1. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is the Universe eternal?
Outline
Why is there something rather than nothing?
History and overview of cosmological arguments
Two examples:
Leibnizian
Kalam
Objections
Advocated by some of our greatest thinkers Plato -> Leibniz
Quote from Quentin Smith
Is the Universe eternal?
Does God Exist?

2. Introduction We’re venturing into some deep philosophy and physics
It’s worth evaluating even if you’re not trained in these fields
Suppose you’re a detective & found note in Arabic on a body
You can’t ignore it even though you don’t yourself understand it
Dealing with expert witnesses …
Are they speaking in their area of expertise?
Are they testifying to well-established or to speculative theories?
What are the reasons the expert holds the view?
Is the reason within their field

3. Overview of Cosmological Arguments
“A cosmological argument takes some cosmic feature of the Universe – such as the existence of contingent things or the fact of motion – that calls out for an explanation and argues that this feature is to be explained in terms of the activity of a First Cause, which First Cause is God” Alex Pruss
Many of the greatest thinkers have advocated some form of cosmological argument for the existence of God:
Plato, Aristotle, al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Clarke
reads like a Who’s Who of Greatest Thinkers in Western Civilization
Samuel Clarke

4. Cosmological Arguments Worthy of Study
Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith: “the great majority of naturalist philosophers have an unjustified belief that naturalism is true and an unjustified belief that theism (or supernaturalism) is false.” For their naturalism typically rests on nothing more than an ill-informed “hand waving dismissal of theism” which ignores “the erudite brilliance of theistic philosophizing today.” You probably already believe in a Necessary Being:

5. Kalam Cosmological Argument
Whatever begins to exist has a cause
Expecting causes to explain effects is fundamental to science and reason
The Universe began to exist
Universe = totality of time, space, matter and energy
Therefore, the Universe has a cause
Define Universe – totality of space, time, matter and energy
Moreover, the personhood of the first cause is also implied since the origin of an effect with a beginning is a cause without a beginning. We’ve seen that the beginning of the Universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the Universe into existence. Now this is very peculiar. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect that it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this happen? If the sufficient conditions for the cause are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? How can the cause exist without its effect?
There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the Universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a Universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist.9 So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal Universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

6. Has the Universe Always Existed? What does Science Say?
Leading cosmologist Vilenkin developed models attempting to extend Universe into eternal past but now believes it’s impossible:
“With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal Universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”
Based on Borde-Vilenkin-Guth (BVG) theorem (2003)
His “proof” depends only on well-established physics
Only assumption is that Universe has on average expanded
If that is violated, run into roadblock with 2nd law of thermodynamics
Eternal Universe would have already reached state of equilibrium
Usable energy would have been used up by now
2nd law problem – talk about “energy problem”
Mention coffee cup analogy
Davies: “Universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would have reached its equilibrium end state an infinite time ago. Conclusion: the Universe did not always exist.”
Quote from Many Worlds in One
Vilenkin acknowledges that a scientific explanation of the creation seems “to be impossible”
He remains an agnostic but sees theistic implications
“Religion is not immune to the paradoxes of Creation”
Raises the “Who Made God?” objection

7. Philosophical arguments against an eternal past Peter Williams’s Book Analogy
Suppose I ask you to loan me a certain book, but you say: ‘I don’t have it right now, but I’ll ask my friend to lend me his copy and then I’ll lend it to you.’
Suppose your friend says the same thing and so on…
If the process of asking to borrow the book goes on forever, I’ll never get the book
If I get the book, the process that led to me getting it can’t have gone forever
Somewhere down the line of requests to borrow the book, someone had the book without having to borrow it.
Credit: This analogy is from Peter S Williams, a Christian philosopher
If the process of everything getting its existence from something else went on to infinity, then the thing in question would never [have] existence. And if the thing has ... existence then the process hasn’t gone on to infinity. There was something that had existence without having to receive it from something else… Richard Purtill
Is like the Leibnizian arg
Is like the Kalam arg
Plato’s unmoved mover …

8. Pruss’s cannonball argument against an infinite regress of events being an adequate explanation
An infinite regress of causes cannot provide a complete explanation
At noon the cannonball is at rest and precisely then a cannon is fired. At every time after noon, the cannonball is moving. (Maybe the whole thing takes place in space.)
The cannonball ball is moving at 12:01 (due to inertia)
The cannonball ball moving at half a minute after noon or a quarter of a minute etc.
This could be stated for an infinite number of times after noon
But this hasn’t explained why the cannonball is moving at all at any time after noon
If the chainwise explanation was a good explanation, then a complete explanation of all the motion of the cannonball could be given without mentioning the cannon. And that's absurd. So an infinite chain does not give an explanation of itself.
If there was no “noon” and no cannon would the infinite chain explain itself?
No! The chain is no more explanatory if there is no “noon” and no cannon. Taking away the real explanation does not turn the chain into an explanation.!
Posted by Alexander R Pruss at 8:40 PM
Sunday, June 23, 2013
You: Why is the cannonball ball moving at 12:01?
Me: Because it's moving at half a minute after noon and there is inertia.
You: But why is the cannonball ball moving at half a minute after noon?
Me: Because it's moving at a quarter of a minute after noon and there is inertia. Don't you see the pattern?
You: I do see the pattern, but why is it moving at any of these times: a minute after noon, half a minute after noon, a quarter of a minute after noon, an eighth of a minute after noon and so on? Why is the cannonball moving at all at any time after noon?
Me: Don't you see, I've explained each item in the chain, and so I've explained the chain!
You should object that as long as I haven't mentioned the cannon being fired, I haven't explained why it is that the cannonball is moving at all. If my chainwise explanation was a good explanation, then a complete explanation of all the motion of the cannonball could be given without mentioning the cannon. And that's absurd. So an infinite chain does not give an explanation of itself.
Now suppose that there was no such time as noon and no cannon. Would the infinite chain then explain itself? No! For the chain is no more explanatory if there is no such time as noon and no cannon. Taking away the real explanation does not turn the chain into an explanation.

9. Kalam Cosmological Argument Summary
Whatever begins to exist has a cause
The Universe began to exist
Therefore, the Universe has a cause
Define Universe – totality of space, time, matter and energy
Moreover, the personhood of the first cause is also implied since the origin of an effect with a beginning is a cause without a beginning. We’ve seen that the beginning of the Universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the Universe into existence. Now this is very peculiar. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect that it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this happen? If the sufficient conditions for the cause are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? How can the cause exist without its effect?
There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the Universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a Universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist.9 So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal Universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

10. But Does the Cause of the Universe Have to be God?
Let’s deduce properties of cause of all of time, space, matter
Timeless, Spaceless, Immaterial, Immensely Powerful
Personal
Conditions prior to the Universe being created never changed
If the cause initiating the Universe always existed, why hasn’t the effect always existed?
An intentional agent would need to cause the Universe
Therefore the cause is plausibly personal
A cause outside nature implies a supernatural agent !
It’s hard for something to look more miraculous than the coming into being of space, time, matter and energy from a complete absence of these!
Define Universe – totality of space, time, matter and energy
Moreover, the personhood of the first cause is also implied since the origin of an effect with a beginning is a cause without a beginning. We’ve seen that the beginning of the Universe was the effect of a first cause. By the nature of the case that cause cannot have a beginning of its existence or any prior cause. It just exists changelessly without beginning, and a finite time ago it brought the Universe into existence. Now this is very peculiar. The cause is in some sense eternal and yet the effect that it produced is not eternal but began to exist a finite time ago. How can this happen? If the sufficient conditions for the cause are eternal, then why isn’t the effect also eternal? How can a first event come to exist if the cause of that event exists changelessly and eternally? How can the cause exist without its effect?
There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the Universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a Universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist.9 So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal Universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

11. Alex Pruss’s Argument from Contingency
Definition (Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy):
“It is commonly accepted that there are two sorts of existent entities: those that exist but could have failed to exist, and those that could not have failed to exist. Entities of the first sort are contingent beings; entities of the second sort are necessary beings.”
Every contingent fact has an explanation
There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts
Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact
This explanation must involve a necessary being
Else it’s part of the set of contingent facts
This necessary being is God

12. Cosmological Argument Background
The view that contingent facts need an explanation is called the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)
These arguments require only a weak form of PSR
This principle is fundamental to doing science
We look for explanations for things that could have been otherwise
Consider common claim of skeptics: “If we don’t accept naturalism, we will give up too quickly and settle for supernatural explanations.“
This presupposes belief in PSR
Einstein not only believed in PSR and but was bothered if the reason wasn’t deterministic but only probabilistic – “God doesn’t play dice”

13. Argument for Koon’s epistemological argument
Once we admit that some contingent states of affairs have no explanations, a completely new skeptical scenario becomes possible: your perceptual states are occurring for no reason at all, with no prior causes.
Objective probabilities are tied to laws of nature or objective tendencies, and so if an objective probability attaches to some contingent fact, then that situation can be given an explanation in terms of laws of nature or objective tendencies.  Hence, if the PSR is false for some contingent fact, no objective probability attaches to that fact. 
Thus we cannot even say that violations of the PSR are improbable if the PSR is false.  Consequently, someone who does not affirm the PSR cannot say that the skeptical scenario is objectively improbable.  It may be taken to follow from this that if the PSR were false or maybe even not known a priori, we wouldn’t know any empirical truths.  But we do know empirical truths.  Hence, the PSR is true, and maybe even known a priori.

14. Beware of Straw Men What is a Straw Man argument?
We’ll look at common objections that represent a misunderstanding of the arguments as per Dr. Ed Feser
The argument does NOT rest on the premise that “Everything has a cause.”
Rather it depends on whatever begins to exist having a cause!
“None of the best-known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this … argument.” Edward Feser

15. Bad Objections
2) What caused God?” is not a serious objection to the argument.
What caused God?” really amounts to asking “What caused the thing that cannot in principle have had a cause?”
“What imparted a sufficient reason for existence to that thing which has its sufficient reason for existence within itself and did not derive it from something else?” 

16. More Bad Objections from Ed Feser
More objections that are not serious objections to the cosmological arguments:
“No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause has properties of God”
Aquinas devoted hundreds of pages to this (in the 1200’s)
Many properties arrived at by deduction – timeless, spaceless, immaterial
“The argument doesn’t prove Christianity”
It’s not trying to, just that atheism is false
Important part of a cumulative case
“Science has shown such-and-such” is not a serious objection to (most versions of) the argument.”
Current science seems to tentatively affirm the second premise of the Kalam
But that is unneeded if the philosophical arguments go through
Even the Kalam could never in principle never be disproved (in the strict sense) by science since an infinite past could never proven

17. Who Made God? Question reveals more about worldview blindness
Question assumes everything must have a cause
Theists claim only that what begins to exist must be caused
Most philosophers historically have accepted this
Atheists such as Bertrand Russell posited a self-existent Universe that did not need to have been created or explained!
Cosmological arguments point by deduction to something eternally existent that brings about the first cause
Since time itself had a beginning, an infinite regress of causes is impossible - something is eternal!
We now know that matter, space and time are not eternal
So the question is like asking “Who caused the ‘uncaused first cause’ ?”
A “created God” is not even a coherent concept
Question reveals more about worldview blindness
Objection is fallacy of begging the question
An argument begs the question if your only reason for believing a premise is that you believe the argument’s conclusion
The only reason for thinking that God needs to have been created is presupposing naturalism – which is what you’re trying to prove
There is a great video clip by Copan on the web for this also
Dr. William Lane Craig
If the best explanation always needs an explanation, we’re left with an infinite regress
Another good source:

18. Who Made God? Should God count as a candidate explanation even if we cannot explain Him? Not relevant to Kalam anyway!
You can detect design without knowing origin of designer:
A spaceship of unknown origins found on Mars would rationally be understood as designed
Anthropologists routinely infer cave markings were designed without knowing source
What is the best candidate for ultimate explanation? Each theory has a stopping place
Materialist – matter
Theist – God
Goal is to evaluate evidence for or against the hypothesis that something/someone outside the Universe created it
It’s circular reasoning to exclude possibility that something outside of the Universe created it
Atheists content to posit an eternal Universe as not requiring an explanation
Requiring an explanation to an explanation leads to an infinite regress
Knowledge progresses by providing one level of explanation at a time
At lowest levels we may never know why things work the way they do
Christianity has never claimed nor would accept that God was created
Logic led Plato to conclude that there must be an uncaused First Cause
Note careful wording in premise #1 – God did not begin to exist, similarly if the Universe did not begin to exist we might be justified (this is what atheists have argued)
Could mention Plato/Aristotle logically deducing the need for an uncaused first cause – infinite regress not possible in physical world alone … (Leibniz cosmo arg)
Jay Richards ID the Future
While it’s an interesting an important question to know how designed this spaceship, one can reach the conclusion that it was designed by an intelligent agent (as opposed to purely unguided naturalistic processes such as erosion) without knowing how the designer is.
Mention that science itself would not be possible
Wikipedia background:
Plato (c. 427–347 BCE) and Aristotle (c. 384–322 BCE) both posited first cause arguments, though each had certain notable caveats. Plato posited a basic argument in The Laws (Book X), in which he argued that motion in the world and the Cosmos was "imparted motion" that required some kind of "self-originated motion" to set it in motion and to maintain that motion.[1] Plato posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the Cosmos in his work Timaeus.
Aristotle also put forth the idea of a First Cause, often referred to as the "Prime Mover" or "Unmoved Mover" (πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον or primus motor) in his work Metaphysics. For Aristotle too, as for Plato, the underlying essence of the Universe always was in existence and always would be (which in turn follows Parmenides' famous statement that "nothing can come from nothing"). Aristotle posited an underlying ousia (essence or substance) of which the Universe was composed, and it was this ousia that the Prime Mover organized and set into motion. The Prime Mover did not organize matter physically, but was instead a being who constantly thought about thinking itself, and who organized the Cosmos by being itself the object of "aspiration or desire".[2] The Prime Mover was, to Aristotle, a "thinking on thinking", an eternal process of pure thought.
Note that Greek gods were not good candidates for this because of their fallibility etc.