PART ONE - WLC Responds to a Video Critiquing Him and the Kalam | Reasonable Faith Podcast

Dr. Craig begins a four-part response to an impressive array of scientists and philosophers who address his work on the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:

[InvestigadorTJ]

You did a Phenomenal job responding to the Video

[Oskar]

20:52 Thus we have a contradiction.
Does WLC disagree with this claim?

This is what seemed to peeve the mathematicians. His claiming that it was contradictory rather than just something that seems metaphysically impossible.

[journeyfiveonesix]

Unfortunate that someone did such effort assembling a documentary only to present arguments as if Dr. Craig made a YouTube video years ago and disappeared forever. Never leaving anything besides that for us to think about.

[Maiaproapedeadevar]

Beautiful video and r accurated explanation by William Craig! GOD bless you Sir!

[anflas]

I think that WLC evaded the last objection that malpass brought since the problem is not having a hotel that contains an infinite number of rooms but the problem raises from shuffling the guests and that is not analogous with past moments since presumably the past doesn't change

[ceceroxy]

It would be such an honor to meet and even talk with such a brilliant and great man like WLC.

[Bostonceltics]

I think the problem is Dr. Craig, you are arguing for a beginning In your first premise. They are trying to show you it doesn't necessarily follow that our universe had a beginning, just cosmic inflation, or time has a beginning. The universe (or the structure we call the multiverse) possibly existed indefinitely(eternally).there are even arguments for different cosmological models.so, the first of the kalamdoesnt work in a cyclic cosmology.
Ultimately no one knows. Plus the Kalam breaks down as a fallacy of special pleading for who you "pick" to instantiate.

[cartoune]

29:37 - I don't understand why Malpass's objection is plausible.

He's saying that the Hilbert's Hotel isn't contradictory if you seal everyone in and nobody moves, because of the static nature of the guests? If so, great job figuring that out, but how is that applicable in reality? It may be relevant in a universe where literally nothing ever happened or will ever happen, but it's pretty axiomatic that change happens. One of the primary functions of science in general is to measure change as accurately as possible.

Present change becoming past change seems to align with the idea of guests switching rooms. What happens 10 seconds ago becomes what happened 20 seconds ago as you progress 10 seconds forward, and what was 30 seconds ago is now what happened 40 seconds ago, and so on and so on. So the guests always changing rooms is the only logical interpretation in the framework of Hilbert's hotel.

I'm guessing that's why it was referred to as Hilbert's hotel and not Hilbert's Ever-Expanding Prison.

[matijabandic]

[4:04] Actually infinite number of things leads to self contradictions. Actually infinite number of things is metaphysically impossible." First sentence is about physical impossibility and second sentence is about metaphysical impossibility. Question is if there are difference between physical and metaphysical impossibilities?

[Oskar]

23:06 Why not just model guests leaving the hotel with the set difference operator. It perfectly describes what happens without contradictory results.

Also, with subtraction you can get negative results, which is nonsense in the hotel leaving case.

Set difference gets this feature right again.

[MrGustavier]

22:51 "inverse operations like subtraction and division are prohibited mathematically for trans finite or infinite numbers"

That is incorrect, the surreal numbers formalism is an abelian group for addition on infinite and infinitesimal numbers.

[MrGustavier]

21:52 "the counterintuitive existence"

I though he agreed that we didn't care about the counterintuitive nature, but about the internal coherency.
He admits that he didn't show any internal inconsistency, so why does he go back to counterintuitive ?

I would add that the question illustrated here is solved in an intuitive manner in the surreal numbers formalism, in which the number of guests who have left the hotel in which three people are left would be ω-3, and the number of guests who have left the hotel in which people in odd rooms are left would be ω/2.

[JohnBaskette]

I’m concerned having watched this that Craig is not answering Malpas adequately. Malpas transitioned the argument towards the properties of infinite past sequences. These sequences would not allow metaphysical actions that are not allowed as operations on infinite sets. It’s a good question that I hope he answers next time. But I think they are going on to the next section.

[existential_o]

Joe Schmid (Majesty of Reason) brought up a good point during a rebuttal to Trent Horn's rebuttal concerning Hilbert's Hotel. He points out that if we swap the rooms to days and the people within the rooms to the times in which the angels will sing for God, don't we arise to the same proposed "absurdity?" (I might have potentially misrepresented the argument, but this was how I understood it)

[chrisbera]

As set is never infinite because you can always add another number, thereby showing what you have is is never infinite.

[hollon]

I would LOVE to hear WLC talk about mormonism

[kevinbarbe]

Did WLC noticed that he completly missed the point from the latest comment of Dr Malpass?

[Oskar]

26:24 Again, don't say contradiction to a lay audience. You have a lot of ethos with a lot of Christians. Please be clear with them and just say that you have a hunch that it is metaphysically impossible.

[sjeff]

Great work; I really liked the Grim Reaper analogy. Hope A- and B- theory of time will be addressed in a future video.

[ceceroxy]

Malpass argument counting down from eternity is absurd, you cant count down from infinity, you will always remain at infinity and remain infinitely far away from zero.