Editing Kalam cosmological argument (section)

===Philosophical objections===

[[Graham Oppy]], [[J. L. Mackie]] and Wes Morriston have objected to the intuitiveness of the first premise.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Oppy |first1=G | date=2002 |title=Arguing About The Kalam Cosmological Argument |url= https://philarchive.org/rec/OPPAAT|journal=Philo  |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=34–61 |doi= 10.5840/philo2002513|access-date=}}</ref><ref>[[#Mack|Mackie, 1982]]: 94</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morriston |first1=W |date=2002 |title=Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument |journal=Faith and Philosophy |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages= 233–244|doi=10.5840/faithphil200219218 }}</ref> Oppy states:

:"Mackie, [Adolf] Grunbaum, [Quentin] Smith and I—among many others—have taken issue with the first premise: why should it be supposed that absolutely everything which begins to exist has a cause for its beginning to exist?"

Mackie affirms that there is no good reason to assume ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' that an uncaused beginning of all things is impossible. Moreover, that the Causal Principle cannot be extrapolated to the universe from inductive experience. He appeals to [[David Hume]]'s thesis (''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'') that effects without causes can be conceived in the mind, and that what is conceivable in the mind is possible in the real world.<ref>[[#Mack|Mackie, 1982]]: 85</ref> This argument has been criticised by Bruce Reichenbach and [[G.E.M. Anscombe]], who point out the [[phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] and logical problems in inferring factual possibility from conceivability.<ref>[[#SEP|Reichenbach, 2004]]: 3.4</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anscombe |first1=GEM |date=1974 |title="Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause": Hume's argument exposed |url= |journal=Analysis XXXIV |volume= |issue= |pages=150 |doi= |access-date=}}</ref> Craig notes:<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/professor-mackie-and-the-Kalam-cosmological-argument | title=Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Grieg |first=JT |author-link= |date=1932 |title=The Letters of David Hume |url= |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=187 |isbn=}}</ref>

:"Hume himself clearly believed in the causal principle. He presupposes throughout the Enquiry that events have causes, and in 1754 he wrote to John Stewart, 'But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without a cause'."

Morriston asserts that causal laws are physical processes for which we have intuitive knowledge in the context of events within time and space, but that such intuitions do not hold true for the beginning of time itself. He states:<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morriston |first1=W |date=2000 |title=Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause? A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument |journal=Faith and Philosophy |volume=17 |issue= |pages=149|doi=10.5840/faithphil200017215 }}</ref>

:"We have no experience of the origin of worlds to tell us that worlds don't come into existence like that. We don't even have experience of the coming into being of anything remotely analogous to the '[[initial singularity]]' that figures in the [[Big Bang|Big Bang theory]] of the origin of the universe."

Craig responds that causal laws are unrestricted [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] truths that are "not [[Contingency (philosophy)|contingent]] upon the properties, causal powers, and [[dispositions]] of the natural kinds of substances which happen to exist", remarking:<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/must-the-beginning-of-the-universe-have-a-personal-cause-a-rejoinder | title=Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder | author=William Lane Craig | website=Reasonable Faith }}</ref>

:"The history of twentieth century astrophysical cosmology belies Morriston's claim that people have no strong intuitions about the need of a causal explanation of the origin of time and the universe."