Infinity Is Not A Number, So The Kalam Argument Fails
The concept of infinity is not an actual number. It’s a placeholder for a number beyond our finite conceptions. To see this, just think of an infinite set of even numbers. Now add to that set an infinite number of odd numbers. By adding an infinite set of odd numbers to the infinite set of even numbers we have not increased the actual numbers in that set. So an actual infinite set of numbers does not exist. We could even subtract all numbers with zeros in them, or the numbers 1-1000, or all prime numbers and more, and still have an infinite set of numbers leftover.
With the Kalam argument William Lane Craig's error is in thinking infinity is an actual number. Based on this error he says there cannot be an actual infinite number of past events. Well, of course not. That's because infinity isn’t an actual number. Since infinity is not an actual number we cannot count an infinite number of past events. The way Craig uses infinity assumes there was a beginning an infinite time ago anyway. The truth is that an infinite timeline necessarily lies outside of our epistemic horizons. But this tells us nothing at all about whether the universe is eternal.
I short, the Kalam rests on the claim that infinity is a number. But it isn't. So nothing follows from the fact we cannot count to infinity.
Dr. James Lindsay, a friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in math and wrote the book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly, says:
With the Kalam argument William Lane Craig's error is in thinking infinity is an actual number. Based on this error he says there cannot be an actual infinite number of past events. Well, of course not. That's because infinity isn’t an actual number. Since infinity is not an actual number we cannot count an infinite number of past events. The way Craig uses infinity assumes there was a beginning an infinite time ago anyway. The truth is that an infinite timeline necessarily lies outside of our epistemic horizons. But this tells us nothing at all about whether the universe is eternal.
I short, the Kalam rests on the claim that infinity is a number. But it isn't. So nothing follows from the fact we cannot count to infinity.
Dr. James Lindsay, a friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in math and wrote the book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly, says:
Eternal cosmologies deny the existence of a beginning. Eternal means no beginning and no end. No first moment. No last moment. In an eternal cosmological model, we have to reckon time only from defined moments, and we can imagine a timeline of infinite length in both directions from any point that we choose. The way we conceive of that is not of a beginning infinitely long before or an end infinitely long after but rather as “there’s always an earlier moment than any we describe and always a later moment than any we describe.”He goes on to say,
Now the point isn’t that we know the universe is eternal. It’s that we don’t know that it isn’t. The whole point, by definition, of an eternal cosmology is that there is no first moment (i.e., no beginning).
The Kalam is exactly the kind of cosmology we would expect from people who hadn't yet discovered science…It would be absurd if they weren't so embarrassingly serious.