Hello, Dr. Craig. I had a question about your first interaction with Alex O'Connor, where you

discussed myriological nihilism.

I believe you were saying that things like chairs and buildings begin to exist because at some

point in the past they did not exist. Alex seemed to suggest that since the material that makes

these objects up already existed, then there is no beginning of a chair's

existence, for example. He said basically it's an arrangement of particles that existed before,

but now in a different arrangement that we arbitrarily call a chair. My question is this. For those that struggle with this type of thinking,

would it be fair to say that any new arrangement of particles is the beginning of its existence

since it was not in that arrangement before? One question asked is, when does a building become a building?

Well, I suppose we could call it a building at any point of its construction.

But I don't think that is the point.

The point is that as you keep constructing the building, it is changing into something new,

something that did not exist before.

So if you were to, let's say, build it one atom at a time,

each atom you stack on top would make it a different thing than it was before, which means something new began to exist. Correct me if I am misunderstanding this line of reasoning. Perhaps this might help the

myriological nihilist accept the first premise of the Kalam cosmological argument. Thank you for

your time. Your work has truly changed my life for the better. Jesse from the United States.

There are a number of different issues that are getting run together here, Jesse.

First, the premise that is under dispute here is not the first premise of the Kalam cosmological argument

that whatever begins to exist has a cause. Something begins to exist roughly just in case it exists

at a time T and T is the first time at which it exists. So understood, this premise is not under

attack by the critic you imagine. Rather, this premise is not under attack by the critic you imagine.

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