How do we know things don't come into existence Ex Nihilo on their own?

Question

The Kalam Cosmological Argument relies on the idea that things don't just pop into existence from nothing, or they don't come into existence Ex Nihilo. However, it seems that it justifies this based on the idea that things don't come into existence ex materia. But what philosophical/evidential basis do we have for this? Couldn't one argue that quarks pop into existence from nothing all the time, but we never observe it because we can't see them?

To clarify: How can we no that things can't just come into existence Ex Nihilo without cause?

Answer 1

Indeed, nothing inherently prohibits things from coming into existence ex nihilo. In physics we build mathematical models of the world. Any model that matches observations could be right, and we prefer models that are simpler, by Occam's razor.

The models do not have to respect our naive notions of causality, or anything else; they may have closed timelike curves, they may have more than one dimension of time. Quantum physics is a respected model of the world that diverges in many ways from our everyday intuitions, with "spooky action-at-a-distance" and superpositions of states.

It's entirely possible to build a mathematical model of the world for which causation does not hold everywhere. Perhaps causation just is not meaningful at the beginning. Causation does not exactly hold in closed timelike curves; in a CTC, time loops back on itself. Perhaps spacetime at the beginning of the universe formed closed timelike curves. Or the universe could have had some other structure that also lacks causality. Or it could have had no beginning, stretching infinitely back in time. These are all mathematical possibilities for models of the universe, and so they could be right, as long as they match observations.

We should not let our everyday notions of causality prejudice ourselves too much about what could have happened at the beginning of the universe, under conditions far outside our experience. In physics, observation is the highest authority, and observation may (or may not) lead us to models that are decidedly non-causal.

Answer 2

You are falling into dualism's a priori logical quandary, as it assumes there was a 'first' cause, a beginning, a start. Second, your question is not logical, as to say that existence 'comes out of' non-existence is to say that the first cause is from that where there are no causes. Third, if it had a 'beginning' then logically it would have to have an end; all of existence would have to end in non-existence as to have a beginning is to be non-eternal. And fourth, when non-existence is spoken of, you really mean the sensual universe as perceived, and not material existence, as to a rock or a stone which has no perception, no rudimentary senses, no consciousness, there is no difference between non-existence and existence.

Plotinus writes at the start of the Third Ennead: Second Tractate in The Six Enneads:

1. To make the existence and coherent structure of this Universe depend upon automatic activity and upon chance is against all good sense.

   Such a notion could be entertained only where there is neither intelligence nor even ordinary perception; and reason enough to be urged against it, though none is really necessary.

Eastern philosophers, both Buddhist and Hindu (Vedanta) assert that there never was a time when there was no existence. The universe goes through cycles of expansion and contraction; but time's arrow goes eternally in both directions, there was an infinite time before us, and there will be an infinite times after us. The real question is perception.

Nagarjuna writes in his Malamahyamakakarika (The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way), Chapter XXIII, Examination of Errors, (Jay Garfield translator):

15. That by means of which there is grasping, and the grasping, And the grasper, and all that is grasped, All are being relieved, It follows that there is no grasping.

16. If there is no grasping, Whether erroneous or otherwise, Who will come to be in error?

17. Error does not develop In one who is in error. Error does not develop in one who is not in error.

18. Error does not develop In one in whom error is arising. In whom does error develop? Examine this on your own!

Buddhists affirm dependent origination, Advaita Vedantists affirm Maya. Both affirm that in order to negate being, you must affirm being. To affirm both terms, is to negate both. Both negate being and non-being. Again, Nagarjuna says (Chapter XXVII):

28. If it could be established that It is both finite and infinite, Then it could be established that It is neither finite nor infinite

29. So, because all entities are empty Which views of permanence, etc., would occur And to whom, when, why, and about what Would they occur at all?

Answer 3

No, you straw man the arguments. This is the same lazy reasoning that Kraus makes. The naturalist equates the immaterial with nothing and then ask how can nothing create something, but the supernaturalist by his own worldview allows himself to think that the existence is possible beyond the physical realms. So yes, traditional concepts of deities are held to be immaterial, but they are not believed to be nothing but something which has a existence outside of our physical realms but still very much something.

If you think critically about it a creator of a universe cannot be physically bound to the universe he creates. The creator must have some sort of existence outside the realms he creates.

The kalam cosmological argument does not say that everything has a cause, but everything with a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning hence it has a cause you can go as far down the casual rabbit hole as you like but the first cause of it all is God. It absolutely allows eternal things to have no cause and fully believe that God is eternal and uncaused.

It was for that very reason that the Einsteinian Agnosticism was so prevalent in much of the intelligentsia of the 20th century. Luckily for the religious the discovery of the background radiation let to a remarkable set of physics discoveries that led to the fact that believing in a eternal and static universe has become an unscientific belief.