating.
If you want to look into a more detailed explanation,
take a look at the article in the Blackwell
Companion for Natural Theology on the Kalam
Cosmological Argument that I co-authored with
the physicist Jim Sinclair. And I think you’ll
find that the thrust of contemporary science
is such that the person who holds the truth
of the second premise stands as I said, well
within the mainstream of modern science, whereas
these other things that you mentioned would
represent things on the fringe or things that
have been already falsified. So I would just
ask you to take a look at an article like
that where one goes into more detail than
what we’ve been able to do this evening.
My question is to do with the first premise
with regards to entities beginning to exist
without a cause out of nothing. If we took
a very simple definition of the term ‘cause’
and said a cause simply is a collection of
necessary conditions for any entity to begin
to exist –
It would need to be sufficient, right? Sufficient
conditions.
Yes, sufficient conditions. Isn’t one of
the sufficient conditions for any entity to
begin to exist the fact that it has to have
a basis in reality and therefore if an entity
can begin to exist uncaused, it means it’s
beginning to exist without fulfilling that
condition of having to have a basis in reality.
Then we’re postulating entities that begin
to exist without having any basis in reality,
which sounds impossible and absurd, as you
were saying.
Well now if I’ve understood the question
right, I would concur completely that it makes
absolutely no sense to say that something
could have been caused by an unreal being,
something that doesn’t really exist. Clearly
if there is a cause of the universe, it had
to be something that really exists, not a
fictional or imaginary entity. This needs
to be real, so that’s why this would be
a strong argument for the reality of a first
personal cause of the universe.
Good afternoon. I’m afraid I lost you on
your argument about a personal being. Elaborating
on a point that was made a little while earlier,
you say that before the ‘beginning’ if
you like, there would not be, there would
not have been even, an eternal equilibrium
without a personal being, due to the cause
being spontaneous. But surely by definition
of something being atemporal, there would
have been no eternity anyway. By definition
any cause –
The last part again – if something is atemporal?
If something is atemporal there would have
been no eternity. Surely by definition any
actual cause would have been spontaneous,
regardless of its nature.
OK, I’m trying to understand your point.
The idea here is that there is a cause of
the universe which is timeless, eternal and
therefore permanent and as this fellow down
here said, if all of the necessary conditions
are in place, if you have the sufficient conditions
for the effect in place permanently, then
the cause should be there and the effects
should be there too. You can’t have all
the causal conditions sufficient for the effect
without having the effect there, otherwise
the conditions weren’t truly sufficient.
So how in the world do you get a cause that
is permanent and sufficient but an effect
that only begins to exist a finite time ago?
Ghazali argued, and here I think it’s a
brilliant insight, is that the only way to
do this is if the cause of the universe is
a person. That is to say, the appeal here
is to agent causation – an agent who is
endowed with freedom of the will can spontaneously
produce an effect without any antecedent determining
conditions. It’s wholly independent of the
antecedent determining conditions and so freedom
of the will is what makes it possible to have
a timeless permanent cause and yet an effect
that only begins to exist a finite time ago.
And as I argued, I think that that moment
at which this cause exercises its causal power
and brings the universe into being, is the
moment at which that creator enters into time,
so that the creator is timeless without the
universe and in time from the moment of creation
forwards.
Thank you. Hello Dr Craig. Going back to what
you said about an actual infinite cannot exist
and that we can’t split time and we can’t
split distance, could you say that because
of the original beginning we can’t split
the universe into an infinite amount of universes,
so therefore the multiverse cannot exist because
we can’t split the universe into an actual
amount of finites.
I’m going to need some help with that one.
I didn’t quite understand.
I think maybe you misunderstood Professor’s
argument.
Maybe. I’m just trying to ask if multiverses
can exist.
Would you be able to rephrase your question?
Basically what I’m trying to ask is, because
we can’t have an actual infinite, can we
not have an actual infinite of universes,
therefore can we not have –
I think the question is whether you reject
the hypothesis of the multiverse.
Yeah, I think I understand now the point.
It wouldn’t rule out a multiverse that had
a finite number of universes in the world
ensemble. If you do agree that an actually
infinite number of things cannot exist then
you’re correct, you could not have a multiverse
or world ensemble composed of an actually
infinite number of multiverses and physicists
have sometimes expressed reservations precisely
on that head that this would involve an actually
infinite number of universes. So you would
need to have a multiverse that had at best
finite, many, a large number of universes,
but then of course the question is, is that
going to be sufficient to explain the fine
tuning of the universe by chance alone, which
is a different argument that is relevant to
these multiverse proposals.
Why is the – the afterlife is supposed to
be eternal. Why isn’t it there yet?
Say again?
The afterlife is supposed to be eternal. Why
isn’t it there yet and it’s eternal?
Why isn’t what eternal?
The afterlife.
The afterlife.
OK, if I understand the question, theists
or Christian theists like myself believe in
the afterlife and that this life will go on
forever without end. Wouldn’t that involve
an actually infinite number of events? No
and here the distinction between an actual
infinite and a potential infinite is crucial.
If time involves genuine becoming, of things
coming into being and passing away, as the
argument presumes, then a beginningless series
in the past would involve an actually infinite
number of events that have occurred. But,
an endless future doesn’t involve an actually
infinite number of events but merely a potentially
infinite number of events. The events will
go on and on endlessly and infinity is merely
a limit which it endlessly approaches but
never arrives at. So on this view of time,
the future is not actually infinite, it’s
merely potentially infinite, which is unproblematic.
Let’s take two more questions.
Dr Craig, that was an excellent presentation
tonight, thank you.
Thank you.
So my question is, you said that creating
something from nothing is absurd. I’m down
here at the front –
Oh, there you are, OK!
I can barely see your head over the thing.
OK!
So you said that creating something from nothing
is absurd and so my question is, in the beginning,
what did God create the universe from and
did that always exist?
Let’s be very careful here. I didn’t say
that creation of something from nothing is
absurd. When theologians talk about creation
from nothing, they mean that the universe
has an efficient cause, that is to say an
agent that brought it into existence. But
it doesn’t have a material cause. There
is no ‘stuff’ out of which it was made.
I was arguing that something cannot come into
being without any sort of cause, that that
is absurd. For something to come from nothing
would be to come into being without any efficient
cause or any material cause and that seems
to me to be truly absurd. But for something
to come into being without a material cause,
but an efficient cause, is not absurd because
there you do have causal conditions, causal
power, that brings the matter and energy into
being. So it seems to me that there’s an
enormous difference there and one has to be
careful in distinguishing the type of causes
that are in play here – efficient causes
versus material causes.
Let’s take the last question from the lady
over there.
OK then, so this is my favourite question.
How then do we deal with the issue of we have
a creator God and before time he wasn’t
– or he or she or whatever – was not a
creator God? So we’ve got by God spontaneously
choosing to create, we have a change in God
and a change in God is very problematic.
I do not think that God is immutable. I think
you’re correct that this would involve a
non-essential change in God and I have written
quite a number of books on God and time in
which I explore this issue in enormous depth
and my view would be that when the creator
creates space and time, he becomes temporal,
in virtue of his real causal relationship
to the world and in virtue of his knowledge
of tensed facts, like it is now 2015, it was
2014. Both of those would imply I think at
least extrinsic change in God and probably
even intrinsic change. So I would say that
God is changeless in his essential attributes,
like his omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection,
eternality and so forth, but he can change
contingent properties like being the creator
of the universe, knowing that Bill Craig is
giving a lecture at the University of Birmingham.
In all of these contingent properties I think
God is changing but that’s unproblematic,
both theologically and philosophically.
Right, please join me in thanking Dr Craig.
