Cosmological argument: Difference between revisions

The crucial premise of the argument. Before the Big bang theory was theorized in the 20th century, scientists and philosophers generally thought that the universe was eternal. An eternal universe did not have a beginning and thus always existed forever into the past. This eliminated the need of the supernatural creative power of a personal being like [[God]]. If there was no beginning to the universe and space-time then divine acts of creation were superfluous. When the characteristics of a personal being like God are brought in to and given natural explanations, so that the universe becomes eternal, the existence of the universe under this paradigm creates what is called within philosophy an infinite temporal regress. The universe always existing requires past causes and events to go on forever into the past. The universe is explained this way by those who do not want to give space-time reality an absolute cosmic beginning. The infinite temporal regress of past events, along with being infinite, is also temporal because it relates to causes within time which likewise always existed. There then is an infinite temporal regress because it goes into the past forever. If good arguments are supplied for the existence of an actual infinite, then the infinite temporal regress problem is solved and premise 2 can be regarded as illegitimate. The implicit question of premise 2 is: Can an infinite collection actually exist? The argument against an actual infinite existing, is put succinctly by William Lane Craig.