Successive Addition, Supertasks, Grim Reapers, and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

In the previous post, I considered William Lane Craig's first philosophical argument for the second premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, viz. The universe began to exist. In this post, I want to consider Craig's second philosophical argument for this same premise. Additionally, I will consider the Grim Reaper Paradox and its application to proving this premise.

Hilbert's Hotel, Set Theory, Presentism, and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is an argument for the existence of God that is broken up into two stages. The first stage of the argument tries to show that the universe has a cause and can be formulated as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The second stage of the argument then attempts to derive various of the divine attributes from the cause of the universe, thus implying that the cause in question is plausibly taken to be God as classically conceived. Perhaps the most prominent defender of the Kalam today is the philosopher William Lane Craig. Craig typically offers two philosophical arguments in support of the second premise of the first stage of the argument (see the syllogism above). In this post, I want to examine Craig's first philosophical argument.