The syllogism above is predicated on the universe having a beginning. Kant had the same problem too way back when, believing that time was absolute.
These days, quantum physics tends to prove otherwise (see Einstein's Theory of Relativity). Time is no longer absolute, but rather derivatives of how matter and energy are in THIS universe.
Our perception of time is very limited, akin to a belief before the Renaissance that the world is flat. We imagine boundaries exist because of our limited understanding of the cosmos. And the concept of God as being at the edge of these boundaries.
But science has since been slowly proving that there are no boundaries. So where would God be?
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Why restrict it to 2 alternatives --- (a) first cause and (b) infinite regress of causes?
Why not allow a third alternative --- "No cause" --- meaning that the universe came about by spontaneous generation?
The question whether this universe is finite or not is an enduring mystery and therefore scientist will continue to speculate, come up with concepts and theories on the subject. Naturally there would be several schools of thought on the matter.
“Time is no longer absolute”…..that is in fact correct! This is an attribute of a Finite universe a beginning time.
Basic science says that all “physical matter” is finite. Since the universe consists of physical matter then it follows that it too is finite.
There used to be a steady state theory which purports an infinite universe. An idea of a cosmological constant which was later on abandoned by Einstein himself with the discovery of the expanding universe by Hubble. But that has supplanted by BBT which proposes a beginning to space and time. The “new” theory that purports that the universe is eternal removes the big bang singularity from the equation and revives the cosmological constant(once described by Einstein as his biggest blunder).This removes now BBT main concept of a singularity and conclude that the universe had no beginning and therefore eternal….
My bad I did indeed failed to specify the third option in my earlier post. I just lumped them together w/ the infinite succession/multiverse group. So now, let’s look at this option……the universe is uncaused and therefore eternal!
Astrophysicist Janna Levin in her book “How the universe got its spots” writes on the absurdity of infinity. She continues: “No infinity has ever been observed in nature. Nor is infinity tolerated in a scientific theory. The universe is expanding, growing and aging. At one point in time everything was in one place. The universe had a beginning, once there was nothing and now there is something. We’re all intrinsically made of the same substance. The fabric of the universe is just a coherent weave from the same threads that make our bodies. How much more absurd it becomes to believe that the universe, space and time could possibly be infinite when all of us are finite.”
The third mathematical component of the Kalam argument also deals with the concept of infinity which says that actual infinites cannot be traversed! This is illustrated by thinking about an infinitely deep well which has a ladder with an actually infinite number of rungs. If you started at the top of the ladder and climbed down some finite number of rungs, you could climb out again one rung at a time. However, suppose you were to climb out of the well, but there were no definite, finite number of rungs above you. In this analogy, the well stands for the past, the rungs on the ladder stand for each and every past event, and the top of the well is the present. If climbing out of the actually infinite well is implausible, then so too is arriving at the present time if the past is actually infinite.
The BBT is also an argument for the universe being finite with the presence of the singularity. However this too is being somehow tweaked to conform to an infinite universe by removing the very concept that led to its inception…
Thus we could say that actual infinity is not possible as illustrated in the example in the kalam argument and it is also not observed in nature. So the universe cannot be uncaused and is therefore not infinite or eternal. What we are left with is the option that the universe was indeed caused….
