Cosmological argument: Difference between revisions

The crucial premise of the argument. Before the Big bang theory was theorized in the 20th century, scientists generally thought that the universe was eternal. If the universe is eternal and therefore beginingless, then there has to be into the past an infinite amount of past events. There are major concerns however if an actual infinite of things can exist in reality. If there can be then premise 2 can be discarded. It has to be infinite if there was never a beginning, the standard view outside of the Big bang model, it is temporal because it relates to causes within time, and is regressive because it is moving backwards forever into the eternal past. This is assuming that an actual infinite of things, or in this case past causes, can actually exist in reality. The implicit question of premise 2 is: Can an infinite collection actually exist? The argument against an actual infinite is put succinctly by William Lane Craig.