In that scenario, an indentation will indeed be produced, once the ball is accelerated by gravitational attraction and thus caused to descend into the cushion. But acceleration is a change in velocity over time, and thus requires the existence of time so that the accelerating force can exist before it exerts its influence over the ball.

Once the ball has sunk into the cushion, however, we do have an interesting situation. The force exerted by the cushion pushes up on the ball, causing it to slow and eventually stop. The ball, meanwhile, pushes down on the cushion, trying to accelerate as gravity requires. The two forces cancel each other out, equilibrium is reached. But what now is cause and what is effect?

Does the ball cause the cushion to deform by sinking down into it, or does the cushion cause the ball to sink by yielding to the weight of the ball? If we replace the cushion with hardened concrete, will we achieve the same result? The ball’s cause does not operate without the cooperation of the cushion’s cause.

The static relationship makes “cause” and “effect” more a matter of one’s point of view rather than of a more strict causality. In strict causality, the forces of the cause produce the observable changes that we call the effect. The static relationship, however, produces no changes at all. What is, simply is. “Cause” and “effect” are merely arbitrary designations for the relationships we observe in stasis.

There may be a place for the concept of “static causal relationships,” but if they exist at all they are a different class of phenomenon than the sort of cause and effect which produces changes. That makes them irrelevant to the question of whether a Creator acted (i.e. produced changes over time) in order to create the cosmos. Acts require time, since an “act” in which nothing changes is not an act at all, and a change is a difference in condition or status at two different points in time.

Thus, no act (of God or aliens or leprechauns) could have resulted in the “beginning” of time. By the time acts were possible, space-time was already here. It would be more correct to say that the beginning of space-time is the cause of God’s ability to act.

But at least you’ve confirmed my main point, which is that there was no time prior to the beginning of the universe for any creative action to take place. Action, too, is a form of change over time, even if it’s only mental action. Imagining, designing, thinking—these are all chronologically-based changes, new ideas being formed that did not exist at an earlier point in time. No time means no action, not even thinking, and thus no Intelligent Design nor creative act. By the time any such action could have occurred, the universe already existed. The universe did not come into being “out of nothing” because there was no prior point in time when the universe did not exist. Hence, the Big Bang disproves Genesis, as literally interpreted.

The problem you are facing is that any kind of change is necessarily going to be dependent on the existence of time, because change, by definition, is a difference in state between two different points in time. Thus, the cause cannot change to produce the effect, nor can any change manifest itself to serve as the effect, unless time already exists. By the time cause and effect are possible, the universe is already in existence.

As for contradicting myself regarding the “beginning” of time, you should re-read my first paragraph.

“they are refuting Geisler and Turek’s claim that it is not possible for something to come from nothing. ”
G&T are arguing that God brought the universe into existence and the only alternative for naturalists is to assert that somehow a singularity (nothing) did this on its own.

“Of course, Geisler and Turek could argue back that these philosophers are simply wrong, and that the phrase “ontological equivalent of nothing” is mere philosophical double-talk and vapid sophistry.”
I hate that kind of talk. “nothing” is an ambiguous term.

“Cause and effect are concepts that assume the existence of time. The cause of an effect must happen before the effect, and “before” is a chronological relationship.”
Here is your fatal flaw. A cause does not have to be temporally prior to its effect. For a thought experiment imagine resting a bowling ball on a couch. The bowling ball certainly causes a sinkage in the couch but the cause and effect are temporally simultaneous. Lesson: a cause is causally prior to its effect but not necessarily temporally prior to its effect.

As we extrapolate backward, we run into strong quantum-gravity effects at Planck scales, and to go further, we need a good theory of quantum gravity, which we don’t have.

Some Xian apologists have a great fondness for the Big Bang, which is very remarkable when one considers how little fondness they often have for evolution. One does not see many of them bragging about how the Bible had described descent with modification on a massive scale.

Metacrock is one of them; he’s fond of arguing that the Big Bang somehow supports the First Cause argument. I mention him because I’ve tangled with him a lot online.

I think we all do that, it is an unavoidable human characteristic. The first step is recognizing the problem of bias, the second step is using a protocol like the scientific method to minimize it as much as possible.

Words seem to fail us when talking about the singularity, reflecting our biases, which is why physicists and mathematicians use formal symbology that is unambiguous as possible in meaning when talking about such things. It take the better part of a lifetime to learn this language, only a fraction of humanity is fluent.

Since they have had spectacular results in the past, I will continue to rely on their skills for the future. For those who wish to find God in the equations, I will pay attention when you are speaking the same language as the physicists.

Also, science is not a philosophy, so I always wonder why the musings of the philosophers are invoked as some sort of evidence in the matter. There is a very good analysis of the subject on Steve Novellas blog here.

I think I’ll go with what the expert physicists say.

That’d be ?CDM – a wee bit* too technical for me.

* Extreme understatement there, in case it’s not obvious.