Criticising Craig's Personal Mind As Causing the Universe
Here is an argument that a commenter on one of my recent YouTube videos on the Kalam Cosmological Argument gave me. It's actually something I have argued elsewhere (possibly even mentioning in that Kalam series itself). Before I hand over to him, let me remind you of the KCA:
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
I will lay out his argument here before analysing and commenting on it in a future post. Here is the argument from the commenter (Ψ):
Craig frequently presents one argument for the cause of the universe being personal. He has said:
"Moreover, it must be personal as well. Why? Because the cause must be beyond space and time, therefore it cannot be physical or material. Now there are only two kinds of things that fit that description: either an abstract object, like numbers, or else a personal mind. But abstract objects can't cause anything. Therefore it follows that the cause of the universe is a transcendent, intelligent mind."
Source: Hitchens vs Craig.
This argument can be formalized in the following way:
P1. Either an abstract object or an unembodied mind caused the universe.
P2. It’s not an abstract object.
C. Therefore, it is an unembodied mind.
There is only one small problem with this: I reject the Platonist and Dualist views that abstract objects and minds are immaterial. I accept Nominalism about abstract objects and Physicalism about minds. Thus, there are no actual examples at all of immaterial (or non-physical) entities that fit that description.*
This entails the cause could be any logically possible inanimate entity we don’t know about and perhaps could never understand. This follows because we have no reason to believe Dualism or Platonism are true. So, there is no example of any entity that could play that role. Minds, according to most philosophers (see, PhilSurvey) and scientists, are not real immaterial entities.**
Craig cannot claim it is a mind or an abstract object because it has not been established that these things actually exist. So, even though the cause may well be immaterial, this doesn’t entail it must be a mind or the number five. In my view, just like that of most scientists, what dualists call “mind” is just an abstraction of a process. That is to say, dualists are looking at a material process — electro-chemical reactions — and asserting it is an immaterial substance. The same applies to abstract objects, by the way. So, we have zero actual examples of immaterial things (it is just a made-up concept). Plus, if potential (not real) immaterial things can be used as examples, then I can also take the concept of fluidity of a liquid, for example, and say there is an immaterial and more powerful version of it outside of our universe. The only difference between this speculation and apologists’ is that nobody wasted their time trying (and failing) to prove the existence of my transcendental fluidity. Both the "mind" and "fluidity" are just made up concepts, abstracted from physical processes.
Therefore, even though the cause of the universe may be immaterial, we know it can’t be a mind or an abstract object (in the way non-platonists and non-dualists define them). Hence, the first premise is false because there is no evidence minds and abstractions are immaterial (thus, the immaterial cause must be something other than minds and abstractions).
Let me just add a possible objection to this is that Craig can use the alleged fact that the cause is immaterial to increase the probability of it being a mind. That is, rather than saying “It is either a mind or an abstract object” Craig could say “the fact that the cause is immaterial increases the probability of theism, because it postulates the existence of immaterial minds.”
But, then, I would point to the fact that it doesn’t have to be immaterial but only Minkowski-less (i.e., other types of non-spiritual universes we can make up right now). Anyway, this would be another argument. The goal of my argument is to show that Craig's bifurcation (i.e., mind or abstraction) is not valid. It is no different from saying 'Either the cause of the universe is fluidity or redness. It is not redness. Therefore, it is fluidity.' This is obviously a bifurcation fallacy. What is the justification for thinking these made-up things are the only options?
Further, Craig could try to defend Dualism in order to save his bifurcation, but then his argument would depend on the validity of other arguments for God! Then, why use the Kalam in the first place when you can simply prove the existence of a mental world?
Let me make a final point here. Craig concludes by saying that abstract objects cannot be the cause of the universe since they "can't cause anything", but the right response to that should be: abstract objects cannot be the cause of the universe, not because they don't have causal power, but because they don't exist in reality. What we call abstractions, are just descriptions. The same applies to "minds".
[JP: Thanks so much to the commenter for providing the material here for this post. * I will respond to this in the next post as this is perhaps the Problem of Induction. ** I will respond to this in the next post as the theist would reject this, or at least claim of conceptual possibility.]
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