The Necessary Characteristics of the Creator in Light of the
Kalam Cosmological Argument
Abstract
This paper aims to explore the implications of the “cosmological argument.” In essence, the existence of the universe itself requires a personal creator who is atemporal, though can operate temporally, immanent, transcendent, unmatched in power, all-knowing, complex yet simple, and who possibly contains internal, unified multiplicity of personhood. Additionally, this being has a purpose for creating the universe and a moral code for other embodied moral agents to follow. The final sections of this paper will explore the missiological and apologetical significance of this theistic argument.
Philosophical Argumentation
What is the Cosmological Argument?
Cosmological arguments come in several forms, including the Kalam, Thomistic, and Aristotelian cosmological arguments. The primary argument discussed in this paper is the Kalam Cosmological argument. This argument depends on the universe coming into existence a finite amount of time ago. This is the argument: (1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause outside of itself, (2) The universe began to exist, (3) Therefore the universe has a cause outside of itself. This argument is relatively straightforward.
The overwhelming appeal of this argument is that it is self-evident. This philosophical argument does not require scientific discovery or overly advanced reasoning, which makes it one of the most convincing evidence for the existence of a well-defined Creator of the universe. This paper will aim to define the characteristics of the Creator using the implications of the Kalam Cosmological argument.
Does Everything that Begins to Exist Have an External Cause?
This question is qualified by a very important condition. Everything that begins to exist has a cause outside of itself. Reality can be split into two types of objects: Concrete and abstract. Concrete objects correspond to real, existing things that have causality, such as a tree. A tree has the causality of weight, size, and a whole host of other attributes. Abstract objects correspond to real, quasi-non-existent things, such as numbers, which do not correspond to anything causal. In other words, they can exist in a mind but do not cause anything. Abstract objects do not begin to exist. Numbers never had a moment when they began to exist.
Before a concrete object begins to exist, it does not have any causality. Only existent concrete objects can produce causality. If a concrete object can not produce causality before it exists, then it could not cause itself to exist. This means that every concrete object, including the universe, must have a cause outside of itself. Additionally, because only concrete objects can begin to exist, all things that begin to exist must have a cause outside itself.
Did the Universe Begin to Exist?
If all things that begin to exist must have a cause for their existence, then the natural question to ask is: “Did the universe begin to exist?” The universe began to exist, which is supported by philosophical thought. A concrete infinite is an oxymoron. There will never be a concrete infinite, as infinities can only exist in the abstract. Actual infinities lead to all sorts of impossibilities, as the Hilbert Hotel shows. The Hilbert Hotel is a philosophical exercise that demonstrates the absurdity of actual infinities. Infinities can only function as abstract objects, not concrete objects.
Implications of the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Atemporal Nature and Temporal Function
The cause of the universe must be outside of time, because time is a part of the universe. As mentioned before, time can never be infinite. Instead, time began to exist at the creation of the universe. Even if one were to insist time did not begin at the creation of this universe, time still began to exist at some point in the past. Because time is something that begins to exist, it can be placed into the same category as matter and space, all understood to be created. This means the Creator is outside of time. The implications of this act as the foundation for the bulk of the rest of this essay.
The atemporal nature of the Creator means He can not gain any qualities which are gainable, including knowledge, wisdom, character, or any other practical change in essence. If the Creator is atemporal, He is outside of time, experiencing our linear time as both outside and inside all moments. As understood below, the Creator must have temporal functioning, meaning the Creator must be inside and outside of time. Similar to the argument for the immanence and transcendence of the Creator, this means the Creator would experience time as all at once and all spread apart. Humans gain knowledge, character, and other practical changes through the passing of time. There could be no new information or experience which the Creator would “obtain” from temporal experience, because of His atemporal nature. He is forever outside of time, meaning all time has already happened in some part of His experience. Because time has already occurred, there would be no obtaining of a new experience to add any previously-lacking characteristic or quality of an already-existing characteristic.
While the cause of the universe must be atemporal in essence, it must also have the ability to function temporally. The cause of the universe, while never having a beginning, has at least one action which is set at a specific point in time: the creation of time itself (that is, so long as time came into existence at the same moment as everything else. Otherwise, there are multiple points of temporal functioning which necessarily happened). The creation of the universe has a concrete, real beginning, which dates an action of the cause of the universe concretely at one moment. In other words, this cause is atemporal in essence, but can function with temporal actions, actions that can be given a specific moment of their happening.
Biblical Confirmation:
What is atemporality in light of the God of the Bible? Atemporality is known in the Bible as the eternal nature of God. God is an eternal being, who is without beginning or end. Without God’s infinity, He would not be God. God, the first cause, must be outside of time, meaning He knows all things, being through, before, and after all things. Without being atemporal, He would be a changing being, which would deny His character as God.
What is temporal functioning in light of the God of the Bible? Temporal functioning means that God can operate in time. This is an absolutely essential aspect of God’s nature, as without the ability to act within time, there would be no special revelation, no Incarnation, and no consummation of Heaven and Earth in end times. If God was not able to act inside of time, there would be no space for time-specific revelation (such as the Law in the Sinaic narrative). If God was not able to act inside of time, there would be no space for the Incarnation of Jesus, as His life necessitates God’s intimately temporal actions in the form of man. If God was not able to function temporally, there would be no dwelling with God in any real sense, at the end of the world. When Heaven and Earth are consummated, there is an intimate connection between the citizens of Earth with God, which would not be possible without God’s ability to function temporally.
Immanence and Transcendence
The Creator is necessarily outside of the universe, in the sense that He is not bound by it. He existed before the spatial and material dimension of the universe came into existence. Now, even if the spatial dimension already existed, God would not be bound by material constructions. In other words, whether space was created or always existed as a part of the Creator, He is not bound spatially. This means the Creator is infinitely distant relative to the universe, as there is not an amount of space separating the universe from the Creator, but rather the whole concept of space itself is apart from the ontology of the Creator.
Based on similar reasoning as the argument for the temporal functioning of the Creator, the Creator must also have the ability for spatial functioning. In order to “touch” the universe, in a sense, in order to create it, the Creator must be able to come into contact with the creation. In fact, if the Creator created all of space and matter, then necessarily He must be able to function spatially and materially with all of the universe. In other words, there would be no part of the universe which the Creator could not come into contact with, as He had come into contact with all of it at one point, that being the creation.
One way to conceptualize this is to poke a hole with a pen into a piece of paper. To “residents” of the paper, the one who poked the hole is entirely outside of the two-dimensional world of the paper. There is no distance the resident could travel to get to the one who poked the hole. This analogy is helpful as it demonstrates both the distance and the contact point of the one who poked the hole to the resident of the two-dimensional paper.
Building on this, due to the lack of material or spatial restraint, paired with the ability to come into contact with any point of the universe, the Creator can be omnipresent or immanent. The Creator is not spatially constrained (which is where the previous analogy breaks down), so could theoretically be at all places at once, if so chosen by the Creator.
Biblical Confirmation:
Biblical immanence is the concept of God’s closeness in all things. Biblical transcendence is the concept of God’s outside-ness of all things. Without being intimately close to and in all of the universe, and without the ability for God’s contact with the physical universe, there would be no way for God’s Spirit to dwell within Christians in any real sense. Without God’s outside-ness, His transcendence, God would be tied to the universe, which would be contrary to God’s nature. God’s being necessitates one who is outside of the universe, if He is to be God. If God is not outside of the universe, He could not be the first cause of the universe. Verses that describe God’s immanence include Jeremiah 23:24, Proverbs 15:3, and Psalm 139:7-10.
Additionally, this is a prerequisite of the Incarnation. The immanence of the Incarnation requires God’s immanence. Without the real closeness of God, He could not come down as a man. With the ability for God’s closeness in His immanence, however, the Incarnation is nothing to be surprised about on this point. Once the bridge of closeness has been crossed, God can manifest Himself however He desires, without logical constraint. The Incarnation can not be argued against on the grounds of God’s distance if He can come into contact with the universe at all. It is required that God can come into contact with the universe, if He is to create it. Therefore, it is not out of the question, ever, that God could manifest Himself as a human.
Omniscience
Omniscience is the all-knowingness of the Creator. This is a more convoluted attribute to demonstrate as a necessity of the Creator’s being. However, even a human, if they had the qualities of timelessness and omnipresence, would be practically all-knowing. If the Creator is outside of time, then there would be no practical cognitive restraint. Even if one were to forget something, from the perspective of the observer on earth the Creator would have an infinite amount of “time” to remember it. The timelessness of the Creator means that all gainable qualities would already be at their maximum capacity, from eternity past. After all, the Creator would have an infinite amount of “time” to learn and understand anything. Additionally, if the Creator is omnipresent in any real cognitive way, He would be able to perceive all things at once, in a moment, with an infinite amount of “time” to comprehend what is happening in each moment, from all angles. As a quality of the Creator, practical omniscience is absolutely reasonable. Practical omniscience is omniscience from the perspective of mankind. There are some things impossible for humans to understand, and so the Creator would only need to understand everything humans could understand in order to have practical omniscience. However, if there was anything else possible to learn, the Creator would have an infinite amount of time to learn those things, and so would know them from eternity past already.
Biblical Confirmation:
Omniscience in the Bible is the description of God’s knowledge. God knows all things, both possible and actual. As stated above, God’s timelessness and immanence in all things necessitates having all knowledge and wisdom. An important thing to note is that God does not only know all things that will or have happened, but that God knows all things that could happen. In 1 Samuel, David inquired of God if he would be killed if he were to go down a certain path. God responded in certainty that he would die, if he were to do that. However, David did not go down that path. The biblical text claims that God knows even the things that could happen, but do not come to actuality. A verse that demonstrates the omniscience of God is Psalm 147:4-5.
Supernatural Power
As with the omniscience of the Creator, the Creator’s power would be at its maximal level from all of eternity, and would be outside of this realm. In order to create the universe, the Creator’s power would necessarily be outside of the universe’s jurisdiction. This means the Creator’s power would be bound by extra-universal laws, but not bound by the laws particular to this universe. This is because the Creator’s power created the particular power laws of this universe, though did not necessarily create all power laws.
Power laws are the limitations of power. In regular language, these can be referred to as natural laws (the laws particular to this universe) and logical laws (necessary laws which can not be conceivably broken, anywhere). An example of a natural law would be the creation of matter from nothing. Nothing comes from nothing, so creating matter out of nothing would be impossible, according to the laws of this universe. This is not to be confused with a logical law in this example, because the matter would not be coming from nothing (since the Creator’s will for creation is something), but would be created out of no prior matter.
To break a logical law is impossible, in all circumstances, even for the Creator. For example, the Creator could not cease to be the Creator, because that would be to change one’s essence. The Creator’s essence can not be changed. To call back on a previous example, breaking a logical law could look like adding knowledge or understanding to an omniscient being. There is no way to do so, even for the Creator. The Creator’s power can only do logical things, though it is not bound by the laws of this universe, since these are not logical laws.
Biblical Confirmation:
Supernatural power is in a completely different category than natural power. Natural power abides by the laws of reality and nature, but supernatural power extends outside the bounds of the universe’s natural laws. Omnipotence includes both natural and supernatural power. The biblical authors seem to indicate that God’s power is not limited to the natural world they lived in, nor limited to an additional plane of existence (i.e. a spiritual realm). Instead, the biblical authors claim that God’s power is in a completely different category from any other kind of power. Isaiah 43:13 claims that God’s power causes His will to be irreversible by any but Himself. Additionally, Matthew 19:26 claims that God is able to do all things. One last verse is Genesis 18:14, which claims that nothing is too difficult for the Lord, even giving a son to a barren woman.
A common rebuttal against Christianity involves an attempt at causing God to break a logical law: Can God create a rock so big even He could not lift it? This question is not well-thought-out, as it makes the category mistake of assuming God’s power is the same as physical strength, which it is not. The answer to this question is no, God could not create a rock so big that He could not lift it. It is against logic laws for God to create a rock so big He could not lift it, because God is not constrained by physical strength in any way.
Personality
An especially interesting point of consideration which is often overlooked is the necessity for the Creator to be personal. This personality does not mean to be like a person, but rather to have a center of consciousness and a will. The Creator must be a being, not a force. A being has a center of consciousness, which allows it to choose to do something. An eternal thing with temporal functioning must be personal in order to choose to change states from non-creation to creation.
Biblical Confirmation:
Personality related to the Bible can be communicated as God’s will. God has a will for what He will do. He changes His state through His will, changing from non-creation to creation to non-creation at certain points in time. Additionally, God changes from non-Incarnate to Incarnate to non-Incarnate in the Incarnation of Jesus. At other times, God may seem to change states, but the changing of states is debatably not on the side of God. When an unbeliever becomes a believer, God’s attitude toward them changes from eternal death to eternal life. However, this is less a change in God’s actions, and more a change of the non-believer to go from the state of recipient of God’s wrath, changing to be under the headship of Christ, which in effect causes the believer to no longer be under wrath. God’s attitude towards Christ’s body was always the same, but now the individual has become a part of the body.
Will, Desire, and Moral Law
The Creator’s unchanging nature is incredibly important. If the Creator is atemporal, then there is nothing the Creator could gain from any experience. This means the creation of the universe is not in order to gain anything, because the Creator is already perfect in that sense. There is another explanation for why the Creator may have created the universe, which is to cause other creatures to experience Him. The Creator must be logically consistent and unchanging. The rules of logic are not necessarily outside of the Creator, but rather would be a part of the Creator’s character. The Creator’s necessary logical consistency means that He is good. Goodness is often corrupted by the human experience to be whatever is perceived as benefiting the individual in any moment. However, this is not consistent, and constantly changes.
If the good Creator had a purpose for this universe, the purpose must be good. The creator must desire to give something, out of either pure love or pure hatred for the creation.
A being other than the Creator could have created humanity in the Creator’s universe. Humanity is not necessarily made by the Creator. However, as described previously, if the Creator is omnipresent, omnipotent, and atemporal, He is limitless in this universe. If a created being made humanity, the Creator would need to choose to allow whatever “ruling activity” this being had over humanity. This is to say, a malicious being may have created humanity and placed them in the universe for its own desire, however the limitless Creator would need to allow this in order for it to happen. Additionally, if the Creator is consistent and good, and has His own desire for the universe as a whole, then the allowance of the creation of humanity would necessarily ultimately play into the end desire of the Creator, regardless of the desire of the hypothetical creator of humanity.
Biblical Confirmation:
Biblically, God does have a desire for His creation. A being as described in the previous premises has nothing to gain from creation. The God of the Bible desires for humanity to know Him and His love. Hosea 6:6 demonstrates this. God desires for people to have a relationship with Him, that they would benefit. It is God’s nature of giving love to other beings that caused the creation to begin with.
The God of the Bible does have a “rival” spiritual being, Satan. Satan is allowed by God to do many things which seem, from the perspective of humanity, to disrupt the plan of God. However, if God is all powerful, all knowing, and timeless, then He is limitless. This means His desire will ultimately be the end, and that all other things are an allowance by Him. If He is all good, which He is according to the biblical text, then whatever He allows must be more for His goal (that creatures would experience Him) than for evil (creatures not experiencing God). This means that even God’s allowance of Satan’s evil and corruption is ultimately for the good of creation, that it would know God.
Additionally, God has a moral law, which demonstrates His desire for His creation to move toward His desired end, and not to stand contrary to it. If God does have a desire for His creation, and He has the power to accomplish some sort of end, then there will be an eventual ultimate end. Naturally, if God has a desire for an ultimate end, and this end is good, then God would desire His creation to move toward this end goal, and not contrary to it. God’s moral law has expressed this to His higher creatures, in order that they may choose freely to move toward or against the ultimate goal.
Multiplicity in the Creator
One last area of speculation for this argument would be the argument of multiplicity in the Creator. Logically, there can only be one Creator-essence. There can not be two all-powerful, timeless, self-sustaining beings with differing wills. In order for there to be multiple Creators, they must have the exact same essence, and by extension, the exact same will. This is speculatory, however the possibility of multiplicity in the Creator’s essence is certainly there.
One common biblical argument for the necessity of the Creator’s multiplicity is the existence of God’s outward love. If God is to have outward love as a part of His character, then there may be a need for that outward love to always have been practiced, from eternity past. In order for there to be an eternal giving of outward love, there would need to be at least one giver and one recipient of this love. As mentioned above, there can not be two eternal beings which differ in any way, and so must share the exact same essence. This sounds very similar to the biblical idea of the multiplicity in the Godhead.
In the biblical God, there is the Father, Son, and Spirit, which are eternally one essence (defining characteristics, as mentioned above), though different personhoods (centers of consciousness, otherwise understood to be centers of giving and receiving love, as mentioned above). This point is not as secure as the rest of the arguments for the characteristics of the Creator, however this argument does leave open the possibility for multiplicity in the one essence of the Creator.
Evangelistic Application
The philosophical argument explained above acts as potentially the strongest philosophical argument in today’s western culture.
Personal Conviction of Christ
For Christians desiring to seek God and know Him better, this argument confirms the validity of the biblical representation of God. Christians who are genuinely seeking Him can know that their understanding of God is coherent and completely reasonable with respect to philosophy.
Emotional vs. Intellectual Problems
With all of this being said, this argument is not going to be especially helpful in this culture. This is because, I believe, the majority of nonChristians do not have a sound philosophical argument against God for this argument to rival. Rather, their argument against God is an emotional argument. Questions such as “if God was real, why would children suffer” or “why would a good God send people to hell” are much more prevalent than “why does the universe necessitate a Creator.” All people reject God, not for logical reasons, but for illogical reasons. I believe there are many people genuinely searching for God, and I believe this argumentation would be effective with that audience. However, that is not the majority.
Unreached Tribes
The straightforward reasoning of this argument means that all people can come to same or similar conclusions about the universe, including unreached tribal people. Romans 1:20 states that all heaven and earth demonstrate God’s character, and this apologetic argument confirms this. Anyone, modernized or otherwise, can understand this argument for the existence of a God with these characteristics. This means no one has an excuse, because the knowledge is available to all people, everywhere. People who reject God, even in unreached tribes, reject this understanding of God brought about by the existence of the universe.
Presuppositional Evangelism
Because all people can have this sort of understanding about God, and because most people’s rejection of God is due to an emotional hang-up, evangelism should be done with the presupposition that all people have the repressed gospel inside of them. In other words, all people inherently know the gospel, but choose to reject it. This can be for a huge number of reasons, however it is important to understand that this argument demonstrates a relatively straightforward argument for the existence of God, and His character. This means all people can know Him, but choose not to. Even if this apologetic argument is not especially effective in today’s western culture because of emotional hang-ups, one can evangelize to those people with the expectation that they inherently know some part of the gospel and desire it. Communicating the gospel, then, should be the primary goal of evangelism. Apologetics can be used, but the gospel should be at the forefront.
Modern Antagonism
As an extension of presuppositional apologetics, contemporary antagonism against Christianity from atheists can be automatically ruled out as emotionally blinded. All people should desire theism, specifically as the way to eternal joy with a personal all-loving God. There should be some hope for this, above any other sort of eternity, either of the pantheistic or atheistic varieties. Eternally consciously living with God as a separate conscious center, eternally enjoying Him, is the best possible eternity, above being a non-conscious agent who is one with the universe/God (as in eastern thought) or eternally ceasing to exist (as in atheistic thought).
Everyone should desire that sort of theism to be true, even if they do not believe it is true. This dissonance should cause great grieving in the individual, to wish that eternal bliss was possible but to be convinced of eternal death. In Christianity, this often manifests itself in the conversation of hell, where many Christians desire hell to be temporary or only a figure of speech, but believe it is not so. This causes great grief in Christians. In atheism, there should be great grief that theism is not true. Atheism should lead to mourning, especially if they believe no actions matter, since there is no true meaning or ultimate significance in the universe. Atheists should desire theism to be true, and should grieve over their own atheism.
However, many atheists hate theism, and desire atheism. This means they have a reaction to something which overpowers their desire for eternal bliss to be true, and which causes them to desire atheism over theism and eternal bliss. In my experience, this has always manifested itself in a hatred toward God. Many atheists hate God (who allows suffering, most particularly), and so hate theism. This hatred causes them to be especially antagonistic toward theism. This antagonism acts as a window into the heart of the atheist. Where there is antagonism rather than grief, there is hatred toward theism rather than desire for it. Emotional hatred toward theism (as presented so far) is always, as far as I can see, based on either a misunderstanding of theism or an elevation of the self over God.
This elevation of the self manifests itself in antagonistic statements such as “why would God allow this evil,” which imply that the one asking could execute a better plan for the universe. This elevation of self, as well as misunderstandings of theism, necessarily rule out the reasoning of antagonistic atheists apriori. In other words, all atheists who are antagonistic to Christianity must be inconsistent in their own worldview, and therefore rule themselves out as consistent non-bias thinkers.
Conclusion
The Kalam Cosmological Argument and its implications act as the basis for the most comprehensive explanation of God, which lines up surprisingly well with the God of the Bible.With this argument, anyone in the world, whether modernized or otherwise, can experience the living God. This argument demonstrates the atemporal nature, temporal functioning, immanence, transcendence, omniscience, power, personality, desire for the universe, goodness, and potential multiplicity of God. However effective this argument is philosophically, however, there will always be those who hate the God of this universe, and so will not respond to sound argumentation. For this, one must depend on the Spirit in evangelism, pray for those they speak to, and speak with gentleness, demonstrating the character and love of the God they hate. Evangelism must be done in love, and this argument will never succeed apart from love.
Bibliography
Craig, William Lane. On Guard. Colorado Springs, Colorado. David C Cook, 2010.
Holden, Joseph M. The Comprehensive Guide to Apologetics. Eugene, Oregon. Harvest House Publishers, 2018.
Geisler, Normal L., and Paul K. Hoffman. Why I Am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why they Believe. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Baker Books, 2001.
Groothuis, Douglas. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Downers Grove, Illinois. IVP Academic, 2011.
Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove, Illinois. InterVarsity Press, 2003.
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