Faith and Philosophy

Volume 27, Issue 4, October 2010

Beginningless Past, Endless Future, and the Actual Infinite

One of the principal lines of argument deployed by the friends of the kalām cosmological argument against the possibility of a beginningless series of events is a quite general argument against the possibility of an actual infinite. The principal thesis of the present paper is that if this argument worked as advertised, parallel considerations would force us to conclude, not merely that a series of discrete, successive events must have a first member, but also that such a series must have a final member. Anyone who thinks that an endless series of events is possible must therefore reject this popular line of argument against the possibility of an actual infinite.