So this will be the second objection I have responded to today that was on the segment Dr. Craig did of the 10 most terrible arguments against the KCA that he has seen. The objection goes like this: "What really 'begins to exist?' All we see is rearrangements of preexisting matter. The only thing that we can really say 'began to exist' is the universe. Since we have never seen anything begin to exist, we have no evidence that things can't come into existence uncaused." I won't mention how the objector is still in a sticky situation even if we grant him his objection, but this is just a terrible, terrible objection that is indicative of youtube atheists and "internet infidels."
We could go into how to distinguish existing things from non-existing things. We could even point to the fact that things come into existence all of the time as thoughts, which is what Anselm alluded to by talking about a being that existed in his mind. But I think a careful thought experiment is in order. I like to think of an Xbox 360 remote controller. That remote controller is powered by batteries. The batteries are made of things like Li-ion and NiCd. That remote is not going to work unless whatever makes up the batteries are arranged in the right way. That is to say, those batteries are only called batteries when they are able to do their intended function. Until then they are not batteries. So if nothing begins to exist, then what does that battery exist as before the combination of its parts? The thing is: It doesn't. If it did we could refer to it as a battery. For me never to "come into existence" I would have to exist before the union of my father's sperm and my mother's egg, but that's nonsensical.
You example doesnt work, the battery is still made up of atoms which do no come into existence when you make the battery, you are just re arranging pre exisitng materials into a different form. You can call that different form a name and say it came into existence, but if the unvierse had a beginning, then the process is nothing like you analogy. If the universe had a beginning then it is not simply a re arrangement of rpe existing materials. When you make a battery it is, when you make a battery there was a prior moment , if the unvvierse had a beginning there was no prior moment.
The distinction that Sam made is important. We have never seen something be created from nothing, but we do see things created from preexisting material, which is what Aristotle would call a
material cause. The former he would call a
sufficient cause. Matter itself could not have a material cause, but it could have a sufficient cause. We don't see causation by creation ex nihlo, but we do see sufficient causes all time.
Yes, my sandwich consists of bread, turkey, cheese, lettuce, and mustard, but that sandwich n did not exist until I put it together, and if it did, it would have existed as yeast, a turkey, cow's milk, and a plant all at the same time. Does that make sense? If I added tomato, which was just a part of another sandwich that Barak Obama gave me (by the objection's logic, it is a preexisting sandwich), would I have two sandwiches? Would the sandwiches be the same?
You see the logical absurdities that this objection brings? Let's grant the objection. All it says is we have no empirical basis of true casualty. What are its implications? That the universe may have existed eternally, but that's nonsensical. I'm sure I don't have go into Hilbert's Hotel to prove we have philosophical reasons to believe the universe has a cause.
God bless.