Morriston and Craig "debate" / "dialogue" on the kalam argument

Links and notes

Since creating this page, I have published a new paper in which I argue that, as far as the paradoxes of the actual infinite are concerned, an endless series of future events is on a par with a beginningless series of past events. You can find it here:
Beginningless Past, Endless Future, and the Actual Infinite
You can find Craig's response here:
Taking Tense Seriously in Differentiating Past and Future: A Response to Wes Morriston


I have now composed a response to Craig's response. It should be out in Faith and Philosophy later this year, but you can find here.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~morristo/reply2craig-forthcoming.html
(uploaded 2/12/2012)
And so the debate continues... :-)


Bill Craig and I had a "dialogue" on the kalam cosmological argument at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri on March 16, 2009. I have no idea when the "video" of this thing might be available. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, since I said far too many stupid things that I would want to rephrase or retract altogether, and failed to say the many intelligent things I should instead have said. Isn't that how it usually goes in these high pressure public events? I wonder why anyone expects that genuine light is going to be shed on anything in such a setting.

Craig's opening statement contained no surprises. All the usual arguments were compressed into twenty minutes, but there was nothing new. Since there seems to be some interest in this event, I have posted a copy of my opening statement, just as I read it. It includes "click points" that will take anyone who cares to see them through the slides in the accompanying powerpoint.

Here are the links. My opening statement can be found here:

http://spot.colorado.edu/~morristo/Reply2BillCraig.pdf

And the accompanying powerpoint can be found here:

http://spot.colorado.edu/~morristo/Reply2BillCraig.ppt
Among MANY other things, I argued that, as far as Hilbert Hotel type paradoxes are concerned, an endless future series of events of the sort that Craig himself believes to be possible would not be relevantly different from a beginningless series of past events. As far as I can see, the only way to avoid this conclusion is to say that the future is necessarily "open" in a way that would make it impossible for God to determine in detail all the facts about each member of an endless series of "praises" such as the one that I envisaged.

Craig responded as I expected, insisting that the endless series of praises would be a merely "potential" infinite. Whether it is a "potential" or an "actual" infinite depends on how those terms are defined. I think the terminology makes little difference as long as the following points are acknowledged.

  1. God could - now - make it the case that Wes and Bill will take turns praising Him forever.
  2. Each of those future praises is discrete and fully determinate and can be referred to now. For example, we can now refer to the tenth praise, to the millionth, to the billionth, and so on. God would be able to refer to (and know all about) any of them.

Given 1 and 2, the question, How many praises will be said? is perfectly meaningful. The only sensible answer is, infinitely many. Craig denied this, insisting that the correct answer is, "indefinite." This made no sense to me, since nothing was left open or undecided in the scenario as I had described it.

At one point, Craig appealed to "presentism" to help him out. As a presentist, he thinks future events don't exist. I don't see how this helps his case. For one thing, a presentist has to admit that past events don't exist either. So a lot of fancy footwork will have to be done to show how a beginningless series of past events is any more an "actual" infinite than an endless series of equally definite, determinate, and successive future events.

But secondly (and I wish I'd made this point more effectively while we were onstage), I don't see how the non-existence of future events is relevant to the arithmetical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and so on that are involved in the supposed paradoxes of the actual infinite. Let me explain.

Suppose God determines that Wes and Bill will alternate praising him five times. How many distinct praises will occur? (Notice that this is not the same as asking, How many will HAVE occurred at some future time?) The only possible answer is that ten will occur. Now, then, we can ask, What if God had instead determined that Wes will omit all his praises while Bill will behave exactly as in the first scenario? In that case, How many praises will be said? The answer - obviously - is five. The fact that the future praises are non-existent doesn't make it impossible to answer this simple question. The future praises are determinate, discrete, and they can be referred to. That's all we need to make it meaningful to ask, How many will be said?

So how is it relevantly different if - right now - God determines that each of an endless series of distinct, determinate, and successive praises will be said? If it's not relevantly different (and I can't see how it could be), then we are forced to say that infinitely many will be said. But that means that we can reproduce Hilbert's Hotel type paradoxes for the endless future series of praises. If God prevents infinitely many praises one way, only finitely many will be said. If He prevents infinitely many another way, infinitely many will be said. If God determines that Wes and Bill will wait a celestial minute after each of their praises, "room" is made for infinitely many celestial-minute-long praises by a third being.

If anything, it's easier to reproduce the Hilbert's Hotel puzzles for an endless series of future events that God has determined will occur than it is to reproduce them for a beginningless series of past events that have occurred. Because future events have not yet occurred, it is still possible God to make alternative arrangements. The board can be "shuffled" in a way that is impossible for a series of past events.

The only way out for Craig would be to deny that God can determine that each of infinitely many successive praises will occur, on the ground that it is impossible for it to be the case - now - that each of infinitely many definite and discrete praises will occur. But I am sure he doesn't want to go down that road, since it would place an unacceptable limitation on God's power. (To say nothing of God's complete and infallible foreknowledge of an endless future.)