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Defenders: Excursus on Natural Theology (Part 6): The Argument from Contingency Part 2
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A
Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today an excursus on Natural Theology, Part 6.
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For more resources from Dr. Craig, go
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to reasonablefaith.org We've been looking at the contingency argument for God's existence, and last time I offered a defensive premise, one of the argument that everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or else in some external cause. And in defense of this premise, I shared Richard Taylor's illustration of going on a walk through the woods and finding a ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. And if anyone said it just exists without any explanation of its existence, you would think he was joking. Well, it's not just the ball. That this would apply to. Any sort of object you might think of would fit the bill. A tree in your front yard, a car in your driveway, a person who works at your office. In every case, we would say there's an explanation of why that thing exists rather than not. And merely increasing the size of the object does nothing to provide or remove the need for an explanation of its existence. And that leads naturally to the question, then, what is the explanation of the existence of the universe? Now, atheists will typically say in response to premise one, that this premise, this principle of sufficient reason, as it's called, is true of everything in the universe, but they want to exempt the universe itself from the principle. The universe itself is the exception to the rule, and it doesn't need to have an explanation of its existence. Everything in the universe has an explanation of its existence, but the universe itself exists without explanation. And I think this atheist response to the principle commits what has been aptly called the taxicab fallacy. The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, that's a mouthful. Pointed out that the principle of sufficient reason is not something that can be dismissed by like a hack when you arrive at your desired destination. So that when you get to the universe, you can't just say, well, the universe is the exception to the rule that commits the taxicab fallacy of thinking. You can just dismiss the principle of sufficient reason when you get to your explanatory ultimate. Remember, Leibniz does not exempt God from the principle of sufficient reason. He says, yes, God has an explanation of why he exists. He exists by a necessity of his own nature. So Leibniz can't be accused of arbitrarily exempting the explanatory ultimate from the principle of sufficient reason. But that's what the atheist tries to do, he simply says the universe is the exception to the rule. And in so saying that he is being arbitrary, he doesn't give any reason for thinking that the universe should be exempt from the principle. He just arbitrarily exempts it. And that is without justification. Remember the illustration of the ball in the woods? Merely increasing the size of the ball, even until it becomes the entire universe itself, does nothing to remove the need for an explanation of its existence. Notice as well how unscientific this objection is for the whole project of contemporary cosmology, the study of the large scale structure of the universe is devoted to a search for an explanation of the universe's existence. And so this atheist attitude of thinking that the universe just exists without any explanation would actually be a science stopper. It would cripple the project of modern cosmology of trying to explain why the universe exists. So this typical atheist response, I think, commits Schopenhauer's taxicab fallacy. So some atheists have tried to avoid this arbitrariness, this fallacy, by providing a justification for exempting the universe. They try to give an argument for why the universe should be exempted from the principle of sufficient reason. And they will typically say that it's impossible for the universe to have an explanation of its existence, and therefore it is the exception to the rule because it's impossible for there to be an explanation the existence of the universe. Well, now, why is that? What is there about the universe that would make it impossible for it to have an explanation? Well, one pair of philosophers I've read on this says that if there were an explanation of the existence of the universe, it would have to be in some sort of explanatorily prior state of affairs in which the universe did not exist. If this is going to be an explanation of the existence of the universe, then this would have to be some sort of explanatorily prior state of affairs in which there is no universe. But they say that would be a state of nothingness. There would be nothing, and nothingness can't be the explanation of anything, and therefore the universe must just exist inexplicably. Now, if you think about this for a minute, I think you can see that this reasoning is obviously fallacious because in saying that the explanatorily prior state of affairs in which the universe doesn't exist is nothingness, these people are assuming that the universe is all there is, so that if there were no universe, there would be nothing. But in other words, but that Just is to assume that atheism is true. Right? So the whole objection is reasoning in a circle. It's presupposing that there is no God, it's presupposing the truth of atheism, and so it's reasoning in a circle. We can agree that if atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation. We could agree to that. If atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. But the whole question is, is atheism true? You can't just assume that it's true in order to object to Leibniz's argument. So Leibniz would agree that the explanatorily prior state of affairs that explains the existence of the universe is going to be a state of affairs in which the universe does not exist. But it wouldn't be a state of nothingness. Rather it would be God and his will, and that would be the explanation of the origin of the universe. So don't let the atheist get away with assuming that the universe is all there is, because that assumption presupposes the truth of atheism. And that's what is under question. That's what we're trying to investigate. So any comment or discussion about premise one and that defense of it? Yes, cash. Dr. Craig, going back to the true of everything in the universe, but not the universe itself atheist argument, would you say that that's the atheist essentially looking for a necessary something out there that they want? They understand that having a necessary thing is necessary, so they attribute it to the universe and not to God? Not typically, Cash. Now, do you hear Cassius question, because this is perceptive, Is the atheist saying when you get to the universe, the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. So the universe isn't an arbitrary exception to premise one, it has an explanation of its existence, Namely, the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. And as I'll say later on, no, that isn't typically what they're saying. I don't know of any contemporary atheist who holds to this position that the universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. Instead, what they say is the universe is the exception to the rule that everything else has an explanation of its existence, but not the universe itself. And as I say, in the absence of some sort of justification for that, that is committing this taxicab fallacy because there's nothing about the universe other than it's just being big that would prevent its having an explanation of its existence. Yes, over here a lot of atheists
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also say that we just don't have the explanation yet, we don't know. So they lean on, you know, kind of hold on, we'll have an answer. We don't know yet when, but we will, we'll figure this out. And agnostic wants to say, I want to know how God created the universe. So we're going to continue with science to develop and research and all that. And us as Christians, I want to know, are we continuing to, you know, do we want to know how God created the universe, or is that just a mystery?
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I think that the person who says what you've just said hasn't understood the argument. This is not an argument to which science is even relevant. You're confusing, or your friend is confusing this argument with the Kalam cosmological argument, which does ask, how did the universe originate? What was the temporal origin of the universe? But as I said last week, in response to Bob's question, Leibniz is quite willing to admit that the universe is past eternal, that it's always been there. So there is no explanation of its origin. It maybe didn't have an origin in a temporal sense. But what Leibniz points out is even an eternally existing universe is still contingent. It doesn't have to exist. It could have failed to exist. Or a different kind of universe could have existed, maybe one with a beginning instead of an eternal one. So just positing the past eternity of the universe doesn't escape this argument. And that means that scientific questions about where the universe came from and how it was created are just irrelevant to this. This is a philosophical argument or a metaphysical argument. It's saying, why is there a space, time, reality at all, no matter how big it is, how wide ranging, whether it had a beginning or no beginning, what its laws are, all of that's irrelevant. What is being asked here is what is the explanation for why there is such a thing rather than not? And that's not a question to which science is relevant. Okay. Yes, over here.
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Yes. Dr. Craig, one thing I have a problem with understanding things with contingency and necessary beings is that you mentioned Leibniz is willing to accept the universe even being past eternal, but it's still contingent.
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Yes.
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And if you can explain to me how is that possible? Because what I've always understood is something's eternal. Of course it doesn't have a beginning. And I think that's one thing I don't want to understand is how can it still be contingent even if it is past eternal?
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Because it could not exist. There could be nothing. Instead, we can imagine another possible world in which there is no universe. Or as I said a moment ago, we could imagine another possible world in which there's a different kind of universe, maybe one that does have a beginning. So an eternal universe is only one of a wide range of logical possibilities, right? And therefore it's contingent that such a thing exists. There happens to exist a universe with a beginning according to the best evidence we have. But that's a contingent fact. And if there had been a universe that is past eternal, that would also be a contingent fact. It's not logically or metaphysically necessary that there be that kind of universe. There could have been one like ours, right? I mean, as long as you can see that there could have been one like ours, then you've got to see that an eternal one is contingent. It's not necessary because you could have had ours instead, like we do have. And so if you think this world is possible, which it obviously is, that shows that that other type of world isn't necessary. If that had been instead. Any other question or discussion?
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Yes, Bruce, this is probably going back into science and out of the contingency versus necessity argument. But if you had an eternal universe, it would be heat dead.
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That is getting into the next argument. We'll talk about thermodynamic properties of the universe when we get to the so called Kalam cosmological argument. But that is a different kind of argument than this one, and that's very important to distinguish the two because objections against one version just won't apply to the other version, particularly ones like we just heard about. Well, maybe science will explain how the universe originated back when that's just irrelevant to Leibniz's argument. Any other discussion of this first premise? Cody, So I was wondering if you could comment a bit. Do you think that.
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Does Peter Van Denenwagen's objection to the principle of sufficient reason apply to this particular version of it or.
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You know, I've read Van Denwagen on this and I think that those who have defended the principle of sufficient reason in a modest form like this, and I'm thinking here, people like Alexander Proust of Baylor University have adequately addressed that. Van Inwagen's objection is to Leibniz's own very radical strong version that every fact, every truth has an explanation. And Van Ingenwegen says that would make everything necessary. If you have that. But this version of the principle premise, one doesn't say every truth has an explanation or every fact has an explanation, just that Every thing that exists has an explanation why it exists rather than not. And that would be found in a necessary being and his will. And given the freedom of his will, the this necessary being can choose to create a contingent reality or not create a contingent reality. And so I don't think this modest version of the principle falls prey to the objections to Leibniz's own very strong version of the principle. And that was one of the reasons that I came to accept this version of the argument. I had been skeptical of Leibniz's argument for many years until I read this reformulation by Stephen Davis, who is a Christian philosopher, using this very modest version of the principle. And I thought, wow, this really makes sense. And it avoids those problems. Kevin,
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this question is really just for my clarification, and for clarification for people who are listening on the podcast, some people would talk about a multiverse.
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Yeah.
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And this argument, even if someone believed in a multiverse, that wouldn't answer the explanation for our universe. The multiverse itself would have to have
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an explanation of its existence. That's the idea, Kevin. Yes, because when Leibniz is talking about universe here, he means all of physical, space, time, reality, including any embedding multiverse that you might want to have our universe be a part of. We'll then want to know, well, why does the multiverse exist rather than nothing, rather than, say, a single universe, why is there a multiverse? And ultimately, I think he's right. You've got to get back to a necessary being which exists by a necessity of its own nature. Now, let me say this about the first premise. This first premise can be reformulated in a more simple way, if you want to. We could reformulate to simply say every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence. And that would be a simpler version that would also be acceptable. Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence. Obviously, if everything has an explanation of its existence, as this premise states, then every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence, right? So they're compatible. But this would just be more modest, that every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence. And then you'd modify premise three to say the universe is a contingent thing, and then it will follow that the universe has an explanation of its existence. So sometimes in my debates, like the one coming up in Germany, in order to make this more accessible to a lay audience who's hearing it orally, I'll use that simpler version of the premise. Every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence. And then use the story of the ball in the woods to make the point. So I hope that will be helpful to you in memorizing the premises and being able to share them with someone else. That's a simpler version. Let's now go on to premise two, which is that that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. Now at first this sounds rather jarring. I remember when I first saw Steve Davis version of the argument, I thought, wait a minute, where does that come from? It seems like a sort of deus ex machina got out of the machine. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. But what Davis pointed out is that the premise 2 is actually logically equivalent to the atheist's typical response to Leibniz's argument. Now what do I mean by that? Two statements are logically equivalent if it's impossible for one to be true and the other one to be false. Two statements are are logically equivalent if they stand or fall together. They can both be true. They can both be false. But if they're logically equivalent, one can't be true and the other false. Now is there any question about what is meant by logical equivalence? Before we move on, would anybody like an illustration of logical equivalence? Okay, here's a real simple illustration. Take the proposition P. P is logically equivalent to double negation, not not P. So those are logically equivalent. If you let the hash mark here represent not P is logically equivalent to not not P. So if you say it's not impossible that Bryant is preaching this morning, that means it is possible that he's preaching this morning. And very often we'll talk in these sort of double negatives. I remember one scientist saying to me once, that's definitely not a non trivial result, which is just to say that this is a significant result. So we sometimes talk in these double negatives. That's not unusual. We say. We just say, well yeah, you can just negate that. That's usual. So that would be an example of logically equivalent statements. So logically equivalent statements are statements which are either both true or they're both false. But one can't be true and the other one false. Any question further about that? Yes, we'll get the mic to you here.
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Could you illustrate two logically equivalent statements where implication is involved?
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Yeah, yeah, actually we can. P implies Q is equivalent to not P or Q, where the V represents or the disjunction. So if P implies Q, that means either not P or Q. That's a simple logical equivalence. And the one that I'M going to appeal to is that if P implies Q, that's equivalent to not Q implies not P. If P implies Q, then not Q implies not P. That's called contraposition. Actually, there's a name for that, logical equivalence. So don't be confused by all of these symbols. This is just illustrative of the idea of statements that are logically equivalent to each other. They're either both true or they're both false. They. But you can't have one be true and the other false. Is that idea clear? I think so. Now consider, what does the atheist almost always say in response to Leibniz's argument? Well, as we saw in our examination of premise one, what the atheist typically says in response to Leibniz is that if, if atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. Remember, he says the universe is the exception to the principle of sufficient reason. The universe just exists inexplicably. He says if atheism is true, the universe has no explanation of its existence. But that's logically equivalent to saying if the universe has an explanation of its existence, then atheism is not true. Right? If atheism is true, the universe has no explanation. If the universe has an explanation, then atheism is not true. Those two statements are logically equivalent. Right? But B, if the universe has an explanation, atheism is not true is virtually synonymous with premise 2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. So the premise two, which might at first blush seem very daring and bold, is really virtually synonymous with what the atheist himself believes. So that premise two is not one that the atheist disputes. If the universe does have an explanation of its existence, then that explanation is God. Any question or comment about that? Defensive Premise two. All right, so in affirming A, the atheist is also implicitly affirming B. And B is virtually synonymous to Premise two. So the atheist himself is affirming Premise two. Now here's a second argument for Premise two. I think Premise two is plausible in and of its own, right? Regardless of what the atheist thinks, I think premise two is very plausible. Just think of what the universe is. The universe is all of space, time, reality, all matter and energy. So it follows that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that must be found in a cause which exists beyond space and time, beyond matter and energy, and is therefore a non physical, immaterial, spaceless, timeless being. This is incredible. The explanation of the universe could only be found in something that transcends space and Time, matter and energy and has created the universe. Now, what possible candidates could there be for such a being? Well, I can think of only two things that could fit that sort of description. Either an abstract object, like a number or other mathematical object, or else an unembodied mind or consciousness. An abstract object you remember, is immaterial, non physical. It exists beyond space and time. It exists necessarily, if it exists at all. It doesn't exist contingently. So an abstract object would really fill the bill very nicely for a transcendent, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, metaphysically necessary being. The problem is abstract objects don't stand in causal relations. Indeed, among contemporary philosophers, that is virtually definitive. For what is an abstract object? What differentiates an abstract from a concrete object is that only concrete objects stand in causal relations. Abstract objects are causally effete or causally impotent. The number seven, for example, has no effect upon anything. So it follows that the cause or the explanation of the universe cannot be an abstract object, and therefore it must be an unembodied mind or consciousness which would be a transcendent, immaterial, non physical, spaceless, timeless personal being who has freely created a contingent universe. So this is clearly a conclusion that is pregnant with theological significance. I hope so that you begin to grasp the power of Leibniz's argument. The explanation of the universe has to be a necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal being. This is not some ill conceived flying spaghetti monster, but this is a being which must exhibit the traditional attributes of God. Truly mind blowing conclusion. Any question or discussion of that defense of premise two, that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. Taylor so what if the atheist were to say something about the philosophy of mind being that they believe that the mind is only material and if you don't have the neurons firing, that you don't have have a mind and therefore it's inherently physical. It's important to see that this argument that Leibniz is giving here is an argument for an immaterial mind. This would be a reason to believe that minds are not just physical or material like brains, but that they are immaterial entities, because that's the only way to explain the existence of a contingent universe. So this is actually an argument for the immateriality and non physicality of mind. Now the atheist probably doesn't believe in minds like that, and so he can then raise objections to this. He can try to give us his proofs for materialism or reductive physicalism and the theist will have to respond to those arguments, but he can't just presuppose it otherwise. You see, he's begging the question. Again, if he just presupposes there can't be a mind, then he's begging the question because this is an argument for such a mind. But if he's got some arguments for reductive physicalism or materialism, great, we'll hear them and see if we can respond to them. Do you see what I'm saying? And typically, the arguments against the existence of mind, I have found, will be based upon human cognition and that in human beings, minds are typically conjoined with brains. And the claim is that they're brain states that correlate with mental states and all the rest of that. But the problem with that is, I mean, at the very best, that would only prove that we are are physical creatures, not minds. But that doesn't show that a mind is impossible. So it's going to be pretty hard, I think, for the materialist or atheist to show that there cannot be an immaterial, transcendent, personal mind that has created the universe. The most he's going to do would be to maybe make that kind of dualism implicit, plausible with regard to human creatures. But then he'd need to extrapolate that to a cosmic creator. And I'm not sure how he would be able to do that. You see the point? Okay, now there was another question over here, I think.
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Drew, I guess, can you clarify the idea of metaphysical necessity? A lot of people get hung up on that. Like, if I say the universe exists and God doesn't, Like, there's no strict contradiction because there's no, you know, we're not contradicting some stipulated definition. But we also don't mean impossible in the way of saying it's impossible to move faster than light. It's impossible to create a perpetual motion machine. So it's not in either of our categories.
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All right? We can rely upon Drew to make things more complicated than we want them to be. What Drew is pointing out here is there are different kinds of. Of possibility and necessity. For example, one would be physical possibility and necessity. It's physically impossible to accelerate an object through the speed of light and make it go faster than light. That's physically impossible. It's against the laws of nature. But there's no logical impossibility with that. There could have been a universe with different laws of nature where you could accelerate something through the speed of light. So that would be a kind of low level Possibility and necessity based upon the laws of nature. Then on the other hand, there's what we could call strict logical possibility and necessity. And here, in order for something not to be strictly logically possible, its opposite would have to involve a contradiction. For example, a married, unmarried man. That would be strictly logically impossible, because there you've said he's married and he's unmarried. Those are strictly logically contradictory. But what philosophers have noticed is that there's a different kind of possibility and necessity beyond these, or different than these. That is usually called broad logical possibility and necessity, as opposed to strict, or sometimes, as Drew said, it's called metaphysical possibility or necessity. And the idea is here, something that could be actual would be metaphysically possible. It's not enough just to be free from contradiction. That would show it's strictly logically possible, but that wouldn't show that it could really exist, that it could be metaphysically possible. And one of my favorite examples is the illustration that Alvin Plantinga gives. Could the Prime Minister have been a prime number? Well, obviously not. Now, there's no logical contradiction in that statement, right? That the Prime Minister is a prime number. There's no strict logical contradiction. But nevertheless, it's obviously metaphysically impossible for the Prime Minister to be a prime number. And if you wonder why, well, just think of the fact that prime ministers are causal agents and a prime number as an abstract object isn't a causal agent. We've already said abstract objects don't stand in causal relations. So it's metaphysically impossible that the Prime Minister could be a prime number, even though there's no strict logical contradiction. So what we're talking about here is a being which is metaphysically necessary in his existence. God is a metaphysically necessary being. So it doesn't refute this. For the atheist to point out that the statement God does not exist doesn't involve a logical contradiction. God does not exist doesn't involve a strict logical contradiction any more than the Prime Minister is a prime number. Right? But that doesn't mean that therefore God is not a metaphysically necessary being. God is metaphysically necessary in his existence, even though there's no strict logical contradiction in saying God does not exist. So that's what Drew is getting at here. He wants me to make it clear that what we're talking about, what Leibniz is talking about, is metaphysical necessity. God exists with metaphysical necessity. The way I cash that out is he exists by a necessity of his own nature. So if these two premises are true, that everything that exists has an explanation of its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. And it's also true that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. Then it follows that God exists by a necessity of his own nature. He is a metaphysically necessary being. Alright, next week we will consider one final objection to Leibniz's argument which will pick up on what Cash said. Suppose the atheist says all right, all right, I withdraw my objection to premise one and I'm going to say instead the universe is a metaphysically necessary being. The universe exists by a necessity of its own nature. What can we say in response to that? All right, let's bow our heads for the benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
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The copyright for the content of this recording is held by Dr. William Lane Craig. For more go to reasonablefaith.org.