Omnipotence and Infinite History

God chose to create the world a finite amount of time ago, but could he have chosen otherwise?

According to defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument, the answer is no. He could not have done so, and the world must have a finite history. Even God could not create an infinite one.

Others, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, disagree and hold that God could have done this if he chose.

How can we navigate this issue?

The Burden of Proof

People who disagree sometimes get into squabbles about who has the burden of proof—that is, who needs to provide proof of their position.

While special rules may apply in a courtroom or in a formal debate, the answer for ordinary purposes is clear. It can be stated in the form of a simple and powerful rule.

The Iron Rule of the Burden of Proof: Whoever wants someone to change his mind has the burden of proof.

If I want you to change your mind, I need to give you evidence (arguments, proof) why you should do so. If you want me to change my mind, you need to.

Much needless squabbling would be avoided if people kept this rule in mind.

Applying this to our question:

    • If a Kalaam proponent wants to convince someone that God couldn’t create a world with an infinite history, he needs to provide evidence why he couldn’t.
    • If a Kalaam skeptic wants to convince someone that God could create a world with an infinite history, he needs to provide evidence why he could.
    • If they both want to convince each other, they both need to do this.

I’m a Kalaam skeptic, so let me give you the evidence that causes me to take this position.

“With God All Things Are Possible”

The Christian faith holds that God is all-powerful, or omnipotent. Jesus himself tells us, “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

Thus, the default answer for any question that takes the form “Could God create X?” is “Yes.”

If you want to move off that default answer, you’ll need to show something very specific. This is because, over the centuries, theologians have discerned that there is only one type of situation that falls outside the scope of God’s omnipotence: logical contradictions.

No, God can’t make married bachelors, square circles, or four-sided triangles. Each of these involves a contradiction in terms, or what philosophers call a logical contradiction.

They don’t represent possible entities. They’re just word salad. They may at first sound like something that could exist, but as soon as you think about the meaning of the words involved, you realize that they can’t.

So, while “with God all things are possible,” these aren’t things. “Square circle” and “four-sided triangle” are just nonsense phrases.

“Infinite History”?

In light of this principle, if I ask myself, “Could God create a world with an infinite history?” my default answer will be “Yes”—just as it would be on any other subject.

For me to move off that default answer, I’d need to be shown that the concept of a world with an infinite history involves a logical contradiction.

The same should be true of every Christian who understands God’s omnipotence.

Thus far, despite extensive research, I have not been able to find a logical contradiction. And, as a result, I am of the opinion that one does not exist.

Consider Craig

Consider the arguments proposed by William Lane Craig, the best-known defender of the Kalaam argument.

He has spent an enormous amount of time thinking, writing, and defending it. If anyone should have found a logical contradiction in the concept, it should be him!

Yet, in his books, debates, speeches, and videos, I haven’t found him asserting that the concept of an infinite history involves a logical contradiction. If anything, he seems to carefully avoid saying that.

He concedes that the mathematics of infinity are logically consistent—that they don’t involve a logical contradiction—so, it isn’t that the concept of infinity is problematic.

Instead, he asserts that actual infinities can’t exist in the real world, so the real world’s history can’t be infinite.

But what is it about the concept of “infinity” and the concept of “history” that prevents the two from being brought together? Both concepts are fine on their own. Where’s the logical contradiction?

Craig never seems to say. Instead, I find him saying two things:

    1. An actual infinity that exists in the real world would be “metaphysically impossible.”
    2. If an actual infinity existed in the real world, the results would be “absurd.”

“Metaphysically Impossible”

Sometimes Craig states that it would be metaphysically impossible for the world to have an infinite history. What does this mean?

Philosophers and theologians speak about different types of possibility. For example:

    • Something is logically possible if it does not involve a contradiction in terms.
    • Something is metaphysically possible if it could happen in reality, even if the world operated under very different physical laws.
    • Something is physically possible if it could happen in our world, given the way its physical laws operate (e.g., the speed of light, conservation of mass and energy).
    • Something is practically possible if we could realistically do it, given our limitations (e.g., how much time we have, how big our budget is).

Philosophers often say that metaphysical possibility is notoriously hard to define, and from a secular perspective, this might be true.

However, for a Christian who understands God’s omnipotence, it shouldn’t be.

    1. God can do anything that doesn’t involve a logical contradiction.
    2. Therefore, God can make any world that doesn’t involve a logical contradiction.
    3. Therefore, anything that is logically possible is metaphysically possible.

For the Christian, logical possibility and metaphysical possibility are really two ways of describing the same thing.

If—on the logical level—there’s a contradiction in terms, then that means—on the metaphysical level—that there is a contradiction in the nature of the things those terms describe.

Let’s suppose that you want to draw a four-sided triangle. On the logical level, there is a contradiction between four-sidedness and being a triangle, and on the metaphysical level, triangular objects are such that they cannot have four sides.

As a result, the question of metaphysical impossibility collapses into the question of logical possibility.

Consequently, logical impossibility is what Craig needs to show if he wants to deny that God can’t make a world with an infinite history.

To say that such a thing would be metaphysically impossible is, for the Christian who understands God’s omnipotence, just another way of saying that it involves a logical contradiction.

“Absurd”

What about Craig’s other claim—that an actual infinity in the real world would result in “absurd” situations?

Craig makes this charge in connection with a famous thought experiment known as Hilbert’s Hotel, which was proposed by the mathematician David Hilbert.

It involves a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms, and—because of the strange properties that infinity has—you can imagine some very strange things happening at the hotel. (You can read about them at the link.)

There are various ways of responding. Hilbert’s Hotel actually isn’t as strange as it sounds once you think about what “infinite” means. Also, it’s just a physicalization of the concept of infinity, with one room for every natural number. So, if the idea of an infinite set of natural numbers doesn’t involve a logical contradiction, neither should a physical representation of it.

However, to keep our discussion concise, I want to focus on this: “Absurd” does not mean “logically contradictory.”

Something is absurd if it strikes us as surprising, counter-intuitive, and contrary to our expectations—prompting us to have an impulse to reject the idea out of hand.

But it turns out that the world contains many things that strike us as absurd and yet turn out to be true. This is the case regardless of one’s persuasions. One can be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or anything else, and the world still contains a lot of strange, “absurd” things.

Lots of people—in history and today—have found each of the following claims absurd:

    • An infinitely loving God would allow innocent people and animals to suffer.
    • God would send someone to hell.
    • God became man.
    • God died on a cross.
    • There is one God, who is a Trinity of Persons.
    • Transubstantiation occurs.
    • God created the world out of nothing.
    • The earth is a sphere.
    • The sun does not orbit the earth.
    • Man can build machines that will enable him to fly.
    • Man can go to the moon.
    • Modern life forms are the product of a process of evolution stretching back billions of years.
    • There was a beginning to time.
    • Space and time are not absolutes but can be warped by gravity.
    • When you move faster, time slows down.
    • Heavier objects do not fall appreciably faster than lighter ones.
    • Atoms exist.
    • In the Monty Hall Problem, the best strategy is to switch your bet after the first door is opened.

Yet each of these is true. So, from a Christian perspective, we can say that God has created a world where a lot of “absurd” things in it.

Consequently, if we want our beliefs to be accurate, we need to be willing to consider ideas that strike us as absurd and not simply dismiss them on this basis.

The fact that something seems absurd is not a reliable guide to what God can do, and so it’s not enough to allow us to say, “God can’t do that.”

If we want to say that God can’t make a world with an infinite history, we need more than gesturing at a situation and saying it’s absurd.

We need to know what logical contradiction it involves. We need to be able to name the terms that produce a logical contradiction.

So far, Craig hasn’t identified one, but that’s what we need to see.

Until he or someone else can show that the idea of infinite history involves a contradiction in terms (and name the terms that conflict!), any Christian who understands God’s omnipotence should remain with the default position that this would be within God’s power.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship – The Secrets of Doctor Who

What if the lone joke of an obscure Samuel L. Jackson movie were morphed into a Doctor Who episode? Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss everything that’s wrong with this story, including the Doctor’s murder of the villain.

Direct Link to the Episode.

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The Weekly Francis – 21 July 2021


This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 16 July 2021 to 18 July 2021.

Angelus

Letters

Motu Proprio

Papal Tweets

  • “During summer time, let us learn how to take a break, turn off the mobile phone to gaze into the eyes of others, cultivate silence, contemplate nature, regenerate ourselves in dialogue with God. #GospelOfTheDay Mk 6:30–34” @Pontifex 18 July 2021
  • “Only a heart that is not taken over by hastiness is capable of being moved, that is, of not allowing itself to be caught up in itself and by things to do, and is aware of others, of their wounds, their needs. Compassion is born from contemplation. #GospelOfTheDay Mk 6:30–34” @Pontifex 18 July 2021

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Using the Kalaam Argument Correctly

In recent years, one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God has been the Kalaam cosmological argument.

Ultimately, I think this argument is successful, but many of the ways it has been employed are unsuccessful.

It is an argument that needs to be used carefully—with the proper qualifiers.

 

Stating the Argument

We can state the Kalaam argument like this:

1) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.

2) The universe has a beginning.

3) Therefore, the universe has a cause (which would be God).

Is this argument valid? Is it sound?

Valid arguments are ones that use a correct logical form—regardless of whether their premises are true. The Kalaam argument falls into this category, which is not disputed by its critics.

If a valid argument has true premises, then its conclusion also will be true. Valid arguments that have true premises are called sound arguments, and I agree that the argument’s premises are true:

1) It is true that whatever has a beginning has a cause.

2) And it is true that the universe has a beginning (approximately 13.8 billion years ago, according to Big Bang cosmology).

Since the Kalaam argument is valid and has true premises, it is a sound argument.

 

Using the Argument Apologetically

The Kalaam argument is sound from the perspective of logic, but how useful is it from the perspective of apologetics? There are many arguments that are sound, but sometimes they are not very useful in practice.

For example, in their famous book Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead spend the first 360 pages of the book covering basic principles that build up to them rigorously proving that 1 + 1 = 2.

While their book is of interest to mathematicians, and their proof extremely well thought-out, it is so complex that it is not of practical use for a popular audience. For ordinary people, there are much simpler ways to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. (If needed, just put one apple on a table, put another one next to it, and count the apples both individually and together.)

Complexity is not the only thing that can limit an argument’s usefulness. Another is the willingness of people to grant the truth of its premises. Here is where some of the limitations of the Kalaam argument appear. While it is very simple to state and understand, defending the premises is more involved.

 

The First Premise

The first premise—that everything that has a beginning has a cause—is intuitive and is accepted by most people.

Some object to this premise on philosophical grounds or on scientific ones, such as by pointing to the randomness of quantum physics.

Both the philosophical and the scientific arguments can get technical quickly, but a skilled apologist—at least one who is actually familiar with quantum mechanics (!)—would still be able to navigate such objections without getting too far over the heads of a popular audience.

This—plus the fact that a popular audience’s sympathies will be with the first premise—mean that the argument retains its usefulness with a general audience.

 

The Second Premise

The second premise—that the universe had a beginning—is also widely accepted today, due in large part to Big Bang cosmology. A popular audience will thus be generally sympathetic to the second premise.

That’s apologetically useful, but we need to look more closely at how the second premise can be supported when challenged.

Since “The Bible says the universe has a beginning” will not be convincing to those who are not already believers, there are two approaches to doing this—the scientific and the philosophical.

 

The Scientific Approach

For an apologist, the approach here is straight forward: For a popular level audience, simply present a popular-level account of the evidence that has led cosmologists to conclude that the Big Bang occurred.

On this front, the principal danger for the apologist is overselling the evidence in one of several ways.

First, many apologists do not keep up with developments in cosmology, and they may be relying on an outdated account of the Big Bang.

For example, about 40 years ago, it was common to hear cosmologists speak of the Big Bang as an event that involved a singularity—where all matter was compressed into a point of infinite density and when space and time suddenly sprang into existence.

That view is no longer standard in cosmology, and today no apologist should be speaking as if this is what the science shows. Apologists need to be familiar with the current state of cosmological thought (as well as common misunderstandings of the Big Bang) and avoid misrepresenting current cosmological views.

Thus, they should not say that the Big Bang is proof that the universe had an absolute beginning. While the Big Bang is consistent with an absolute beginning, cosmologists have not been able to rule out options like there being a prior universe.

One way apologists have dealt with this concern is to point to the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem, which seeks to show that—on certain assumptions—even if there were one or more prior universes, there can’t be an unlimited number of them.

It’s fair to point to this theorem, but it would be a mistake for an apologist to present it as final proof, because the theorem depends on certain assumptions (e.g., that the universe has—on average—been expanding throughout its history) that cannot be taken for granted.

Further, apologists should be aware that authors of the theorem—Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin—do not agree that it shows the universe had to have a beginning. Guth apparently believes that the universe does not have a beginning, and Vilenkin states that all the theorem shows is that the expansion of the universe had to have a beginning, not the universe itself.

It thus would misrepresent the BGV theorem as showing that the scientific community has concluded that the universe had to have a beginning, even if it were before the Big Bang. (It also would be apologetically dangerous and foolish to do so, as the facts I’ve just mentioned could be thrown in the apologist’s face, discrediting him before his audience.)

Most fundamentally, the findings of science are always provisional, and the history of science contains innumerable cases where scientific opinion as reversed as new evidence has been found.

Consequently, apologists should never sell Big Bang cosmology—or any other aspect of science—as final “proof.”

This does not mean that apologists can’t appeal to scientific evidence. When the findings of science point in the direction aspects of the Faith, it is entirely fair to point that out. They just must not be oversold.

 

The Philosophical Approach

Prior to the mid-20th century, Big Bang cosmology had not been developed, and the scientific approach to defending the Kalaam argument’s second premise was not available.

Consequently, earlier discussions relied on philosophical arguments to try to show that the universe must have a beginning.

Such arguments remain a major part of the discussion today, and new philosophical ways of defending the second premise have been proposed.

Authors have different opinions about how well these work, but in studying them, I find myself agreeing with St. Thomas Aquinas that they do not. Thus far, I have not discovered any philosophical argument—ancient or modern—that I thought proved its case.

This is not to say that they don’t have superficial appeal. They do; otherwise, people wouldn’t propose them.

But when one thinks them through carefully, they all contain hidden flaws that keep them from succeeding—some of which are being discussed in this series.

I thus do not rely on philosophical arguments in my own presentation of the Kalaam argument.

 

Conclusion

The Kalaam cosmological argument is a valid and sound argument. It does prove that the universe has a cause, which can meaningfully be called God.

As a result, it can be used by apologists, and its simplicity makes it particularly attractive.

I use it myself, such as in my short, popular-level book The Words of Eternal Life.

However, the argument needs to be presented carefully. The scientific evidence we currently have is consistent with and suggestive of the world having a beginning in the finite past, though this evidence must not be oversold.

The philosophical arguments for the universe having a beginning are much more problematic. I do not believe that the ones developed to date work, and so I do not use them.

I thus advise other apologists to think carefully before doing so and to rigorously test these arguments: Seek out counterarguments, carefully consider them, and see if you can show why the arguments don’t work.

It is not enough that we find an argument convenient or initially plausible. We owe it to the truth, and honesty in doing apologetics compels us not to use arguments just because we want them to be true.

Presentism and Infinite History

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” While the world definitely had a beginning, there’s a question of whether we can prove this by reason alone (i.e., by philosophical arguments).

Defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument often use an argument like this one, which is found in William Lane Craig’s book Reasonable Faith:

1) An actually infinite number of things cannot exist.

2) A beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.

3) Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist.

I have a problem with the first premise, but that’s a topic for another time. Here I’d like to look at Craig’s second premise.

Is it true that a beginningless series of events entails an actually infinite number of things?

At first glance, the answer would seem to be yes, but the reality is more complex.

 

The Nature of Time

The answer depends on your view of time. Here we need to consider two major theories of time, which are known as eternalism and presentism.

Eternalism holds that all of time exists. The past, the present, and the future are all real from the ultimate perspective—that is, from the eternal perspective outside of time. We may only experience history one bit at a time, but from the “eternal now” that God dwells in, all moments of time are equally real.

Presentism (as we will be using the term) holds that, from the ultimate perspective, the only time that exists is right now—the present. The past used to be real, but it is no longer. And the future will exist, but it does not yet. Since neither the past nor the future are real, they do not exist in any sense of the word. If you asked God—from his ultimate perspective—“What is real in the created order?” he would answer, “Only the present.”

 

The Eternalist Option

Supposing that eternalism is true, Craig’s second premise would be true. From the eternal perspective outside of time, God would see an infinite series of past events laid out before him.

Or, if you wish to avoid the question of how God’s knowledge works then, as the Creator, God would be causing that infinite series of past events to exist.

They would all be equally real—equally actual—from his perspective, and—since they have no beginning—they would be infinite. Being both actual and infinite, the events of a beginningless history would represent an actual infinity. Thus, the second premise would be true.

But for a classical Christian theist, there would be a problem, because Christianity teaches that God will give people endless life. While human beings may come into existence at the moment of their conception, they will never pass out of existence.

Therefore, humans have an endless future. And that future also will be equally real to God.

From his eternal perspective outside of time, God sees and creates all the moments of our endless future. They are both real—actual—from his perspective, and they are infinite in number. Being both actual and infinite, the moments of our future also would be an actual infinity.

From the viewpoint of a classical Christian theist, eternalism implies the existence of an actual infinity of future moments, giving such theists reason to challenge Craig’s first premise (that an actual infinity can’t exist).

However, this post is only examining his second premise, so let’s consider the other option we need to look at.

 

The Presentist Option

If only the present exists, is it true that a beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things?

No. At least not an actual infinity of real things.

The reason is that, on the presentist view, only one moment of time exists. No past moments exist, and no future moments exist.

It doesn’t matter how many events took place in the past, because those events are no longer real. As soon as a new moment arrived, all the events taking place in the previous moment evaporated and are no longer actual.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter how many past events there have been—it could be a finite number or an infinite number—because they have all ceased to be actual. The only actual events are those occurring in the present.

So, if presentism is true, the second premise of Craig’s argument is false if applied to concrete, real things like events. A beginningless series of events in time does not entail an actually infinite number of such things because those things are no longer actual.

For a collection of things to be actually infinite, they all have to be actual from some perspective. On eternalism, that can happen, because all the moments of time are actual from the eternal perspective outside of time.

But it can’t happen on presentism, because this view holds that, from the ultimate perspective, only one moment is real, and one is a finite number. This view entails that no actual infinity of moments in time exists, because only one moment of time is actual.

This is why Aristotle could believe that the world did have an infinite history. Even though he thought an actually infinite number of things couldn’t exist at the same time, history didn’t present that problem, because one moment passed out of existence when another came into it, so the total number of moments was always finite.

 

The Counting Argument

In the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, Craig and coauthor James Sinclair respond to this issue with two lines of thought.

The first is based on counting, and their reasoning (omitting examples for brevity) goes like this:

[W]e may take it as a datum that the presentist can accurately count things that have existed but no longer exist. . . .

The nonexistence of such things or events is no hindrance to their being enumerated. . . .

So in a beginningless series of past events of equal duration, the number of past events must be infinite, for it is larger than any natural number. . . .

[I]f we consider all the events in an infinite temporal regress of events, they constitute an actual infinite.

It’s true that a presentist can count things that have existed but no longer exist (e.g., the number of days that have elapsed so far this year)—and their nonexistence doesn’t prevent this counting (just look at a calendar!).

The problem comes in the third statement, because it can be understood in more than one way.

In terms of what is real on the presentist view, the number of past events is not infinite, because no past events exist. That’s a key point of presentism.

If you want to talk about an infinite number of past events, you have to shift from speaking of events that do exist to those that have existed, and those aren’t the same thing.

Yes, on presentism, we could speak of an infinite collection of events that were real but aren’t anymore. And that’s the point: They aren’t real.

This points to a second way of reading the statement when Craig and Sinclair speak of “the number of past events.”

If we are talking about the number of events, then we’re no longer talking about the events themselves. Instead, we’re talking about a number, which raises a question.

 

What Are Numbers?

Mathematicians and philosophers have a variety of views about what numbers are. Some classify them as “abstract objects” that exist independent of the mind. Others think of them as mental constructs of some kind. There are many variations on these views.

Whatever the case may be, Craig doesn’t see infinite numbers themselves being a problem.

In his talks and writings, he has frequently said that he doesn’t have a problem with the mathematics of infinity—that modern mathematical concepts dealing with the infinite are fine and useful as concepts. Thus, the infinite set of natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3 . . . ) is a useful concept.

Craig doesn’t reject the idea that the set of natural numbers is actually infinite. It’s just not the kind of actual infinity that causes a problem for him because numbers aren’t concrete objects in the real world.

So, actual infinities of the numerical order are fine, in which case it’s fine if the number of past events is actually infinite. It’s an actual infinity of events themselves that he says can’t be part of the real world.

And on presentism, they’re not. Past events would have to be understood in some other way. They might be abstract objects, like many mathematicians hold numbers to be. Or they might be purely mental concepts at this point, as others regard numbers.

Whatever is the case, on presentism they do not exist in the real world. And so, whatever kind of infinity a beginningless universe would involve, it doesn’t violate the principle that—while actual infinities may exist in an abstract way, as in mathematics—they don’t exist in the real world.

 

Back to the Future

There is another way of illustrating the problem with the argument from counting, and it involves considering the number of future events.

If the universe can’t have a beginningless past because an infinite set of non-real past events can’t exist, then we also can’t have an endless future, because that entails an infinite set of non-real future events.

The argument simply involves shifting from events that used to be real to those that will be real.

If God gives people endless life, then the number of days that we will experience in the future is infinite. As the hymn says about heaven,

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,

Than when we first begun.

As Craig and Sinclair acknowledge:

It might rightly be pointed out that on presentism there are no future events and so no series of future events. Therefore, the number of future events is simply zero. . . . [O]n presentism, the past is as unreal as the future and, therefore, the number of past events could, with equal justification, be said to be zero. It might be said that at least there have been past events, and so they can be numbered. But by the same token there will be future events, so why can they not be numbered? Accordingly, one might be tempted to say that in an endless future there will be an actually infinite number of events, just as in a beginningless past there have been an actually infinite number of events.

So, why should an infinite number of future events be considered more permissible for a presentist than an infinite number of past ones?

 

Possible vs. Actual Infinity

Craig and Sinclair’s response involves the difference between an actual infinity (where an unlimited number of elements exist simultaneously) and a potential infinity (where an unlimited number of elements don’t exist simultaneously). They write:

[T]here never will be an actually infinite number of [future] events since it is impossible to count to infinity. The only sense in which there will be an infinite number of events is that the series of events will go toward infinity as a limit. But that is the concept of a potential infinite, not an actual infinite. Here the objectivity of temporal becoming makes itself felt. For as a result of the arrow of time, the series of events later than any arbitrarily selected past event is properly to be regarded as potentially infinite, that is to say, finite but indefinitely increasing toward infinity as a limit.

This reasoning is mistaken. It is false to say that “the series of events later than any arbitrarily selected past event is . . . finite but indefinitely increasing toward infinity as a limit.”

No. If you arbitrarily select any event in time and consider the sequence of later events, they do not “indefinitely increase toward infinity.” They are always infinite.

Consider January 1, 1900. On the Christian view, how many days of endless life will there be after that? An infinite number.

Consider January 1, 2000. How many days are to come? Again, an infinite number.

Consider January 1, 2100. How many days follow? Still an infinite number.

As the hymn says, “We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun!”

What Craig and Sinclair are thinking of is the fact that, if you pick a date and go any arbitrary distance into the future, your destination will still be a finite number of days from your starting point.

Thus, the number of days that has elapsed between the start and finish of your journey grows toward infinity but never gets there, making this span of days a potential rather than actual infinity.

But it does not follow—and is simply wrong—that the complete set of future days is only potentially infinite. To show this, just give each day a number: Today is 0, tomorrow is 1, the next day is 2, and so on. We can thus map the set of future days onto the set of natural numbers, which is actually rather than potentially infinite.

Take any day you like, and on the Christian view the quantity of days that will be after it is identical to the quantity of natural numbers.

The quantity of days that will be—like the quantity of natural numbers—does not grow. This quantity just is.

Unless you say—contrary to the teaching of the Christian faith—that the number of future days is finite and God won’t give us endless life, then there is an actual infinity of future days.

And if a presentist wants to affirm an actual infinity of currently-not-real days that will be, he must allow the possibility of an actual infinity of currently-not-real days that have been.

 

Conclusion

In summary, Craig’s second premise was:

2) A beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.

Whether this is true will depend on one’s view of time and the status of non-real things.

On eternalism, a beginningless series of events in time would involve an actually infinite number of things, for all these moments exist from God’s perspective outside of time. But so would the actually infinite number of future days that God promises us, giving the eternalist reason to reject the idea that an actual infinity cannot exist in the real world.

On presentism, a beginningless series of events in time would not involve an actual infinity of events existing in the real world, because presentism holds that the past does not exist.

Such a series of events might result in an actual infinity of (past) non-existent days, but so would the actual infinity of (future) non-existent days. And if a Christian allows one set of non-existent days, the other must be allowed as well.

The fact that the past days are countable is irrelevant, because so are the future days.

And it is simply false to say that the days that will be are only potentially infinite. They’re not. Right now, the number of days that will be is actually infinite, the same way the set of natural numbers is actually infinite.

Based on what we’ve seen here, presentism does not exclude an infinite past any more than it does an infinite future.

Traversing an Infinite?

God created the universe a finite time ago, but there’s a question of whether we can prove this by reason alone.

Defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument often claim that the universe cannot have an infinite history because “traversing an infinite” is impossible.

In his book Reasonable Faith (pp. 120-124), William Lane Craig puts the argument this way

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another

2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite

3. Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite.

The second premise of this argument is the one that deals with “traversing an infinite.” Craig writes:

Sometimes this problem is described as the impossibility of traversing the infinite.

Still a third way of describing it is saying that you can’t form infinity “by successive addition.”

Whatever expression you prefer, each of these expressions refer to the intuition people commonly have about infinity—that “you can’t get there from here.”

 

Where Is “Here”?

If you can’t get to infinity from here, where is “here”?

However you want to phrase the problem—getting there from here, traversing an infinite, or successive addition, this is a question that needs to be answered.

Let’s take another look at the second premise:

2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite

What does it mean to “form” a collection by adding one member after another?

Perhaps the most natural way to take this would be to form such a collection from nothing. That is, you start with zero elements in the collection (or maybe one element) and then successively add one new member after another.

And it’s quite true that, if you form a collection this way, you will never arrive at an infinite number of members. No matter how many elements you add to the collection, one at a time, the collection will always have a finite number of elements.

This can be seen through a simple counting exercise. If you start with 0 and then keep adding +1, you’ll get the standard number line:

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 . . .

But no matter how many times you add +1, the resulting number will always be finite—just one unit larger than the previous finite number.

However, there is a problem . . .

 

The First-and-Last Fallacy

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, any string of natural numbers that has both a first and a last element is—by definition—finite.

Any time you specify a first natural number and a last natural number, the space between them is limited.

It thus would be fallacious reasoning to envision an infinite timeline with both first and last elements.

Yet it is very easy to let the idea of an infinite past having a beginning somewhere “infinitely far back” unintentionally sneak back into discussions of the Kalaam argument.

It can easily happen without people being aware of it, and often our language is to blame:

  • The natural sense of the word “traverse” suggests going from one point to another, suggesting both a beginning point and an end point.
  • So does the idea of “forming” an infinite collection. If we imagine forming a collection, we naturally envision starting with nothing (a collection with no members) and then adding things to it.
  • And if we think of getting to infinity “from here,” we naturally think of a starting point in the finite realm (“here”) and an end point (“infinity”).

Without at all meaning to, it’s thus very easy to fall into the trap of subconsciously supposing both a starting point and an ending point in a supposedly infinite history.

This happens often enough that I’ve called it the First-and-Last Fallacy.

 

Taking No Beginning Seriously

In Reasonable Faith, Craig denies that this is how his argument should be understood. He writes:

Mackie and Sobel object that this sort of argument illicitly presupposes an infinitely distant starting point in the past and then pronounces it impossible to travel from that point to today. But if the past is infinite, they say, then there would be no starting point whatever, not even an infinitely distant one. Nevertheless, from any given point in the past, there is only a finite distance to the present, which is easily “traversed.” But in fact no proponent of the kalam argument of whom I am aware has assumed that there was an infinitely distant starting point in the past. The fact that there is no beginning at all, not even an infinitely distant one, seems only to make the problem worse, not better (boldface added).

Craig thus wishes us to understand his argument not as forming an infinite collection of past historical moments from an infinitely distant starting point—i.e., from a beginning.

It’s good that he is clear on this, because otherwise his second premise would commit the First-and-Last Fallacy.

But does this really make things worse rather than better?

It would seem not.

 

Formed from What?

If we are not to envision a collection being “formed” from nothing by successive addition, then it must obviously be formed from something. Namely, it must be formed from another, already existing collection.

For example, suppose I have a complete run of my favorite comic book, The Legion of Super-Heroes. Let’s say that, as of the current month, it consists of issue #1 to issue #236.

Then, next month, issue #237 comes out, so I purchase it and add it to my collection. I now have a new, larger collection that was “formed” by adding one new member to my previous collection.

Now let’s apply that to the situation of an infinite history. Suppose that the current moment—“now”—is the last element of an infinite collection of previous moments (with no beginning moment).

How was this collection formed?

Obviously, it was formed from a previous collection that included all of the past moments except the current one.

Let’s give these things some names:

  • Let P be the collection of all the past moments
  • Let 1 represent the current moment
  • And let E represent the collection of all the moments that have ever existed

With those terms in place, it’s clear that:

P + 1 = E

We thus can form one collection (E) from another collection (P) by adding a member to it.

 

But Can It Be Infinite?

Now we come to Craig’s second premise, which said that you can’t form an actually infinite collection by adding one member after another.

If you imagine forming the collection from nothing—and thus commit the First-and-Last Fallacy—then this is true.

But it’s not true if you avoid the fallacy and imagine forming an actually infinite collection from a previous collection by adding to it.

The previous collection just needs to be actually infinite as well. If P is an actually infinite collection and you add 1 to it, E will be actually infinite as well.

And this is what we find in the case of an infinite past. Let us envision an infinite past as the set of all negative numbers, ending in the present, “0” moment:

. . . -7, -6, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0.

The set of all the numbers below 0 is infinite, but so is the set of all numbers below -1, all the numbers below -2, and so on. Each of these collections is actually infinite, and so we can form a new, actually infinite set by taking one of them and adding a new member to it.

Understood this way, Craig’s second premise is simply false. You can form an actually infinite collection by adding new members to an actually infinite collection—which is what we would have in the case of a universe with an infinite past, one that really does not have a starting point.

 

Conclusion

What we make of Craig’s argument will depend on how we take its second premise.

Taken in what may be the most natural way (forming an infinite collection from nothing—or from any finite amount—by successive addition), will result in the argument committing the First-and-Last Fallacy.

But if we take it in the less obvious way (forming an infinite collection by adding to an already infinite collection), then the second premise is simply false.

There may be other grounds—other arguments—by which one might try to show that the universe cannot have an infinite past.

But the argument from “successive addition,” “traversing an infinite,” or “getting there from here” does not work.

Depending on how you interpret it, the argument either commits a fallacy or uses a false premise.

The Battle (TNG) – The Secrets of Star Trek

The Ferengi are back! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss this story that establishes Capt. Picard’s backstory involving the Stargazer; claims headaches don’t exist in the future; and sets up the Picard Manuever as the indefensible stratagem.

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Pauline Dakin & the Weird World – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

When Pauline Dakin’s mother finally revealed why she’d had such a bizarre childhood it explained so much. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli reveal that this was only the beginning however, and what she would subsequently find out would change everything again.

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Who Was the Man Who Ran Away Naked?

Mark contains a brief story not found in the other Gospels. Immediately after Jesus’ arrest, the Eleven scatter, and we read:

And a certain young man was following him, clothed only in a linen cloth on his naked body. And they attempted to seize him, but he left behind the linen cloth and fled naked (14:51-52, LEB).

People naturally want to know who this young, anonymous man was.

 

Was it Mark?

Today, many say it was Mark himself—that he recorded this incident the way medieval artists sometimes put tiny portraits of themselves in their paintings or the way Alfred Hitchcock briefly appears in his films.

Some may even suppose this is the traditional answer that has always been believed, but it’s not. The Church Fathers made other proposals, and this theory only became common in the late 19th century.

There also are problems with it. One is that the Greek word for “young man” (neaniskos) indicates a man who is past puberty and thus in his late teens or early 20s.

But when we meet Mark in Acts 12:12, it is the year A.D. 43—a decade after the Crucifixion—and it appears that Mark is a young man then, not one pushing or over 30.

We also have testimony from a first century figure named John the Presbyter, who says Mark “had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him” during his ministry (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

Finally, we don’t have evidence of an ancient literary tradition of authors giving themselves brief, anonymous appearances in their works. That isn’t what Mark’s audience would expect, so this theory reads a much later artistic and cinematic technique into ancient literature.

 

A Curious Stranger?

Another proposal is that this was a random person—not a member of the Christian community—who happened to be following out of curiosity and got nabbed.

This isn’t impossible, but the argument for it is weak. The argument is that people normally wore two garments, an inner one and an outer one. So, perhaps the young man was asleep, heard the noise, quickly put on a single garment, and when to see what the commotion was.

The problem is that people also sometimes wore just one garment, so the man was not clearly underdressed.

Further, if he were not a Christian, why would the authorities grab him? Mark tells us that “a crowd” was present for the arrest (14:43), and a person walking along with the crowd would not be grabbed unless he previously had been seen among Jesus’ followers.

Also, if this man had no connection with the Christian community, how did this story get preserved? The way Mark tells it, the Eleven had already fled, and the arresting party would have no reason to tell the story to the Christian community later on.

The preservation of the story—and its use by Mark—would be more logical if the person was known to the Evangelist and his audience.

In that case, the question would be: Why isn’t his name mentioned?

 

Protective Anonymity

Scholars have noted that, in the Synoptic Gospels, certain people remain curiously anonymous in the Passion narrative.

These include the woman who anoints Jesus (Mark 14:3), the owner of the house where Jesus eats the Last Supper (14:14-15), and the disciple who strikes off the ear of the high priest’s servant (14:47).

What these figures have in common is that they committed acts that would be considered seditious by the Jerusalem authorities. The woman anointed Jesus, which could be seen as consecrating him for his role as the anointed Messiah, the king of the Jews. The householder then hosts the new rebel king. And the last takes up arms in defense of the rebel king.

When the story of Jesus’ Passion was first being told in the Jerusalem church, it would not be safe to publicly name these people—not if they still lived in or visited Jerusalem, where the Jewish authorities could get them.

Neither would it do to write their names in a Gospel that would find its way to the Jerusalem church. So, the theory is that the Synoptic Evangelists give these people “protective anonymity.”

But when John was written, the individuals may have moved away, died, or already been taken into custody, so they didn’t need protection.

That’s why some are named in John. The woman who anoints Jesus is revealed to be Mary the sister of Lazarus (John 12:3), and the disciple who wielded the sword is revealed to be St. Peter (John 18:10).

But their identities were known in the Christian community from the beginning. Jesus had said, concerning Mary, “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Mark 14:9), and when Peter was preaching the gospel orally, he would have identified himself as the man with the sword.

Yet in Mark, Mary is simply “a woman” (14:3) and Peter is “a certain one of the bystanders” (14:47).

 

Someone we know?

Could Mark be withholding the identity of the “certain young man,” though it was known to the Christian community? Might we have heard of him? If so, who might it be?

St. Ambrose suggested that it might be John son of Zebedee, but it’s hard to see why he would need protective anonymity. People knew he was one of the Twelve, and Mark names him as present at the time of the arrest (14:33). He already was in danger as a known supporter of Jesus, and merely escaping an arrest was not a seditious act.

Theophylact of Ohrid suggested the man might be James the “brother” of the Lord. However, Jesus’ brethren didn’t believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5), so he was unlikely to be following Jesus that night.

Some have proposed that the “beloved disciple” was actually John the Presbyter, who was from an aristocratic Jerusalem family and personally knew the high priest. He may have been the host of the Last Supper, which is why he was seated next to Jesus (John 13:23).

If so, there could be reason to shield his identity, and he never names himself in the Gospel!

However, he doesn’t identify himself as the man who ran away. And, after Jesus is arrested, he follows Jesus to the high priest’s house and even gets Peter access to the courtyard (18:15-16). This makes it unlikely he had just escaped arrest.

 

The ideal candidate?

The ideal candidate for the young man would be someone who (a) was not one of the Twelve, (b) lived in the Jerusalem area, (c) was a follower of Jesus, and (d) was already wanted by the authorities, since he doesn’t do anything criminal in Mark.

Is there such a person? Yes, and it’s Lazarus. Immediately after John records Mary anointing Jesus, he says:

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus (12:9-11).

The authorities thus were already looking to kill Lazarus. But he may not have known this, which could explain why he thought it would be safe to follow, only to be seized and forced to flee naked.

Lazarus—like his sister Mary—was known to the early Christian community, and when the Passion was retold in the Jerusalem church, people would have known the parts they played. Yet, it wouldn’t have been safe to name them publicly, such as in a Gospel, as long as they remained alive and in the Jerusalem area.

This doesn’t prove Lazarus was the man who ran away naked, but it fits the evidence, and it’s an intriguing possibility!

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

This page collects articles I have been writing dealing with the Kalaam cosmological argument for God’s existence. It is expected to grow over time as I write more on the subject.

Put simply, the argument goes:

  1. Whatever has a beginning has a cause.
  2. The universe has a beginning.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The cause of the universe can be meaningfully described as God. Therefore, God exists.

This argument is both valid and sound–that is, it uses a valid logical form and its premises are true, so its conclusion is true.

Despite this, many of the arguments used to support it are not successful. In particular, many of the philosophical arguments used for its second premise are flawed.

Here are articles in which I explore why.

General Considerations:

The Big Bang and Science

Philosophical Arguments:

The First Argument (No Actual Infinities):

The Second Argument (No Infinity by Successive Addition):

More Recent Arguments:

Related: