Chronology violation and the Cosmological Argument

TL;DR

This paper explores how chronology-violating space-times impact the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, suggesting that such violations could be tested through astronomical observations, linking metaphysics with empirical science.

Contribution

It demonstrates that chronology violations undermine the first premise of the argument and discusses potential observational effects, bridging metaphysics and empirical astronomy.

Findings

Chronology-violating space-times violate the first premise.

Such violations require significant energy condition breaches.

Observational astronomy could test these violations.

Abstract

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is perhaps the most solid and widly discussed argument for a caused creation of the universe. The usual objections to the argument mainly focus on the second premise. In this paper we discuss the dependency of the first premise on the topological structure of the space-time manifold adopted for the underlying cosmological model. It is shown that in chronology-violating space-times the first premise is also violated. The chronology-violation, in turn, requires a massive violation of the so-called energy conditions which could have observational effects that are briefly discussed here. Hence, astronomical observations could be relevant for the validity of the metaphysical argument. In this sense, it is possible to talk of "observational theology".