These are the standard objections to argument #3 on the list provided here...
If nonbeing is a real possibility, then the nonbeing of God is a real possibility. If the argument assumes God is exempt from this premise, then the argument commits the fallacy of special pleading, or if God is assumed at this stage, it is a circular argument because it is assuming in the premises what it is trying to prove.
There is a premise which states... “If the universe began to exist, then all being must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed—literally—nothing at all.” This assumption of “literally nothing at all” is not justified for three reasons: First, it is contradicted by the conclusion that God existed before the universe. Secondly, if time didn't exist until the universe existed there is no such thing as a “past moment before which” it existed. Finally, if there is a "past moment before which" our universe existed, how can the author possibly know what existed there, or didn't exist ?
The premise that “From nothing nothing comes” sounds obvious based on human empirical experiences. But during the last 100 years we have discovered aspects of reality that are counter-intuitive, beyond human intuition and imagination. Things that were unknown to the original author of this argument, 800 years ago. For example, the concept that the total energy of the universe is zero so that our universe is literally an arrangement of nothing. To quote Heinz Pagels … "Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness - a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility."
The argument states that "There must exist something which has to exist, which cannot not exist. This sort of being is called necessary." In fact there is no such thing as en empirical necessity. It is wrong to claim that an existent "thing" is logically necessary. And the claim is contradicted by a previous premise which states that "nonbeing is a real possibility." Several philosophical objections have been raised to this point in the past, notably Hume ... “Whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as nonexistent.” Also Kant famously explored this idea and explained how the concept of “necessary existence” is not meaningful.
Towards the end of the argument, the reference to “something” suddenly becomes a reference to a “being” with no explanation or justification. This appears to be a device used to subsequently support the conclusion that the absolutely necessary “thing” is a “being” from which there is another unjustified leap to the conclusion that the necessary “being” must be God.
This conclusion ignores the possibility that if there was a "necessary thing" it could be a singularity, or a quantum vacuum fluctuation, or a team of godlike "beings", or alien "beings" or any number of alternatives to God including a "thing" that we have yet to discover, and so on... years ago.
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