You haven't at all shown that the premises don't reach the conclusion of WLC's Kalam argument. Instead you've merely restated your position that the transcendental shouldn't be mixed with the empirical so I'll restate my original question: why not?
Surely you have heard of the common saying 'one is talking apples, the other oranges' and oil and water don't mix.
I have explained in the above why the contexts are different. Note I have put the matching context in blue. WLC's premises do not follow (non-sequitor) to the conclusion as I had explained while I gave an example that how it should be presented if it is to follow.
Perhaps you still do not get the essence of the word 'transcendental.'
'Transcendental' means relating to things that are confined
beyond and has
no link to the senses and the full range of sensible cognitions, i.e. the empirical. Note the highlighted words.
As such, one cannot use the 'empirical' to justify the 'transcendental'.
In addition, WLC qualified his 'transcendental' has theistic significance.
To the contrary, certain things we observe depend on the transcendental in order to rationally make sense. For example, the intentionality of objects (that objects can be about something) can't be proven on a naturalistic framework. But then again, where would naturalism or even science for that matter be if objects had no value? What would this conversation even be if words didn't even have meaning?
Science is purely objective and thus has no direct link with 'value.' Intentionality is not categorized as 'transcendental' in the philosophical sense, as it is normally associated with the empirical. All intentions are expressed ultimately via the senses, in terms of observations or hearing of works.
If one asserts, God has intentions, then one is conflating the empirical with the transcendental.
When looking at the beginning of the universe from nothing, we are by the very nature of the argument looking for a transcendental cause. Empirical evidence can't answer the question because there were no physical laws, no matter, no time, not even energy before the big bang. Rather than explore the question further, you seem content with narrowing the goal posts to suit a naturalistic framework.
That is the point, empirical evidence and anything that is empirical, e.g. Scientific Cosmology, cannot give answers to a transcendental cause with theistic significance.
'Theistic' means God.
Whilst WLC qualify the debate is not about proving the existence of God, 'transcendent cause' inevitably imply the positive existence of God.
I am not narrowing the goal posts. What I am asserting is conflating and equivocating the transcendental (of theistic significance) with the empirical (scientific) is fallacious and a non-starter. Note below;
Prismatic: As I always has asserted, empirical evidence cannot be used to support the existence of a transcendental God.
It is impossible for God to be empirically real.
It is possible to use transcendental logic to infer a transcendental deistic God, but it cannot prove an empirical real living God that send his son Jesus down to Earth.
Once again, you have merely asserted this without an explanation or reason to back it up. If our metaphysical framework for understanding reality says that God can't exist then all arguments to the contrary will seem fallacious and God an illusion. You haven't proved that God is an illusion but have merely tried to define Him out of existence in the hopes that He quietly goes away.
In above, I did not say 'God cannot exists.'
I said God can be argued to exist with transcendental logic in the deistic sense, but not theistic (a living God) sense.
But if one used Science to support a God, then it has to be an empirical God. An empirical God must pass empirical tests, verifications and justification just like any scientific objects.
Btw, I have proofs to support God is an illusory. It is too tedious to argue it out, so I am not presenting that here.
Of course his main strength was his empirical evidence and his critique of Craig's use of the empirical data. However, I don't think that he would say that his philosophy doesn't work because it mixes the transcendental with the empirical in the same way you do.
From the very beginning of the debate, he stated that naturalism makes better sense of the world then theism and he offered philosophic reasons for thinking so. Even though he differs drastically theologically from Craig, he is still using empirical data to make a theological conclusion (that God is unlikely).
Carroll is not a philosopher. That is why he could not use refined Critical Philosophy to critique like what I am presenting above.
Within the debate, I stated WLC commit the fallacy of equivocation by conflating the empirical with the transcendental.
As the terms were not precisely determined, WLC was able to slide through with this sort of unintentional sophistry.
Even if we failed to expose this refine sophistry, the eventual conclusion (that relied on the empirical cosmology) will not passed the empirical tests.
Say, if one accept WLC's Kalam (equivocation not highlighted) argument, i.e. the transcendental cause is plausible.
The transcendental cause with theistic significance imply the theistic God exists (plausibly, a hypothesis).
This proposition will not pass the empirical tests that a God exists.
This is why a belief in God's existence has to be by faith, i.e. a belief without proofs, reason or rationality.
Note my meta-analysis exposed the fallacy right from the beginning so we don't have to waste time arguing who cosmological theory is right or wrong. That is the business of the cosmological scientists.
As some has said, at least this WLC-Carroll debate enable some to learn more about cosmology and its issues. As far as the plausibility of a transcendental cause thus God exists, that had been moved to the 'Recycled Bin' and removed by credible philosophy-proper.