For part 1 click here. (Warning: if you haven’t read part 1 yet then you should or part 2 won’t make much sense.)
After thinking about the issue a bit more I decided there is a simpler and more elegant way to demonstrate that there is no incompatibility between the first premise of the kalam cosmological argument and libertarian freedom.
Metaphysicians recognize two kinds of causes: agent causes and efficient causes. The difference between the two is that agent causes (e.g. human persons, angels, God) are able to initiate novel causal sequences while efficient causes are not.
Consequently when an agent cause brings about a particular effect (e.g. cherry pie being placed on a cafeteria tray) the ultimate explanation of the event is the agent cause.
Now let’s look at the first premise of the kalam cosmological argument again:
(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
Does this contradict agent causation? No, because all agent causes that began to exist (e.g. human persons) were themselves brought into existence by an agent cause that did not begin to exist (that is, God), which is precisely what the kalam cosmological argument purports to establish.
