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 | | The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God (Studies in Analytic Philosophy) by Mark R. Nowacki ISBN-10: 9781591024736 ISBN-10: 1-59102-473-0 ISBN-13: 9781591024736 ISBN-13: 978-1-59102-473-6 Hardcover 2007-07-26 Prometheus Books Find Lowest Price |
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Product Description Approximately 1500 years ago, John Philoponus proposed a simple and compelling argument for the existence of God: whatever comes to be has a cause of its coming to be; the universe came to be; and therefore, the universe has a cause of its coming to be. Due to the influence of William Lane Craig - analytic philosopher, Christian apologist, champion of Philoponus' position, and author of "The Kalam Cosmological Argument" - this argument and the family of sub-arguments that support it have come to be known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). The term kalam comes from Medieval Arabic philosophy and broadly means 'natural theology' or 'philosophical theism'. Despite being one of the most widely discussed and hotly debated arguments in philosophy today, it has been more than twenty-five years since any systematic presentation of the argument as a whole has been attempted. The present book helps remedy that situation, laying bare the logical structure of the KCA as it has emerged from continuous philosophical refinement. A handy taxonomy of major objections and replies to the KCA has been included as an aid to understanding the argument and its background literature. This book breaks new ground by arguing that future progress on the KCA requires that the argument be situated within a substance-based metaphysics. In addition to providing an analytic account of substances, this book describes a modal theory sensitive to the possibilities and necessities that obtain for substances. With these conceptual tools, the characteristic thought-experiments supporting the KCA can be properly assessed. | ||
Reviews | ||
The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God No single argument has received the attention of as many philosophers as William Lane Craig's presentation of the kalam cosmological argument (KCA). Indeed, Craig's formulation of the KCA has been so influential that it is often outlined in popular works as "the" cosmological argument, as if the many others disappeared over night. The argument runs as follows: 1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2) The universe began to exist 3) Therefore, the universe has a cause The argument finds its origins in the writings of John Philoponus approximately fifteen hundred years ago. It later became the subject of much debate between two schools of medieval Arabic philosophy, one of which became associated with the term kalam (meaning `natural theology' or `philosophical theism'). After long periods of silence and sporadic treatments, Craig launched the KCA back into philosophical discussion with his 1979 publication, The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Despite having maintained a steady flow of attention in academic articles of science, mathematics, and philosophy, a systematic presentation like that of Craig's in 1979 has not been attempted. After twenty-five yeas of sailing solo, Craig's book is finally greeted by Mark Nowacki's The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God (2007). Nowacki opens his book by detailing Craig's presentation of the KCA as it has been refined over the years. In addition to an exhaustive survey of Craig's articles and debates on the subject, Nowacki does the reader the favor of putting Craig's 1979 work into modern terminology (complete with two concise appendices on Cantor's theory of the actual infinite and operations with transfinite numbers). Especially needed was a contemporary sketch of reactions to Cantorian transfinite number theory, as it has enjoyed significant contribution in the past few decades. Even after considering those new developments, Nowacki concludes that the position represented in Craig's original work remains relevant and unaffected. "While remaining true to the substance of Craig's argument," Nowacki then slightly modifies Craig's original presentationbefore proceeding in order to "[clarify] the logical relations among the various subarguments of the KCA." With a new tidy outline of the KCA at hand, chapter two is exclusively concerned with answering "in a systematic way, major objections that have been advanced against the KCA." Suggesting how to use the book, Nowacki writes in the introduction: "Few readers, for instance, would derive great pleasure from reading chapter 2 in a straightforward, linear fashion: Taxonomies are marvelous reference tools, but providing a gripping narrative is not exactly their chief virtue." Contrary to this caution, I found the provided taxonomy of objections to the KCA the most exhilarating chapter in the book. Though not exhaustive, as Nowacki himself recognizes, each objection is cited as it is found in current literature alongside their respective replies, often by Craig. For those who enjoy using the KCA in debate this chapter alone is worth the list price of the book. Chapter three begins the second, more substantial part of the book. Nowacki singled out "a species of outstanding objection to the KCA," which attempt to refute the KCA by appealing to the logical possibility of certain thought experiments that permit the existence of the actual infinite. A proper response to this species of objection, championed by Graham Oppy, is achieved by situating the KCA in its proper modal context. Such a context, Nowacki argues, is narrower than that of mere logical possibility. Nowacki cites Craig approvingly on this point. Realizing that the KCA's modal context needs restricting, Nowacki turns to David Braine's work on modality to identify exactly in which modal context the KCA's thought experiments (e.g. the infinite library, Hilbert's hotel, Zeno's paradoxes, Tristam Shandy, Kant's first antimony) belong. I was surprised to see Nowacki pass over Alvin Plantinga's work in this area, conceding that "although Plantinga's scheme has won wide acceptance, I am frankly unable to make much sense of his modal distinctions." The restricted notion of possibility used in the KCA that Nowacki settles on is "factual possibility" (what Craig sometimes calls "metaphysical possibility"). After outlining Braine's account of modality, Nowacki considers the work of Roy Sorensen on the nature of thought experiments in order to justify and clarify those used in the KCA. As Sorensen points out, to counter a thought experiment you must offer a "possibility refuter" which operates at the same modal plain in which the thought experiment is construed. "Insofar as Oppy's objections involve construing the KCA thought experiments in an improper modal sense his counterarguments are non sequiturs and hence fail as objections to the KCA." In order for Nowacki to articulate a robust notion of factual possibility, the further task of locating the appropriate metaphysical context of the KCA had to be done. This, Nowacki argued, is a substance-based metaphysics. A great deal of chapter four, therefore, argues for a metaphysics of substance, drawing much from the work of philosophers such as G. E. M Anscombe and Sarah Broadie. Defending a substance-based metaphysics in turn provided Nowacki the resources to justify a subdomain of factual possibility which he called "substantial possibility." Substantial possibility is that which is "determined by the naturally possible causal relations open to substances as a function of the particular natures they possess." Here I found the novelty of Nowacki's approach most admirable. Contra the standard Humean analysis of causality, Nowacki follows Rom Harré and E. H. Madden's analysis of causality in terms of substances and their active power. "[I]t is through the operations of a substance that we discover, a posteriori, what its nature is." This has worlds of implications for the kind of causation at work in the KCA. However, Nowacki draws no explicit connection between personhood and substance, leaving much to be desired. Furthermore, the metaphysics of substance explicated is strained because Nowacki fails to distinguish between a substance proper and a property-thing. The understanding of substance Nowacki entertains is more akin to that of a property-thing. As a result, Nowacki's arguments for a substance's identity or continuity through change are comparatively weak compared to those of a metaphysics of substance which makes the proper distinction. Assimilating the modal tools now at Nowacki's disposal, he applies them to the KCA by offering several new arguments in cumulative case fashion against the factual possibility of an actual infinite. Nowacki spends the bulk of chapter 5 presenting a new thought experiment. The new thought experiment is that of a hyperlump, defined as "an actually infinite lump of clay that is composed of a denumerablly infinite quantity of different colored handfuls of clay that have been firmly pressed together." Even though "the same operations Craig performs with his actually infinite library have analogs in the hyperlump thought experiment," it is unique in its modal implications. "What the hyperlump thought experiment amply illustrates is that real differences in substances fail to receive an adequate model in Cantorian transfinite arithmetic." Nowacki not only shows how the hyperlump thought experiment demonstrates the substantial impossibility of an actual infinite existing in reality (and hence factual impossibility), but also how it can be used to demonstrate the substantial (and hence factual) impossibility of past time. I appreciate the hyperlump though experiment, but I can't help but wish Nowacki would have chosen a more intuitively favorable one. For example, he mentions how his purposes could be equally served "by supposing a World Tree with infinite roots and branches such as described in Norse mythology." I think this would have achieved more intuitive force than does the somewhat abstract notion of a hyperlump (as a modified version of David Lewis's hypergunk). The final chapter is a brief summary of the aims of the book and some prospects for future discussions. Most notably would be effort regarding the exact theory of causation required by the KCA. Often referring to Craig's views on causation "underdetermined and somewhat quirky," Nowacki seems to take no cognizance of the following diagnosis Craig suggests of the causal situation relevant to the KCA: "The event of the universe's coming into being cannot be an instance of state-state causation or event-event causation, since the origination of the universe is not a state and the condition of the timeless cause not an event. But neither can it be an instance of state-event causation, for this seems clearly impossible: If the unchanging cause is sufficient for the production of the effect, then the cause should not exist without the effect, that is to say, we should have state-state causation. If the cause is not sufficient for the production of the effect, then some change must take place in the cause to produce the effect, in which we have event-event causation and we must inquire all over again for the cause of the first event. The best way out of this dilemma is agent causation, whereby the agent freely brings about some event in the absence of prior determining conditions." A metaphysics where it is an agent that is the paradigm substance responsible for active causal power is what is needed. Substance construed as property-thing will not provide the ontological benefits that the KCA needs for a coherent theory of agent causation. Other than the question of causation being left somewhat open-ended, the biggest drawback to Nowacki's book is the lack of attention spent on what follows from the conclusion of the KCA. I was really hoping to see a new formal treatment of the concept of timeless personhood. Moreover, more attention should have been given to a defense the KCA's causal premise, (1). Unfortunately, Nowacki offers no more than a succinct outline of the defense Craig typically gives, a defense which Nowacki himself calls "extremely sketchy." As more opponents are willing accepting premise (2), less are willing to accept premise (1) lest the conclusion follow. The more objections mounted against premise (1), the less sympathy likely to be given to the claim that it's "just so intuitively obvious." Mark Nowacki's The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God is a welcome and positive contribution to KCA literature in particular and analytic philosophy in general. Few could have written as worthy of a successor to Craig's original The Kalam Cosmological Argument. Introduction Part I. The Kalam Cosmological Argument in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy: The State of the Question Chapter 1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument Described Chapter 2. A Taxonomy of Objections and Replies Part 2. Factual Modality, Substance Metaphysics, and Thought Experiments in the Kalam Cosmological Argument Chapter 3. Understanding the Modal Requirements of the KCA Chapter 4. Substances and Substantial Possibility Chapter 5. Substantial Modality in KCA Thought Experiments Chapter 6. Conclusion Appendix | ||