Here is Morriston's objection:
Bill's second argument for saying that the cause of the universe must be personal implicitly assumes that there can be only two types of cause – free personal agents who can exist without causing things they are free to cause, and impersonal sufficient conditions that cannot exist without producing their effects. Given this assumption, Bill argues that an impersonal eternal cause could have only an eternal effect. Since he thinks the universe must have a beginning, he concludes that the cause of the universe can only have been an eternal personal agent who freely chose "to create the world in time."
I'll make just two quick points about this. The first concerns Bill's example of a cause that is eternal and impersonal. It's actually an example of a temporal cause that has no beginning! If water had always already been around and had always already had a temperature below zero centigrade, it would always already have been frozen. But on Bill's view, God is not eternal in that sense, since that would involve beginningless temporal duration of just the sort that Bill believes to be impossible.
Here is my second point. Assume that God is eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful, and that He decides to create the universe. It follows that God's decision to create must be as eternal as He is. Given God's omnipotence, His eternal decision to create must be sufficient for the existence of the universe. By the logic of Bill's argument, then, we should conclude that the universe is just as eternal as God's decision to create it. Clearly, something has gone wrong.
Bill's second argument for saying that the cause of the universe must be personal implicitly assumes that there can be only two types of cause – free personal agents who can exist without causing things they are free to cause, and impersonal sufficient conditions that cannot exist without producing their effects. Given this assumption, Bill argues that an impersonal eternal cause could have only an eternal effect. Since he thinks the universe must have a beginning, he concludes that the cause of the universe can only have been an eternal personal agent who freely chose "to create the world in time."
I'll make just two quick points about this. The first concerns Bill's example of a cause that is eternal and impersonal. It's actually an example of a temporal cause that has no beginning! If water had always already been around and had always already had a temperature below zero centigrade, it would always already have been frozen. But on Bill's view, God is not eternal in that sense, since that would involve beginningless temporal duration of just the sort that Bill believes to be impossible.
Here is my second point. Assume that God is eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful, and that He decides to create the universe. It follows that God's decision to create must be as eternal as He is. Given God's omnipotence, His eternal decision to create must be sufficient for the existence of the universe. By the logic of Bill's argument, then, we should conclude that the universe is just as eternal as God's decision to create it. Clearly, something has gone wrong.
WLC's RESPONSE: With respect to Wes's first point, he's quite right to note the difference between a timeless cause and a sempiternal cause (one that has existed temporally and beginninglessly). But this difference is incidental to the argument. What is common to both kinds of being and key to the argument is that in either case the cause exists beginninglessly and changelessly. It is consistent with the kalam cosmological argument to maintain with Alan Padgett that God exists changelessly sans creation in an amorphous time in which temporal intervals cannot be distinguished, and the same question will still arise as to how an effect with a beginning can arise from a beginningless cause. [My two cents]: Analogies are never perfect, and if Wes is going to strain this analogy, then I think that forces us to get technical and state very clearly what we are talking about again: The properties of the cause of the universe are that it is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, and timeless. Now, I think there are actually three options for a timeless cause giving rise to a temporal effect: 1) impersonal causally sufficient, or determinate, conditions; 2) imperosnal causally insufficient, or indeterminate, conditions; 3) free personal agent. Craig rules out (1) correctly, but skips (2). However, since the cause is changeless and matter/energy is never quiescent, it follows that the cause can't be of the (2) sort. Moreover, the cause of the universe is non-physical and non-spatial so how in the world could it be (1) or (2) since those both presuppose a timeless state of the UNIVERSE, but the universe began to exist! Lastly, since the cause of the universe if beginningless and changeless, it follows that it is also timeless but as Ian Hinckfuss has argued, even if the universe were frozen into immobility, there would still be time because temporal duration and measurement are not dependent upon the continuous operation of a clock throughout that time.
Wes's second point—and the one mentioned in your letter—is therefore the real issue. With respect to this issue, as I've explained elsewhere, I agree that God's decision to create a world with a beginning is eternal in the sense that God has a timeless intention that a world with a beginning exist. But, as Wes observes, that mere intention is not enough for a world to begin to exist. What is further needed is a exercise of causal power on God's part (see helpful analysis of free agency by J. P. Moreland, "Libertarian Agency and the Craig/Grünbaum Debate about Theistic Explanation of the Initial Singularity," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 [1998]: 539-54). As a free agent God is able to exercise His causal power without any antecedent determining conditions. That is what differentiates a personal agent from an impersonal cause. Such an exercise is a change in God which plausibly draws Him into time at that moment. Thus, the moment of God's creating the universe is the moment at which the universe begins to exist. So God exists changelessly (though not immutably) without creation with a timeless intention that a world with a beginning exist, and by exercising His causal power brings such a world into being at the first moment of time. Of course, it makes no sense to ask why God didn't exercise His causal power sooner, since there was no "sooner"!
Wes's second point—and the one mentioned in your letter—is therefore the real issue. With respect to this issue, as I've explained elsewhere, I agree that God's decision to create a world with a beginning is eternal in the sense that God has a timeless intention that a world with a beginning exist. But, as Wes observes, that mere intention is not enough for a world to begin to exist. What is further needed is a exercise of causal power on God's part (see helpful analysis of free agency by J. P. Moreland, "Libertarian Agency and the Craig/Grünbaum Debate about Theistic Explanation of the Initial Singularity," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 [1998]: 539-54). As a free agent God is able to exercise His causal power without any antecedent determining conditions. That is what differentiates a personal agent from an impersonal cause. Such an exercise is a change in God which plausibly draws Him into time at that moment. Thus, the moment of God's creating the universe is the moment at which the universe begins to exist. So God exists changelessly (though not immutably) without creation with a timeless intention that a world with a beginning exist, and by exercising His causal power brings such a world into being at the first moment of time. Of course, it makes no sense to ask why God didn't exercise His causal power sooner, since there was no "sooner"!
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