Isn’t it more reasonable to say that anything that exists has a cause, than anything that starts to exist has a cause? [editor’s note: he is talking about the difference between the classic cosmological versus the kaalam cosmological argument]

Answer:

The universe has a single set of unchanging laws.  This is an empirical fact, discovered by scientists.   The universe is, essentially, predictable.  The universe is not capricious.  This implies that there is a single Creator.  The idea of several causes is not consistent with reality.  If there were several causes, then there would be several sets of laws governing reality, and the universe would be capricious due to the competing actions of the different “causes.”  The reason modern humans rejected polytheism is that reality is consistent with monotheism.  Your proposal–that there could conceivable be several causes–is equivalent to polytheism.  Reality demands monotheism.  Ancient people looked at things like the weather and proposed that nature is capricious–subject to the whims of competing forces.  But they were wrong.;  Even seemingly unpredictable things such as solar eclipses and the weather are governed by a single set of unchanging laws.  Again, reality demands monotheism.

The reason the kaalam cosmological argument is better than the classic cosmological argument is that there are, debatably, things which “exist” which did not begin to exist.  For example, the number three was not created.  The number pi was not created.  Arguably, circles and squares were not created.  The things which “exist” (although their existence is a subject for debate) are primarily logical or mathematical things.  A = B  B = C  therefore A = C.  This “truth” did not begin when the universe began.

Although the classical cosmological argument is still a valid argument in my opinion, the kaalam cosmological argument is neater and cleaner and easier to defend.

John Oakes