Cosmological Arguments



Cosmological Arguments (Objective Pro-God Evidence Category #1)Since the dawn of human history, men and women have looked to the heavens and pondered; “Why is there something rather nothing- just what is it that caused the universe to exist in the way that it does”? Certainly, the famous German philosopher and mathematical genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, thought that questions of this sort were amoung the most basic and profound types of questions that a person could ask. For Leibniz, as with myriad other philosophers throughout history, finding the answer to such fundamental questions was of paramount importance for them.It has been the proponents of various “Cosmological” arguments that have largely been tasked with trying to provide an answer to such profound questions in the form of God across the centuries. By taking some “cosmic” feature or aspect about the universe (such as its finitude or its motion, or its very existence itself) and claiming that this feature demands an explanation/cause, then it can subsequently be argued that the explanation in question must lead to a “First Cause” or an “Ultimate Explanation”, one that entails a Being that we typically refer to as God.Traditionally, there have been various types of Cosmological arguments (both deductive and inductive/abductive), but there are essentially three main categories of deductive Cosmological argument; i) the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (i.e. the Argument from Contingency- as per philosophers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz), ii) the Kalam Cosmological Argument (as per philosophers like Dr. William Lane Craig) and, iii) the Thomistic Cosmological Argument (such as the Argument for an Prime Mover as per philosophers like Thomas Aquinas). Typically, versions of the Kalam and Thomistic arguments try to argue for a First Cause by employing a plausible Causal Principle (CP) [i.e. a law of cause and effect for example] for a particular aspect of the universe. Leibnizian versions on the other hand, usually employ a general explanatory principle (such as the Principle of Sufficient Reason/PSR) or a non-local Causal Principle which can then be applied to an infinite causal chain or an eternal universe in arguing for an Ultimate Explanation or First Cause.In response to these types of arguments, skeptics of such arguments have raised four main categories of objection, which the Theist must in turn overcome in order for their Cosmological argument to be successful. These problems include; the “Glendower” Problem (an outright denial that the cosmic feature in question actually has an explanation/cause; this is typically solved via the use of a Causal Principle or “PSR”), the “Infinite Regress” Problem (how to deal with an infinite regress of explanations/causes), the “Taxicab Fallacy” Problem (how does the explanatory/causal principle apply to the First Cause/Ultimate Explanation itself; typically solved by showing the First Cause is different in some non-ad hoc, yet relevant way) and finally, the “Gap” Problem (how do you bridge the gap of deriving the existence of God once one has established a First Cause/Ultimate Explanation).Additionally, there are also some other arguments for God’s existence which can be classified as being of the “Cosmological” type; such arguments take some “non-cosmic” aspect or feature of reality (such as the existence of consciousness, moral values and duties, reason and mathematical concepts or beauty, etc.) and then try to likewise derive a “First Cause/Ultimate Explanation” of these various phenomena in the same way that the “traditional” Cosmological arguments do for “cosmic” features of reality. What’s more, some types of Cosmological arguments use certain “extraordinary” features of the universe to argue for a “First Cause” as well, Arguments from Miracles such as Jesus’ Resurrection from the Dead or from “extraordinary” manifestations of religious experiences all might be said to qualify under the category of “Cosmological” argument.These sorts of non-traditional or what I shall call “Extended Cosmological” arguments take more or less the same logical form as traditional Cosmological ones in that they both seek to provide an explanation/cause for a given phenomenon about the universe and then try to argue that that explanation is none other than God. Of course, depending on the specific type of argument being used, some of the issues plaguing traditional Cosmological arguments may or may not be applicable to “Extended Cosmological” arguments and in turn, some of “Extended Cosmological” argument may have to address additional problems or issues that are unique to the particular feature being assessed in the argument. Our first step will be to evaluate the three “traditional” Cosmological arguments in the light of the four fundamental problems outlined above. In assessing their value, it must be determined if they are successful in overcoming the 4 main skeptical problems outlined above in order to see if any of them can be said to provide warrant for belief in the existence of God (or rather the “God-Final” hypothesis).A. TRADITIONAL COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS:A1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (aka. The Argument from Contingency- Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?):The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, otherwise known as the Argument from Contingency, formally originated with the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and has subsequently been modified and utilized by various modern philosophers such as Stephen T. Davis, Richard Taylor, Ronald Nash, Robert C. Koons, and Alexander Pruss. It is important to recognize that there are various versions of this type of Cosmological argument, each with their own subtle differences in the premises they provide; thus, issues pertaining to some versions of the argument may not apply to others. Consequently, it is important to clarify which version/s of the argument are actually being used to avoid any undue confusion. To that end, we shall be utilizing the version advanced by Stephen T. Davis and as utilized by William Lane Craig (more or less), though mention of some of the other versions of this argument will occasionally be made for compare and contrast purposes throughout our assessment.The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (aka. Argument from Contingency) that we will be using entails the following;Premise #1- The universe [and/or “universe+”] exists (i.e. is an “existing thing”). [Note: the cosmic feature of the universe/+ under assessment in this argument is its very existence].Premise #2- Every “existing thing” (including the universe) has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, either in the necessity of its own internal nature or in an external cause. [Note: this premise posits a Principle of Sufficient Reason or “PSR” as its general explanatory principle].Premise #3- If the universe/+ has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, that explanation is “God-1”.Conclusion: Therefore, the universe/+ has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, and that explanation is “God-1”.Now, this argument is logically valid in that the conclusion follows inevitably and necessarily from the premises. Further, it commits no formal, nor informal logical fallacies and thus, one’s acceptance or rejection of the argument will ultimately come down to whether the argument is logically sound or not (are all the premises provably true on a balance of probabilities). As such, we will proceed to evaluate the soundness of each of the three premises that make up the argument. However, before we turn our attention to evaluating the premises, we first need to make a quick definitional clarification point about our conclusion. It should be immediately obvious that my conclusion doesn’t argue that the explanation of the universe is God (proper), nor even that the explanation is the “God-Final” hypothesis (i.e. the cumulative set of provable non-contradictory properties/attributes of the Being we call “God”); instead, I only argue for the “God-1” hypothesis here.“God-1” can be defined minimally, as a metaphysically necessary Being that explains the universe and entails an intelligent and powerful yet spaceless, timeless, non-physical Person/Agent (or persons/agents) endowed with Libertarian freewill. These attributes are provable directly via the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (and its associated supplemental sub-arguments) and as such, we shall deem them to be the “primary” qualities of “God-1”. However, notice that this definition is only minimal and it therefore can accommodate or incorporate any and all further provable attributes traditionally ascribed to God (or even a particular religious version of God) via the use of other arguments/evidence that establish other non-contradictory attributes of God (the can be considered “secondary” attributes of “God-1”). By using this minimal definition in our conclusion, we thereby avert and/or at least defer the need to prove all of God’s traditional attributes/properties via the Leibnizian argument alone and as we shall see later on, such a minimalist definition can thereby relieve much of the pressure due to the so-called “Gap” Problem.THE LOGICAL SOUNDNESS OF THE LEIBNIZIAN ARGUMENT’S PREMISES:1. Premise #1- The universe [and/or “universe+”] exists (i.e. is an “existing thing”); PREMISE #1- 100% PROVEN TRUE In assessing the first premise of the argument, it behooves us to provide some brief definitional clarification as to what exactly we are claiming. In the first place, by “universe”, I refer to all of spacetime and its contents; for the time being we shall not elaborate on what I mean in the added note about the “universe+”.Beyond that, we need to ask, what does it mean for the universe to be an “existing thing”? Well, for something to “exist”, we mean to say that it stands in the “belonging” relation. To illustrate, we can say that a tiger exists when the essence of being a tiger (the essential properties of tigerness as well as perhaps some other accidental properties) are exemplified by and/or belong to something. Thus, “existence” entails that something has entered into the predication/exemplification and/or “belonging” relation in terms of something instancing a certain essence and/or other accidental properties. The second issue pertains to what it means to be a “thing”. Typically, when most people speak about a “thing” they either consciously or sub-consciously think of substances- unified whole entities which “stand under and uphold or ‘bear up” their properties and relations; thereby exemplifying them into existence via the existence of their underlying property-owner/subject so to speak. Now, there is actually some nuance to being a “thing” that needs to be spelled out as there are different types of unified “things” that exist in Mereology (the study of part-whole relations). The first type of thing is a very loose unity called a heap, this can be homogenous or heterogenous such as a heap of salt or a heap of garbage respectively. Heaps are united solely based on the individual part’s spatial proximity to each other and clearly the “universe” entails a more cohesive kind of unity than the simple spatial proximity of its contents. Substances have the highest order of unity and derive their unity from their own internal essence or nature whereby the whole is prior to its parts and the parts are only unified in virtue of their function within the whole which informs and employs them (e.g. my hand is a part of the substance of Dale and once severed is no longer informed by the whole). Substances maintain the sameness of their identity despite a change in its parts; in the light of the modern atomic theory of matter, most scientists today would deny that the universe would qualify as a “substance” on our definition of the term. In the case of the universe, it seems to be more appropriately classified as a third type of “thing”, a Property-Thing. Property-things derive their unity from an external principle artificially imposed from the outside whereby the parts are metaphysically prior to the whole and thus, the whole’s existence is dependent on the parts and their external relations. As property-things are “mereological aggregates” of their parts, their most notable feature is the fact that the whole does not maintain sameness or “strict identity” through part/relation changes (a raft that loses one of its wooden boards and has it replaced by a new board would be considered to be completely brand new raft).Given this clarified understanding of what it means to be an “existing thing”, it should be obvious that the universe is in fact a unified property-owner/subject (probably a Property-thing rather than a Heap or Substance) that exemplifies/instances certain essential and/or accidental properties and relations which belong to it (such as it having spatial/temporal dimensions, its containing various galaxies, planets and stars, it’s expansion, its age of 13.82 billion years, etc.).As such, this premise should be considered unassailable and undeniable by any “real seeker” after truth; in fact, virtually no one (whether scholar or layperson, atheist or Theist) deny the truth of this premise. The existence of a “thing” called the universe is a notion that is completely uncontroversial and hence using its existence follows in the customary tradition of other Cosmological proponent’s use of grand uncontested facts about reality.That said, perhaps in sheer desperation, an Atheist might try to find a way around this premise by arguing that the universe as we observe it, does not really exist, instead it might be a “virtual world” as opposed to a “base reality”. Of course, this effort on the part of the Atheist entirely misses the point; pretend it’s true and we do inhibit a virtual universe instead of a “real” one, the fact remains that a virtual universe is still a “thing” that exists and as such it too would require an explanation or “sufficient reason” for its existence. Not only that, but this objection creates only more problems for the Atheist/skeptic, because it then implies the existence of an additional “base reality/universe” which hosts or generates the “virtual universe” in which we live; thus, both the “virtual universe” and the “base universe” would then require explanations in their own right.Lastly, the determined Atheist/skeptic may make one last ditch effort to try and avoid the obvious truth of this premise via employing solipsism. Solipsists claim that one’s self is all that really exists (and consequently, the “universe” would be considered nothing more than a figment of that person’s imagination). Once again however, even if we concede that this absurd notion is true, it does nothing to circumvent the Leibnizian argument since we could simply redefine “universe” in this premise to say that “I” exist. Hence, irrespective of whether the universe is merely a non-existent figment of my imagination or not, the need for an ultimate explanation remains.There is no escaping the truth premise (at least not without a total abandonment of rationality), something exists and we all know it! Thus, it is precisely this something that we appeal to in the argument and refer to by using the term “universe”. Again, the need to re-define our terms in the light of the solipsist objection should not be necessary as most “reasonable persons” (Theist, Atheist or otherwise) accept the ontological existence of the universe (in one form or another) as existing externally from themselves, and as such we are able to maintain the usual definition in the premise. I assign a 100% Proven True probability to this premise (a warranted true belief produced via a properly basic belief and the self-evident nature of its truth).2. Premise #2- Every “existing thing” (including the universe) has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, either in the necessity of its own internal nature or in an external cause (the Principle of Sufficient Reason or “PSR” explanatory principle);PREMISE #2- 100% PROVEN TRUE With Premise #1 in place, we have clearly established that something (i.e. the universe) exists and its existence is what is going to serve as our relevant “cosmic” feature in this argument. At this point, the Atheist/skeptic may be happy to concede the existence of the universe (i.e. the truth of Premise #1), but then simply turn around and say, “so what?”As was mentioned in the introductory section above, there are four main problems or “hurdles” that need to be addressed before one can claim to have constructed a successful Cosmological argument. The first of which, as Alexander Pruss calls it, is the “Glendower” problem whereby some cosmic feature may seem to call for an explanation/cause, but in actuality no such explanation/cause obtains; instead the feature in question can be said to simply exist inexplicably. Typically, the way Cosmological proponents are able to overcome this problem is by providing an applicable general explanatory and/or causal principle of some kind to show that an explanation/cause must indeed exist for the “cosmic” feature in question. This is what Premise #2 in our argument attempts to provide. The Principle of Sufficient Reason (or “PSR”) as its been called is a general explanatory principle that is said to apply (or be relevant) in the case of the existence of the universe, thereby entailing that the universe must have a sufficient explanation of its existence as an “existing thing”. If Premise #2 is sound, then the “Glendower” problem would effectively be neutralized in hindering the success of our argument.Now, before we start to get into providing the warrant for the soundness of our second premise, it’s important to clarify some things about the nature of the particular definition of the Principle of Sufficient Reason that we are using in making our argument. It must first be noted that the premise makes reference to two different categories of being/entity (i.e. “thing”); the first are “necessary” beings, beings that exist out of logical necessity where it would be impossible for them to “not exist”; in modal logic terminology, they exist and/or are true in every “logically possible world”. “Contingent” beings on the other hand, while its logically possible for them to exist or be true, it is also logically possible for them to not exist or to be false; hence they only exist (or are true) in some logically possible worlds but not in all such worlds- these types of beings require an external cause to explain their existence. One objection that skeptics have raised to this bifurcation of “things” into two categories of necessary and contingent beings, is that it artificially narrows the range of objects to only two types when really there are further distinctions which should be made. It’s said that the lack of preciseness in this regard can cause some confusion and obfuscates the true number of options available to utilize as potential explanations for the universe in a Leibnizian Argument. One such person, a Christian no less, raised this objection to Dr. William Lane Craig in reference to the specific version of the argument that we are using, he writes;“Dr. Craig, I have some questions about your version of the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (which you call the argument from contingency… The first rejoinder in this group asserts that the first [in our case the second] premise makes a distinction between explanations that are (i) external causes or (ii) internal necessity. But why can’t one make the two additional categories of (iii) external necessity or (iv) internal causes… Accordingly, there should be four categories of beings: (a) necessary, independent beings, (b) contingent, dependent beings, (c) necessary, dependent beings, (d) contingent, independent beings. Since your LCA deals with only the first two, it cannot show that the universe, even if contingent, depends on a being as its cause.”Dr. Craig responds accordingly;“The idea here, I guess, is that in addition to something that exists by a necessity of its own nature and hence is uncaused, there might be things which exist by a necessity of their own nature and yet are caused. But this is plainly incoherent, since if something depends on a cause for its being, then its own nature alone does not suffice to explain why it exists. I agree that, for all we know, there might be things which exist in every possible world but are caused (numbers? moral values?). Still, such things would not exist by a necessity of their own natures even though they exist necessarily (here we see the subtlety and strength of Davis’s argument). So, the category of things which exist by a necessity of their own nature and yet are caused is empty. It is also suggested that there might be things which exist by “internal necessity.” If this is supposed to be different than something that exists by a necessity of its own nature, the only sense I can make of this suggestion is something that is self-caused. But that notion doesn’t make sense, since it would require something to be explanatorily prior to itself. So again, this category is empty. The point of premise (1) is to distinguish between two types of beings: those that exist by a necessity of their own natures and those that do not. This is a mutually exclusive and exhaustive distinction. It is further claimed that those things that do not exist by a necessity of their natures have causes apart from themselves which serve to explain why they exist. In other words, there are no brute contingents. This premise strikes me as very plausible…. So, the four categories of beings you list are more perspicuously labeled: (a) A logically necessary, uncaused being, (b) A logically necessary, caused being, (c) A logically contingent, caused being, (d) A logically contingent, uncaused being. The claim of the argument is that (a) is God, (b) may or may not exist, for all we know, but depends causally upon God if it does [things like numbers, propositions, moral truths/values and duties, etc.], (c) is the stuff we see all around us every day, and (d) is empty, since everything that exists has an explanation of its existence. (What a great argument!)”.Thus, it appears that the version of the “PSR” we are using already takes account of all the various distinctions or categories of beings that can plausibly be appealed to as potential explanations. There are “uncaused” necessary beings which exist out of a necessity of their own internal nature (what the objector calls a “necessary-independent being” on the one hand and everything else on the other; including both “contingent-dependent beings” (like us, dogs, chairs, planets) and possibly, depending on one’s stance on the Realist vs. Antirealist debate, “necessary-dependent/necessary-contingent beings” (i.e. abstract/mental objects like necessary moral values/principles, the laws of logic/philosophical first principles, propositions and mathematical truths).The second clarification item refers to the fact that there are multiple different versions of explanatory/causal principles that one can use in a Cosmological argument (there is not necessarily an one-size-fits all definition that all philosophers utilize in that regard) and as such one must be crystal clear as to what particular version of the “PSR” one is using in their argument before one proceeds. Some versions are extremely strong (some might argue too strong) such as the version advanced by Leibniz himself, whereby he argued that the “PSR” entailed that every fact/true proposition (including both necessary and contingent propositions) have explanations. More recently, Alexander Pruss has adopted another strong version of the “PSR”, whereby he argues that all “contingent” facts/truths have an explanation.By contrast, the “PSR” definition given in Premise #2 of our argument is quite a modest/weak version of the principle. It entirely circumvents many irrelevant skeptical criticisms, as well as the need to engage in unnecessary disputes about the nature and existence (or lack thereof) of abstract objects like numbers and propositions (Realist vs. Anti-Realist debate) or the truth value of facts; there is simply no need to address such issues as our premise is consistent and true regardless of the outcome such debates. Now, it is possible to use an even weaker version of the “PSR” than the one we are employing if need be, namely by merely stating that “every contingent thing has an explanation of its existence”.With the clarifying comments out of the way, we can now proceed to evaluate the warrant (positive and negative evidences) for the truth of Premise #2. Are we warranted in believing that there is such an explanatory principle and that is relevant for our purposes?In answering this question, it is important to recognize that there are two fundamental aspects that need to be established; the first is that there is a “Principle of Sufficient Reason” that applies to “existing things” in general and the second is demonstrating that this version of the “PSR” applies in the particular case of the universe (i.e. there are no justifications for excepting or exempting the explanatory principle in the universe’s case).WARRANTING PREMISE #2: ASPECT 1- THE TRUTH OF THE “PSR” IN GENERALPOSITIVE (PRO-PSR) EVIDENCES;a) Properly Basic Belief & Self-Evidence:The main reason most people believe in the truth of a Principle of Sufficient Reason (or “PSR”) is because, upon reflection, it is self-evidently true in a properly basic way (i.e. via a subjective Properly Basic Belief or “PBB”). This is exactly the same way one can be said to within their epistemic rights In accepting the truth of the logical first principles such as the law of Non-Contradiction or the law of Excluded Middle. One can simply intuitively “know” directly and immediately upon introspection that the “PSR” does in fact apply to things that exist.That said, it is true that often times, people can delude themselves and claim that something is self-evidently true to them, when it is in fact false; and certainly not everyone would claim to have “knowledge” that the “PSR” is self-evidently true via a properly basic belief of their own. However, both of these objections are quite weak in terms of undermining one’s confidence in the PSR’s self-evident nature known via a “PBB”. The existence of counterfeit claims does nothing to demonstrate that one’s own warranted true beliefs (or “knowledge” claims) are likewise false. Of course, since the evidence from PBB’s are subjective in nature (known only directly by the subject of the “PBB”), simply claiming that one “knows” the PSR is self-evidently true in this way will have absolutely no persuasive value to those who are not privy to such evidence themselves. As such, one will need to provide additional objective evidence/reasons to warrant the truth of this premise that the “PSR-deniers” may be more inclined to accept.Another objection raised by some skeptics against the “self-evident” nature of the PSR, is the fact that so many informed philosophers seem to deny it and/or are confused as to what exactly it entails. However, once again, the skeptic raises a very weak point in trying to undermine the “obvious” truth of the PSR; there are multiple explanations which can account for any and all disagreement between philosophers (who are seemingly “in the know” so to speak) on this front. The first could relate back to some kind of degradation of their noetic/cognitive faculties (such as the Christian’s concept of the Fall of Man) but it could also relate to a simple lack of clarity on what exactly the PSR entails. The famous Atheist philosopher David Hume for example, was very ill-informed as to what the “PSR” entailed and his ignorance is what led to his denial of the principle. For example, Hume thought that the “constant conjunction/correlation” relation was identical to the “causation” relation and that a “sufficient cause” must logically entail the effect; Hume is demonstrably wrong on both counts and it is this difference of definition that ultimately explains his denial of the PSR. Hume (like many PSR-denying skeptics) simply misunderstood the principle he was denying and it is unclear whether or not if he had a proper understanding of the concepts involved, he still would have denied such explanatory/causal principles. It is much the same problem in terms of explaining why Hume claimed some things were self-evident to him which contradicted the PSR; Hume mistakenly equated “necessity” with “provability”, but defenders of the Leibnizian Cosmological argument typically employ a notion of “broad logical necessity” rather than the “strict/narrow logical necessity” that Hume had in mind. Broad logical necessity is a much weaker claim than “provability” and as such had Hume understood this distinction, perhaps he may have agreed with the PSR and the Leibnizian argument. Thus, a major factor as to why some skeptics deny the PSR is due to simple ignorance on their part, with little effort many of them could easily educate themselves on the actual concepts being used and thereby embrace the self-evident truth of what most other rational human beings already know to be true. On the “PSR-affirmer’s” part, we must remember that confusion on philosophical terminology such as this causes many unnecessary disputes and does tax the laymen’s patience at times, with a little effort to communicate clearly, many of these obstacles can be mitigated against.Therefore, while I can appreciate that not everyone will be privy to a “PBB” in regard to the self-evident nature of the “PSR” (and/or even if some do have this, they may not share the same degree of confidence as I do in that regard), I nonetheless am convinced that the “PSR”, as defined in Premise #2 of our argument, is generally true based on this line of evidence. I am convinced of this truth in the degree of 100% warrant (Aspect 1 is established). What’s more, I am simultaneously 99%-99.99% Proven/Warranted that the PSR applies not only to the existence of “existing things” in general (Aspect 1), but also applies in the particular case of the existent “universe” as well (Aspect 2). Thus, I obtain warrant in the degree of 99% Proven for both aspects of Premise #2 combined based on this line of evidence alone.Now, before moving on to the next independent argument/evidence for the truth of the “PSR” in general, I first wanted to provide 4 “pragmatic” arguments that don’t necessarily prove the truth of the “PSR” directly (though I do think that at least some of them do provide warrant in this way), but could be used to perhaps “trigger” or jolt a “PSR-denying” skeptic into realizing that, despite their initial denial, they do actually believe in the self-evident truth of the PSR in general via a properly basic belief. In the light of these pragmatic arguments perhaps some such skeptics will realize that they initially denied it as more of an immediate emotional reaction rather than engaging in proper introspection and critical evaluation about its existence/truth. Without the “PSR” we simply have no reason to persevere in searching for explanations as anything and everything could simply exist inexplicably; the following arguments will expose some of the various consequences or implications that result from a whole-sale denial of the PSR’s truth, consequences which are deliberately designed to be “unacceptable” to many Atheists and skeptics.Supplemental Pragmatic Arguments (serving as Properly Basic Belief Triggers);i) Abandonment of Methodological Naturalism (Can Possibly Serve as a Direct PSR Proof):Without a general “PSR” in place, many people will simply give up on finding an explanation too quickly and settle for easy supernatural explanations, just as our ancestors have done throughout human history. Things just happen inexplicably, well that sounds like the random actions of the gods to me and there is nothing an Atheist or skeptic can say to tell me that I ought not make such a snap judgement; what say you skeptic- do you still want to hastily dismiss the PSR’s general applicability now?One skeptical counter to this, could be that instead of needing a PSR, one could simply argue that “typically” there are explanations and “typically” they are natural ones instead of supernatural. Unfortunately, without the PSR, there are serious problems with our ability to measure “typicality”. Without a PSR, why would one type of explanation be more typical than any other? As Alexander Pruss puts it; “As long as there is any chance that something could happen for no cause at all, given the infinity [whether actual or merely potential infinity] of possible events, we would expect chance supernatural and even altogether inexplicable events to be often realized, contrary to observation”. Thus, we would not expect explanations (let alone naturalistic explanations) to be more “typical” than supernatural explanations if the “PSR” is false.ii) Abandonment of the Senses (aka. our Perceptual States- Can Possibly Serve as a Direct PSR Proof):Dr. Robert C. Koons constructed an argument based on Rene Descartes’s famous hyper-skeptical notion of a demon deceiving our senses by creating an illusory world for us to inhabit. Without the PSR, we encounter an entirely new and very scary problem, what if our perceptual states produced by our sense faculties are simply occurring for no reason whatsoever (no explanatory prior causes). This would make modern science impossible- an altogether untenable notion for most modern Atheists and skeptics since we all know that our senses are in fact “generally reliable”. Even in the event of sensory malfunctions support the truth of the PSR since such events require an attached explanation as to their occurrence, but without the PSR, we would expect that inexplicable sensory activations would occur all the time, but they don’t. iii) Abandonment of Ethics/Morality (Can Possibly Serve as a Direct PSR Proof):Moral philosophers and ethicists engage in debate about the morality (or immorality) of various actions all the time. It is considered morally acceptable to redirect a speeding trolley from a track with five innocent people onto a track with only one such person, but yet it is considered immoral to kill one innocent person so as to use his organs to save five other innocent dying people who need them to survive. Why the difference between these two moral situations?Well, without the PSR, one could simply say there is no difference since moral/ethical facts, like any other, can just exist inexplicably as contingent brute facts. Today, we think that it’s immoral to torture innocent people for fun, but without the PSR, this ethical brute fact could change on a dime and we could all suddenly think that torturing innocent people for fun is not only moral, but in fact our duty to carry out. Heaven forbid such a situation should ever occur!However, without a general PSR, we would expect that contingent ethical or moral facts to just change inexplicably all the time. Obviously, unless the Atheist or skeptic is moral monster, he will admit that moral facts are not merely inexplicable contingent brute facts and/or he will at least admit that there seems to be an explanation (of one sort or another) as to why the moral facts are what that are and thus they should remain that way without justification for a change. The fact that we don’t observe abrupt and inexplicable changes in our moral/ethical evaluations each day proves that there is in fact a PSR at play in this regard.iv) Abandonment of Evolution:Suppose someone suggested that the human species arose for absolutely no reason at all- an ape walked into a swamp one day and inexplicably out walked a fully developed human being; without the PSR no one has the epistemic right to balk at such a notion!The reason for this can be illustrated via the use of a comparative parallel example whereby a professor might reason inductively that because all his colleagues whose pet he knows, have dogs and since he knows many of his colleagues’ pets; therefore every one of his colleagues have dogs. This conclusion is clearly illogical since at best, all we are justified in inferring is that every colleague who has a pet, has a dog. What went wrong here? Well, the error occurred because we are reasoning based on a biased sample, namely the small subset of features for which we have already found an explanation.In the same way, without the use of a PSR, proponents of evolution (and/or the traditional notion of common descent via neo-Darwinian natural mechanisms in particular) suffer from the same logical fallacy. They are claiming, based on a small biased sample, that because all the biological organisms (and their physical features) for which we have an explanation can be explained via naturalistic evolutionary means, then this entails that all biological organisms (and their associated features) are explainable via naturalistic evolutionary means. The existence of a PSR would allow us to logically connect the dots to justify this logical inference, but without it, we are reasoning along the same illogical lines as the professor in our parallel example above.There are at least two reasons why a PSR is required to make the claims of current evolutionary biologists (and their supporters) logically justified/warranted, the first is that there needs to be some way to rule out the possibility that naturalistic explanations might just be coincidentally easier to find then supernatural/non-naturalistic explanations. Hence, the fact that all biological organisms where evolutionary explanations have been found is not surprising or indicative in any way; the first explanations we found in our small biased sample just happened to be the naturalistic evolutionary ones because those are the easiest types of explanations to find, without the PSR, who are you to say different skeptic?Secondly as with our parallel example, without the PSR, all we would be logically justified in concluding is that all explanations of biological organisms (and their features) that actually have explanations, have explanations that are naturalistic and evolutionary in nature. As such, the proponent of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has no way of ruling out the idea that human beings (or some other organism that we haven’t yet discovered a full explanation for) came about by an ape or some any other organism for that matter simply walking into a swamp and then inexplicably, out popped a human being emerging from the mist.Quite obviously, most Atheists and skeptics will not be able to abide this kind of notion since as Richard Dawkins himself admits; “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist". Without the PSR, and consequently without evolution, many Atheists and skeptics may need to throw out their Blind Watchmaker books and re-visit some of those old Teleological arguments from design that brilliant Theistic scholars like William Paley advocated for years before Charles’s Darwin came on the scene!b) The God Remnant Argument:Another argument for the general truth of the PSR uses the fact that given God exists, then the PSR is true. God is defined minimally, as a Maximally Great Being and part of that definition includes the fact that God has the attribute or property of “self-existence” or, as it is more properly called, God has the divine attribute of “aseity” (from the Latin, a se meaning “by itself” or “in itself”). The idea here is that since God exists “a se”; He would be the creator and sustainer of all “existing things”. Hence, if God does in fact exist, then the truth of the PSR follows logically in that God is said to be the “explanation” of everything that exists (including the universe, thus simultaneously establishing Aspect 2 of our premise).Now, it will be immediately obvious, at face value, that the use of this evidence appears to be viciously circular (a logical fallacy which would thereby make its use invalid). An argument is said to be viciously circular when the only reason that one accepts a premise is because they already accept the conclusion and since, assuming all my other reasons for accepting the truth of the PSR premise fail, my only reason for accepting this premise would be because I believe that God exists (the very conclusion that the Leibnizian Cosmological argument seeks to prove). However, while the argument would admittedly be circular, it would not be viciously so and thus it is perfectly logical to use the existence of God as a source of warrant for our PSR premise. The reason for this, as Daniel Johnson has argued, is because it is possible that we are obtaining our knowledge about God’s existence (and consequently deriving our knowledge about the truth about the PSR) based on other warranted sources such as from an Ontological Argument and/or a Properly Basic Belief via our “sensus divinatatis” (i.e. divine sense faculty). In time, one’s knowledge about God’s existence via these other means might diminish and perhaps even vanish altogether (as per Romans 1 on the sinful suppression of the knowledge of God by Atheists and skeptics), yet at the same its possible that a remnant of that former knowledge (in the form of their knowing the truth of the PSR) may still obtain. As such, these Atheists/skeptics would be warranted in “knowing” that the PSR is true based on deriving its truth from their former knowledge of existence of God (and its logical entailments); thus such reasoning would avoid any charges of vicious circularity. An illustration of how this might work might be the following; let’s say one gains knowledge that their hotel room is 314 via their sight faculties (a warranted means of obtaining such knowledge) and to help them memorize that number, they derive logically that their room number is identical to the first three digits of π. As such, they memorize that they know their room is 314 in via their sense data (sense of sight) and the additional entailed or derived bit of knowledge about it being identical to the first three digits of π. Later on, they forget what their room number was based on their initial sense data (they lose that bit of knowledge), but still maintain the derived remnant of knowledge that their room number was the same as the first three digits of π; from that, they can derive back to the fact that their room number was 314. It is important to note that reasoning in this way does not provide additional evidence/warrant for the existence of God or the room number (the original warrant for those belief in is now gone), but merely allows one to restore the knowledge that had been lost via the remaining remnant of the entailed knowledge derived from that original belief (i.e. they regain their knowledge in God’s existence and/or that their room number was 314).In this case, the argument may not be desirable for Theists to use, if for nothing other than pragmatic reasons due to the optics or false perceptions of vicious circularity that may arise; however, it may appeal to atheists/skeptics who, unbeknownst to them, do in fact maintain a remnant of their former knowledge of God via their remembering that they somehow “know” that the PSR is true. I will not include this factor in my own calculation, solely for pragmatic purposes in wanting to avoid any hint of circular reasoning on my part, but the fact remains that this line of evidence (i.e. source of warrant) for the truth of the PSR is a valid one and thus should be taken into consideration when assessing the soundness of Premise #2 of our argument. I will tentatively assign a “NOT APPLICABLE” for this factor in my own personal assessment.c) The Epistemological Argument (Probability Possibility Proves the “PSR”):This was an argument for the general truth of the PSR first developed in large part by Dr. Robert C. Koons back in the late 90’s. The first part of the argument details how statistical probabilities work; let’s imagine a 2 sided coin (with a heads and a tails side), the probability of obtaining a “head” after flipping a coin infinitely-many times is based on the frequency of obtaining the “head” outcome that we empirically observe, which is half of the time. Since the “limiting frequency” of getting heads would be 1 out of every 2 coin-flips, we can assign a probability of 1/2 or 50% for the “heads” outcome. The standard justification for leaping from mere empirical frequency to a probability usually comes from the use of the Strong Law of Large Numbers (SLLN) which states that the limiting frequency of large numbers of independent outcomes equals the actual probability of the outcome.That said, the application of the SLLN requires an assumption in order work, an assumption that is a big problem for the “PSR-denying” skeptic. That assumption of course, is the fact that the outcome (i.e. getting heads) is “measurable” relative to the underlying probability measure in the first place. If a certain result (like getting heads) is non-measurable (as would be the case if the PSR is denied), then we wouldn’t expect there to be a limiting frequency at all, but instead we would get a mess of results. The lack of a PSR means that there would be no expectation for a convergence of results to form an overall “measurable” limiting frequency (such as 1/2 in the coin flipping example), instead we would perhaps get 1 head for every 100 flips for bit, then maybe every 1/50 flips is a head for a while, then 1/20,000 flips is a head, etc.; it would just be a complete mess! Our empirical observations on the other hand, do not reveal such a mess to be the case at all and thus, it seems the PSR is true after all. However, it turns out that things are even worse for the PSR-denying skeptic here because it’s not even the case that we would expect to encounter a statistical mess given the denial of the PSR, but with non-measurability in the mix, then the expectation of a limiting frequency would be “maximally non-measurable”. Thus, we can’t say anything about the likelihood or improbability of a certain hypothesis being true compared to others via empirical frequency observations (including the hypothesis that a given event is measurable vs. non-measurable); you just simply can’t get off the ground in this regard.This being the case, in order to do science, we need to posit that physical events are probabilistically “measurable” despite this not being determinable via empirical observation alone; instead we need to a priori assume that all physical events are governed by objective physical probabilities to avoid the “non-measurability” issue. For scientific knowledge through empirical observational evidence to be logically justified the PSR must be true for physical things, and it would be very ad hoc on the part of skeptics to artificially limit this principle to only apply to physical things without due reason).Based on my own personal lack of clear understanding or knowledge on this line of reasoning, I have opted to say that on this source of warrant for the truth of the PSR, I tentatively deem it to be “INSCRUTABLE” for me personally. This may not be the case for those more “in the know” and hence I included it here for those people to consider as a relevant factor in warranting Premise #2 of our argument. ADDENDUM NOTES:I have since discovered the details of how this argument works with respect to the “Measurability Problem” in greater detail. I will not change my overall calculations despite my new understanding but I will provide a couple of sources whereby those inclined to do so, can look into further depth how this argument can be used to prove the general truth of the “PSR”.d) No Widespread “PSR” Violations Argument:Without a PSR, have you ever stopped and wondered why it is that ice cream cones, rhinos, two-headed giraffes, unicorns, and 10 million-dollar cheques made payable to Dale Glover don’t just pop into being out of nothing all the time (ex nihilo)? Denying the existence of the PSR in general, would have the effect that we would expect essentially anything and everything to be popping into and out of existence inexplicably all the time, but this is completely counter to our observational experience of the world and of the observable universe as a whole. Surely, given the potential infinity of possible “things” that could be actualized into existence and the principle of indifference, there is nothing that differentiates or privileges one sort of “thing” from inexplicably popping into existence vs. another kind of thing; and so the question remains, why don’t I have my $10 million dollars and my ice cream cone delivered to me by a supernatural genie yet?The PSR-denier might be tempted to respond that this is because of the constraining limits on the actualizing of potentials (i.e. possible things) by the laws of nature; perhaps some physical law such as the Conservation Law is responsible for limiting what can and cannot come into being for example. Unfortunately for the skeptic, without the PSR, this cannot save you from the force of this argument, as once again, we have to assume a principle of indifference and given the myriad number of logically possible non-natural/supernatural beings which can do non-natural miracles, it is perfectly logical to suppose that non-natural things (things not bound by the laws of nature) in the way naturalistic things are would be popping into existence inexplicably all the time.The thing of it is, I still don’t have my ice cream cone, nor do I see supernatural miracles occurring all the time around me, the reason for this is because there must be a constraining PSR that applies to existent things in general and thereby prevents them from popping into existence inexplicably. I would assign a 99.99%-100% Proven level to the general truth of the PSR (Aspect 1 only) based on this argument.e) The Nature of Modality Argument (A Reductio Ad Absurdum):This argument was developed by Alexander Pruss and as such it was meant to apply to his stronger version of the PSR (i.e. all contingent facts/true propositions have sufficient explanations). However, this is not a problem for our weaker version of the PSR, since the truth of the stronger version is perfectly compatible with our weaker version being true. Remember, in modal logic, a “logically possible world” is a maximal set of propositions that are either true or false relative to the “actual world”. Another point of clarification to note is that “logically possible worlds” so defined are abstract/mental propositions or “things” that may or may not actually exist and as per our version of the PSR only things that actually “exist” (i.e. are actualized in the sense that they enter into the “belonging/exemplification/instancing” relation) are required to have explanations as per our version of the PSR.With the preliminaries out of the way, let us get into the argument proper; essentially, this argument appeals to the fact that we recognize a difference in the modality of certain “existing things”. For example, a square circle is necessarily contradictory and thus logically impossible (i.e. is not a true proposition in any possible world), a horse or a golden mountain are contingent/possible things (true in some possible worlds but not others) and 1+1=2 is a necessary proposition (is true in all possible worlds and could not possibly be false). The argument we are about to make relates to the “grounding” of truth for these kinds of modal facts and in total there have been about 5 major non-revisionist theories that have been offered to provide just such a grounding (some of which are clearly false). In making our argument we shall be focusing specifically on the fifth of these accounts; the “Aristotelian-Casual” account of modality. This is the version that Alexander Pruss uses in arguing for the truth of the PSR because it is the least controversial of the five and can be accepted by Atheists who don’t already accept the truth of Theism.The “Aristotelian-Casual” account of modality entails that we can ground modal facts in something that everyone of us is at least somewhat familiar with- causation. On this view, to say that a non-actualized thing is contingent or logically possible is to say that it could be actualized (come into existence or enter the “exemplification/belonging” relation) provided that something (either an event or substance) with the causal power of directly bringing about (or actualizing) the specific contingent thing in question and/or originating a chain of exercises of causal power capable of leading the contingent thing in question (i.e. cause something that can in turn cause the thing in question to exist and so on and so forth depending on how many intermediary causes might be involved). This cause-effect relation or state of affairs constitutes the difference between necessary and contingent things, whereby a given state of affairs/events is contingent or possible if the “ultimate causal chain initiator” has the ability to cause or not to cause” the state of affairs or thing in question to come about. If the “ultimate cause initiator” must cause the state of affairs or thing in question to exist then that effect is said to be “necessary” (aka. a “necessary-dependent”) thing. This account of modality has the main benefit of reducing metaphysical possibility to causal possibility, the latter of which we are much more familiarity with and therefore have a lot more epistemic certainty as to how it works. To illustrate, on this account of modality, we know that a unicorn is logically possible thing because it would be within the causal powers of neo-Darwinian mechanisms to have produced horse-like creatures with a horn on top of their heads, its merely a matter of rewinding the clock and letting evolutionary history (i.e. the casual chain) proceed differently.With our account of modality in place, we can construct a reductio ad absurdum argument which proves the truth of the PSR. First we can assume the following highly plausible or even self-evident axiom; “If a proposition/thing (p) holds contingently, then it is possible for (p) to be both possible and false”. The reductio comes about because, assuming the PSR is in fact false, causes a logical absurdity to obtain. Let us suppose that “ICC*” represents a contingent thing (such as that delicious ice cream cone I was asking about earlier- aka “ICC proper”) coming into being without an explanation (a denial of the PSR). As per our axiom above, it is possible that “ICC*” does not obtain (or actualize) but is nonetheless possible, as such we can imagine a possible world where this situation obtains (my ice cream cone or “ICC*” could actualize/come into existence inexplicably, but in as a point of act it doesn’t come about in that possible world- thus being possible yet false. Consequently, we would be compelled to conclude that there is a cause in that possible world that could have initiated a chain of causal exercises capable of leading to “ICC*” actualizing or coming into existence, but therein lies the absurdity because such a chain would simultaneously give a causal explanation for an ice cream cone existing with a causal explanation (“ICC proper”) and to that ice cream cone coming about without an explanation (“ICC*”). Therefore, this modal reductio ad absurdum argument clearly leads to the truth of our PSR in general as not only a contingent truth/fact but is true in a metaphysically or logically necessary sense. I assign a 100% Proven level for this evidential factor in relation to Aspect 1.NEGATIVE (CONTRA-PSR) EVIDENCES;a) The Modal Imagination Argument:Theists aren’t the only ones who like to appeal to their modal-evaluating faculties to make an argument regarding the PSR, Atheists as far back as the infamous David Hume have desperately tried to deny the obvious truth of the PSR by claiming that they can imagine (and by implication demonstrate that it is logically possible for) a brick or some other contingent thing to simply pop into existence completely uncaused and/or without any explanation. If this is indeed the case, then the PSR is not a necessary truth and may not obtain in our world.The response to this so-called argument is simple, “No, you PSR-denying skeptics absolutely can’t imagine the logical possibility of a contingent thing popping into existence inexplicably!” Now, this emphatic statement may appear at first blush to be too harsh or dismissive of the PSR-denier, but in actuality it is entirely correct to respond this way (especially given the self-evident nature of the PSR in general). There is a clear distinction between mere imaginability and conceivability and it is only the latter of which that can allow us to rationally deduce what is logically possible or not in modal logic. The two are clearly not identical since it is sometimes possible to conceive of something yet not be able to imagine it (quantum phenomena is an excellent example of such). However, while it is somewhat controversial, I personally believe that the reverse is in fact true, if I can imagine something, then it is necessarily conceivable (and therefore “logically possible” to use modal logic nomenclature). So, unless the skeptic is lying about being able to “imagine” a brick or some other contingent thing popping into existence without cause/explanation, then I must be bound to believe him that it is indeed logically possible for the PSR to be false (and by extension, it could then be the case that it is false in the actual world as well)- has the PSR-denying skeptic won?Well no actually, the PSR-denying skeptic has most certainly not succeeded in his efforts to deny the obvious truth. In the first place, even if it were merely logically possible for the PSR to be false (i.e. is false in at least one logically possible world), it does not follow that it is in fact false in the actual world (especially in light of all the positive reasons to believe that it does in fact generally apply in this world). Secondly, it’s not necessary for me to abandon the logical necessity of the truth of the PSR based on their claims of “imaginability”, nor is it even required for me to say that the PSR-deniers are deliberately lying about their so-called “imaginings” as to its falsity because it is “equally possible” (or rather much more likely than not) to be the case that the skeptics in this case have simply deluded themselves into thinking they have imagined a brick popping into existence inexplicably and thereby conceived of a possible world where bricks and other things can just pop into existence without a cause/explanation. This often occurs with people claiming to imagine something when they are really imagining something else entirely and thus, they are merely deriving a false conclusion based on their imagining something altogether different than what they claim to be able to imagine obtaining. One could hypothetically say that they can imagine an “empty room” for example, but are they truly imagining an empty room or simply a room with walls, air and no furniture inside it- if the latter, then yes of course such a room is possible as it would still have air inside it and a floor and various forces of nature operating in it (and an omnipresent God for that matter). But i imagined a tot is unlikely that any of them have truly imagined a totally “empty” room as such is a logically impossible idea as we shall see later on. It is very controversial to think that someone can truly imagine a pure “vacuum state” of “nothingness”; at the very least it requires that the person doing the imagining be very careful to ensure that his claims do not go beyond what he is actually imagining. Further, they must also ensure that their imaginings are consistent with all the other true propositions of that possible world as a whole; it’s not enough to just imagine the empty room, but one has to imagine the empty room being true in conjunction with all the other relevant features/true propositions of that possible world as well in order to ensure that they are all logically consistent/non-contradictory with each other. Given the sheer number of possible content of an imagined world, it seems very likely (or at least it’s equally possible) that skeptics claiming to imagine a brick popping into existence inexplicably have simply omitted to imagine all the relevant details or features of their claim; certainly one can imagine a brick coming into existence without a brickmaker, or the process of baking clay, or an angel/demon who can supernaturally turn a pile of garbage into a brick (or pile of bricks), but that is not the same as imagining a brick coming into existence completely without cause/explanation. To conceive of this logical possibility, one would need to claim that they could imagine that every possible kind of cause (including any and all currently unknown or unimaginable yet conceivable ones) are completely absent and yet the brick’s existence still obtains. This is quite the tall order for the PSR-denying skeptic, and in my experience I have yet to come across a single PSR-denier who wasn’t merely raising this argument as an emotional reaction to try and evade the conclusion of the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (i.e. that God exists or that the “God-1” hypothesis is true) rather than basing it upon actual deep-reflection and critical thought as to how they might be warranted in bridging the “imaginability-conceivability gap”. The skeptic’s claim here is completely vacuous and unsubstantiated.This “Contra-PSR” argument is an utter failure, the PSR-denying skeptic has totally failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that it is in fact “imaginable/conceivable” and by extension “logically possible” for contingent things in general (such as a brick) to just pop into being uncaused or inexplicably. Not only that, but we know positively, via the positive Nature of Modality Argument above that a reductio ad absurdum (i.e. logical contradiction) arises if we grant the logical possibility of the PSR being false and as a result we know with absolute certainty that it is logically impossible for the PSR-denying skeptic to be correct in saying that he can “imagine” a contingent thing/substance popping into existence without an explanation. I assign a 50% OR LESS PROVEN value to this argument and as such it can be ignored from the overall calculation in terms of its ability to prove that the PSR, as defined by Premise #2 of our argument, is false (on a balance of probabilities).b) The Modal Fatalism Argument:There are two versions of the “Modal Fatalism” Argument that we shall address, the first is the original argument as advanced by Peter Van Inwagen and the second is a probabilistic version of the Van Inwagen argument.i) Peter Van Inwagen’s Original Modal Fatalism Argument;This argument (or something like it) is the main reason why some philosophers (including Christian ones) reject the Leibnizian Cosmological argument. Peter Van Inwagen has constructed a very persuasive deductive argument that serves as a reductio ad absurdum against the truth of the PSR.The following is his Modal Fatalism Argument in premise-format;“Let p be the conjunction of all contingent truths. If p has an explanation, say q, then q will itself be a contingent truth, and hence a conjunct of p. But then q will end up explaining itself, which is absurd. We can formulate this precisely as follows:(11) No necessary proposition explains a contingent proposition. (Premise.)(12) No contingent proposition explains itself. (Premise.)(13) If a proposition explains a conjunction, it explains every conjunct. (Premise.)(14) A proposition q only explains a proposition p if q is true. (Premise.)(15) There is a Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact (BCCF) which is the conjunction of all true contingent propositions, perhaps with logical redundancies removed, and the BCCF is contingent. (Premise.)(16) Suppose the PSR holds. (For reductio.)(17) Then, the BCCF has an explanation, q. (By (15) and (16).(18) The proposition q is not necessary. (By (11) and (15) and as the conjunction of true contingent propositions is contingent.)(19) Therefore, q is a contingent true proposition. (By (14) and (18).)(20) Thus, q is a conjunct in the BCCF. (By (15) and (19).)(21) Thus, q explains itself. (By (13), (15), (17) and (19).)(22) But q does not explain itself. (By (12) and (19).)(23) Thus, q does and does not explain itself, which is absurd. Hence, the PSR is false”. The argument is undeniably logically valid and as such the only question at play is whether the premises are logically sound or not. Before assessing the premises though, it may surprise some of you to learn that this entire argument, even if successful, is (or at least may be) entirely irrelevant in terms of disproving the modest version of the PSR that we have adopted in Premise #2 of our argument. Remember the whole Realism vs. Anti-Realism debate where we chose to deliberately stay neutral on, well this PSR-denying argument depends on one adopting a Realist perspective and claiming that propositions are indeed “things” whereby they would require an explanation (aka. “sufficient reason” as it were). Thus, should one simply deny that propositions and numbers, etc. are in fact “things”, then this entire skeptical argument falls like a house of cards. Bear in mind, this argument is presented as a Negative evidence by the PSR-denying skeptic and as such, it is the “PSR-denier” in this case that bears the burden of proof here. As such the skeptic would first need to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that propositions are indeed “things” (as opposed to some other Anti-Realist notion of that they are) in order for their argument to even get started. In the absence of any kind of positive warrant to take the Realist side (and there are none such that I am aware of), then at least some Anti-Realist options do seem to be “equally possible/probable” to be true and thereby we are able to circumvent this entire argument against the truth of the PSR before it even gets started!That said, I myself personally believe that a Realist conception of “abstract” propositions (as a Divine Conceptualist), and so what about the Realists- must they abandon their belief in the PSR because of this argument? The answer is clearly no, as at least one premise in the argument has not been proven to be logically sound/true.Premise (11) states that “No necessary proposition [or we could even say “thing” perhaps] explains a contingent proposition [or “thing”]; a sentiment shared by Richard Swinburne in his book, The Existence of God, where he says; “Nor can anything logically necessary provide an explanation for anything logically contingent… you [simply] cannot deduce anything logically contingent from anything logically necessary”. The reason for this denial stems from the fact that it is logically impossible (so they say) for a logically necessary proposition/thing to explain a contingent proposition/thing and for that contingent thing to not be logically entailed by the necessary explanation. Thus, logical entailment would prohibit there being any possible worlds where the necessary “thing” is true and yet the contingent “thing” is false (or fails to exist). It would seem that any logically necessary being that explains/causes something to exist would have to thereby entail that those things would be “logically necessary” themselves (i.e. they would be necessary-dependent beings). The problem with this argument, quite obviously, lies in the mistaken notion of what a “sufficient explanation/reason” is, whereby they think that if something “explains” another thing, then this must mean that it logically entails the other thing.What exactly does the “PSR” or Principle of Sufficient Reason [i.e. explanation] that we are using in Premise #2 of our Contingency Argument, actually mean? What does it mean to provide a “sufficient reason/explanation”? Well, stated simply, one is considered to have provided a “sufficient reason/s” when something can be said to explain a given explanandum, whether it logically entails that explanandum or not. This less stringent requirement for the PSR is confirmed to be valid by modern science all the time as scientific explanations, in general, simply don’t aim to give conditions that logically entail the explanandum. Here are a few examples; Statistical explanations such as one smoking 5 packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years explaining/causing people to get lung cancer for example; this is an obvious case in point as such explanations don’t logically entail or necessitate the explanandum (one’s smoking doesn’t logically necessitate or entail that one will in fact get lung cancer), but such explanations are clearly “sufficient” to explain the explanandum despite the fact that they merely render it more probable than not that a given effect will obtain. No scientist or mathematician worth their salt would deny that statistical explanations constitute an insufficient reason in explaining a given phenomenon or state of affairs.Non-statistical explanations such as the sun’s mass explaining/causing the planet’s elliptical orbits. Quite obviously, the planets’ elliptical orbit is not entailed (or logically necessary) given the mass of the sun. Their orbits are merely thus contingent on the fact that there are no other objects in the solar system with a sufficient gravitational influence to effect the planetary orbits (of course without the PSR we would expect such things to be popping in and out of existence all the time contrary to our observations- see Positive Evidence d) above). The point is, no scientist in the world would deny that the sun’s mass (and therefore gravitational influence on the planets relative to the other objects in our solar system) is a “sufficient reason/explanation” for the elliptical orbits of the planets in our solar system and this is despite the lack of logical entailment in the explanation.It is thus readily apparent that logical entailment is too strict a requirement for what one needs in providing a “sufficient reason” or “explanation” of something. Nowhere does the PSR state that everything that exists requires the “best-type” or most preferable kind of explanation, but merely that there must be a “sufficient” reason/explanation. Admittedly, explanations which involve “logical entailment” are preferable to those that don’t and the use of this stricter requirement has been had a long and distinguished pedigree, even going back to Leibniz himself. Consequently, while one may be sympathetic as to why such a false notion seems to prevail amoung so many of the world’s most brilliant philosophers today (both Atheist and Christian alike), we can clearly see that they are in error to demand such for the success of the PSR. On that front, if you are still not persuaded that our definition of the PSR is too loose, then I simply want to echo the humourous sentiments of Alexander Pruss when he says, “But if the reader is not convinced, I can just rename the principle I am defending the “Principle of Good-Enough Explanation”.This argument provides a 50% OR LESS PROVEN level in terms of falsifying the truth of the PSR as used in our argument; it shall be ignored from the overall calculation. ii) The Probabilistic Version of the Modal Fatalism Argument;The probabilistic version of the Modal Fatalism Argument is essentially the exact same argument given by Van Inwagen, except that it substitutes Premise (11) with Premise (28) instead; a premise which states “If q explains p, then P(p|q)>1/2”. Ultimately this argument leads to one arriving at overall probabilities of greater than 100%, which is logically absurd (hence the modified reductio ad absurdum obtains).Unfortunately, this new premise is just as clearly false as its predecessor (Premise 11) in the original non-probabilistic version of the argument. Statistical relevance theories deny the truth of this new premise as it involves a mistaken conflation of “explanation” with mere “prediction”. The famous syphilis/paresis counter-example whereby one’s paresis is “sufficiently explained” via their latent untreated syphilis despite the fact that this only occurs in a minority of cases (less than 50% of the known cases).Furthermore, it is perfectly plausible that an actual cause of something can be filtered through events with a probability of less than 50% and this is typically exemplified in the case of forensic explanations whereby David’s drowning can be “sufficiently explained” by Dale pushing him over a cliff into the water. This explanation would still be considered “sufficient” even if it was the case that David was in fact a professional cliff diver and thereby had only a 25% chance of dying as a result of the push. The fact is, he did die via drowning and his death can be sufficiently (if not fully) explained by Dale pushing him over the cliff.This argument provides a 50% OR LESS PROVEN level in terms of falsifying the truth of the PSR as used in our argument; it shall be ignored from the overall calculation. c) The Quantum Mechanics/Physics Argument:Many PSR-denying skeptics try to appeal to the alleged indeterministic nature of quantum effects to claim that various sub-atomic “things” pop into and out of existence all the time without a sufficient reason/explanation. Notice that it is possible for a skeptic to use quantum phenomena to try and deny the PSR in general and/or if unsuccessful, at least to deny the truth that the PSR applies in the particular case of the universe; this contra-PSR argument, at first blush, seems to be quite the double whammy!With regard to the denial of the PSR in general, one could easily avoid this conclusion by simply claiming that we have proven that the PSR generally applies to macroscopic “existing things” in the universe, thus the quantum world simply constitutes a justified exception/exemption to the general PSR (thus maintaining the validity of Aspect 1). The problem with this solution for the Theist, is that if we choose to take this “escape route”, then the skeptic will simply smile at us and say, “OK, I believe you Mr. Theist, but then I get to deny that the general PSR applies in the particular case of the universe (a denial of Aspect 2). This is because at one time in the very early period of our universe’s history, the universe itself was small enough to be subject to quantum mechanics and hence one could argue that the universe itself probably just “popped” into existence inexplicably, like any other sub-atomic particle/“thing”. Thus, it will not due to simply deny that the PSR must apply to the quantum world, since the PSR must apply to that realm as well as the macroscopic realm in order for Premise #2 to be considered logically sound (i.e. warranted) and for our Contingency argument to ultimately be successful.In the first place, we have already clarified that the version of the PSR we are using does not demand that we find an explanation that logically entails something but merely one that “sufficiently” explains the explanandum (in this case quantum effects). As such, it is clear that quantum effects do indeed have “sufficient explanations” as the very set up of the experiments gives rise to certain emissions with various probabilities attached to them. Thus, even assuming quantum indeterminacy is true, we know from our assessment of the Modal Fatalism Argument above that statistical explanations (even ones involving small probabilities of occurrence) qualify as “sufficient” reasons/explanations.Of course, a skeptic may be unsatisfied with these types of explanations; certainly, Albert Einstein was unhappy with them and expressed as much in his famous statement about God not playing dice- it seemed he preferred a fully deterministic account of quantum phenomena. By way of response, one could simply remind the PSR-denier that our version of the PSR doesn’t entail that everything that exists has the “best possible” or “most preferable/desirable” explanation for its existence, but merely a “sufficient” one (an “explanation enough” to use John Haldane’s terminology). What’s more, in wanting to somewhat vindicate Einstein’s intuitional sentiment above, we are not yet in a position to scientifically rule out a “deterministic” interpretation or model of quantum mechanics and its effects; there are at least 10-12 different “empirically equivalent” interpretations of quantum physics that are all equally viable. Amoungst these models include some “deterministic” ones such as David Bohm’s Pilot-Wave Theory quantum interpretation, and so it may very well be that we actually do have the “better” kind of explanation for quantum effects that even the most radical PSR-denying skeptics demand in order to accept the truth of PSR.This argument provides a 50% OR LESS PROVEN level in terms of falsifying the truth of the PSR as used in our argument; it shall be ignored from the overall calculation. d) The Contrastive Explanation Argument:A final counter-argument that PSR-denying skeptics might raise is with regards to “contrastive” explanations. So, one might ask what is the explanation as to why an electron went up rather than down or why Bob choose to eat an apple rather than an orange (a case of libertarian freewill supposedly exempting or violating the PSR). Thus, it is not enough to merely “explain” why a certain event or thing has come about, but one must also explain why another equally possible/probable event or “thing” has not come about as well.In defense the PSR only stipulates that everything that exists has an explanation for its existence, not that for every pair of contrastive propositions there is an explanation as to why one contrastive proposition was realized vs. another. Whichever proposition ends up being actualized, the fact of the matter is, so long as it has an explanation of its existence then it is perfectly consistent with the PSR to simply have binary explanations as opposed to one with a ternary relation. As such, it is quite fair to say that not all explanations need be “contrastive” ones and hence, our broad version of the PSR can include both contrastive and simple explanations for why a particular thing in question came about or was actualized into existence (without any need to explain why other things did not come about).This argument provides a 50% OR LESS PROVEN level in terms of falsifying the truth of the PSR as used in our argument; it shall be ignored from the overall calculation. WARRANTING PREMISE #2: ASPECT 2- THE APPLICABILITY OF THE “PSR” TO THE UNIVERSE IN PARTICULAROf the various positive and negative evidences given for the general truth of the PSR in warranting Aspect 1 above, some of them could be argued to have any direct relevance in terms of warranting Aspect 2 as well. For example, the Positive evidence from properly basic belief & self-evidence applied both to the truth of the PSR in general (100% proven) and to the applicability of the PSR to the universe in particular (99% proven). Further, the No Widespread Violations argument could be used to make an inductive argument that the PSR probably applies to the universe as an “existing thing” as well. (No need to assign a % value to this argument for my own calculations. A final illustrative example would be the Nature of Modality Argument, simply substitute the proposition of the “universe coming into existence” as the specific contingent fact in question instead of the ice cream cone and this argument would prove that the PSR is necessarily true in the particular case of the universe’s existence as well (since supposing it to be false leads to logical absurdity and contradiction). This latter argument could only be avoided if the skeptic could prove on a balance of probabilities that it was logically impossible for the universe to exist with an explanation or cause; something that is obviously a very tough pill for many to swallow as such a notion seems perfectly conceivable via our modal evaluating faculties (i.e. there is no explicit or implicit logical contradiction entailed by such a notion) and thus the PSR-denying skeptic would be forced to deny not only that the universe doesn’t have an explanation/cause of its existence, but that it’s not even logically possible for it to have had one- that is quite absurd! On the other hand, supposing it’s even possible for the universe to exist without an explanation entails a logical contradiction as per the Nature of Modality Reductio ad Absurdum argument above. I am at the 100% Proven level that it is “logically possible” for the universe to exist with an explanation its existence.Likewise, the Negative evidence from the Quantum Mechanics Argument based on the indeterminacy (and implied inexplicability) of quantum phenomena could be modified to create a possible objection to notion that the universe itself has an explanation of its existence. Since, at one time, the universe was small enough to be a part of the quantum world, it therefore could have come to exist inexplicably in the same way other quantum effects can be said to “pop” into and out of existence without explanation. Unfortunately, as we saw when we addressed skeptical argument above, quantum effects do indeed have “sufficient” explanations regardless of the truth about quantum effects being indeterminate or determinate. In fact, even granting indeterminacy, quantum phenomena relate to mathematical probabilities and thus the Positive argument for the PSR based on Probability will then apply. One could easily argue that the probabilistic nature of the quantum world only further solidifies that the universe itself must have had a sufficient reason or explanation of its existence in the same way other quantum effects do. Lastly, the skeptic has no way to empirically prove that quantum phenomena are not deterministic in the same way macro-level particles and objects are; hence this argument fails to convince either way on a balance of probabilities!Now, apart from those factors, what else might an Atheist try to say about how we can discern whether we are warranted or not in applying the PSR to the universe in particular to try and avoid the obvious truth of Aspect 2?Well, in the first place it must be mentioned that an outright denial that the PSR applies to the universe, without any attempt to justify why the exception/exemption arises from the Atheist, can simply be dismissed as pure skeptical bias on their part. That said, some Atheists desperately try to cling onto the fact that the universe is just so immense that its beyond our comprehension and therefore its sheer size may allow us to turn our brains off and say it just exists inexplicably. However, Dr. Richard Taylor counter this notion by providing the illustration of someone encountering a translucent ball in the middle of the forest during an afternoon stroll; in the light of the PSR, you would be an absolute fool to claim that ball just exists inexplicably. He then goes on to argue that the same would apply equally even if that same translucent ball were the size of the universe; the size of the “existing thing” in question does nothing to obfuscate the application of the PSR to the “existing thing” in question and as such, the size of the universe is just completely meaningless in terms of whether it will have an explanation of its existence or not. Thus, the skeptic who mindlessly or arbitrarily wants to use the PSR for everything else except in the case of the universe (without justification for that exemption/exception) is guilty of committing the “Taxicab Fallacy”; a fallacy whereby one arbitrarily drops the PSR whenever it becomes inconvenient after they’ve arrived at their own desired destination and no longer wish to apply to principle further so as to avoid unwanted results.Another reason to deny Aspect 2 has been advanced by skeptical philosophers Crispin Wright and Bob Hale, who whole-heartedly agree that the explicability entailed by our version of the PSR is in fact the epistemic default position, but then claim that in the case of the universe, one can be rationally justified in exempting (or rather excepting) it from the general principle based on the nature of the universe itself. Their reason for exception lies is in their Atheistic assumption that any physical state of affairs/thing (like the universe) requires a causally-prior physical state of affairs/thing to “cause it”. However, since the universe represents all of physical reality (and of course they simply assume all of reality must be physical in nature), it follows that before the universe there was only a state of nothingness (since to them the only things that exist are physical in nature) and since “nothing” can’t stand in causally/explanatorily prior relations with anything, then there can’t be an explanation for the existence of the universe.The problem here is that these Atheists are plainly begging the question in favour of atheism (or at least physicalism/materialism) whereby they deny the equal possibility/probability of the cause of the universe being some causally-prior non-physical state of affairs/thing (say like one involving God’s freely choosing to create the universe perhaps). Given the Principle of Indifference and the fact that no Atheist has been able to prove the assumption of physicalism/materialism on a balance of probabilities, then it follows that this skeptical counter argument completely fails in convincing an open-minded truth seeker that the PSR does not apply to the universe.Another potential avenue for an Atheist to take in denying that the PSR applies to the existence of the universe in particular, is for them to highlight a key difference between causes and their effect within the universe vs. a cause-effect relationship for the universe itself; namely, the fact that causal relations in the universe take place within time. Thus, the skeptic says that something (an external cause) being causally/explanatorily prior to an effect (such as the universe) entails that it must also be temporally/chronologically prior to that effect. In essence, the objection says that to be able to cause something, the cause must be chronologically prior to that something and since time began to exist with the universe, then it follows that nothing can be chronologically prior to it. Therefore, it follows that the universe must can’t be said to have a cause or explanation.There are at least a couple different ways that the Theist can respond here. The first, is to simply smile, accept the notion that causality requires a chronological priority, and then argue that in the case of the universe, the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument does not suppose that the universe began to exist. So, this argument is entirely consistent with supposing, as many Atheist philosophers and cosmologists continue to do, that the universe (i.e. space/time) is in fact eternal and thus, one can suppose that the universe did in fact have a chronologically prior cause. Of course, the wily skeptic might try to defeat this notion by pointing out that this appeal still doesn’t solve the main problem because sooner or later you are going to have to get to an eternal cause God that causes/explains an eternal chain of causes and effects, at which point the assumed issue of chronological priority will come into effect if God is said to be the First Cause/Ultimate Explanation of everything (including any higher dimensions “hyper-time” and the enteral series of cause and effect within it). It is at this point that the proponent of the Contingency Argument will need to concede that in point of fact, the universe (i.e. space/time) did begin to exist and is thus not eternal in the past (as per the Kalam Cosmological Argument that we will be discussing next) and further that there are issues with positing a “hyper-dimension” of time. So the skeptical objection remains, how can it possibly be the case that a timeless cause can be said to “explain” (as per the PSR) the coming into existence of space and time itself?Well, the answer is quite simple as it is at least “equally possible/probable” for “simultaneous causation” to be correct and thus such can be said to apply in the particular case of the explanation of the universe. It is simply not true that causes have to be chronologically prior to their effects, they could instead be “co-incident” with each other. There have been many such examples of co-incident or simultaneous causative relations that have been cited to prove this is in fact the case. For example, the case of a metal ball resting on a pillow thereby causing a depression on the pillow could hypothetically have existed from eternity past, so that the ball was always on the pillow; but clearly the depression on the pillow is caused/explained by the heavy ball resting on it. So, it is simply not true that a cause has to exist temporally/chronologically prior to the effect in order to be considered explanatorily/causally prior to the effect; they could both obtain simultaneously or “co-incident” with each other. This objection is more closely associated with the Kalam Cosmological Argument and hence we shall wait to give a fuller treatment of it there, but for our purposes, it is important to note that as of yet, no Atheist/skeptic has been able to connivingly argue against the notion of a timeless God simultaneously causing a temporal universe to exist. Therefore, the proponent of the Contingency Argument has every reason to think that the PSR can be applied to space and time itself and that this notion is a perfectly logically coherent scenario to envision. One final way that an Atheist might try to deny the obvious truth of Aspect 2 is by claiming that, while no beings exist necessarily (by their own internal natures), nevertheless it is logically necessary that at least something exist. This was the suggestion of Bede Rundle and others who claim that in the same way one could say that, necessarily, every object has a shape, there is nevertheless no particular shape which each object necessarily has. On this view, while it is necessary that something existed, it can be said that the universe in particular is merely contingent and inexplicable.The rebuttal to this utterly absurd notion is twofold;i) No conjunction of claims about the non-existence of various things (e.g. mountains don’t exist & lakes don’t exist & stars don’t exist, and so on and so forth) logically entails that something like a unicorn or a dragon must necessarily exist.&ii) Nothing about this view explains or accounts for why contingent beings exist in every logically possible world; without a metaphysically necessary being to cause contingent beings to exist in such worlds there is just no sufficient reason/explanation as to why one contingent being or another must inhabit all of the possible worlds. Certainly there is no logical contradiction in a world devoid of contingent beings so it is incredibly ad hoc on the part of Atheists and skeptics to claim that in all the vast infinity of broadly logical possible worlds, contingent beings just inexplicably happen to exist in all of them- this is an immensely improbable hypothesis that strains the bounds of credulity for most, if not all, reasonable persons.All of the Atheistic/skeptical counter-arguments fail to establish that there is probably a justified exemption/exception to the PSR’s applicability in the particular case of the universe’s existence (Aspect 2); all of them are utter failures in this regard. Thus, each of them constitutes a 50% OR LESS PROVEN level in terms of falsifying the truth of Aspect 2 and as such they shall be ignored from the overall calculation. OVERALL TOTAL CUMULATIVE PROBABILITY FOR PREMISE #2- THE TRUTH OF THE PSR & THE UNIVERSE (ESTABLISHING ASPECTS 1 & 2 COMBINED);Premise #2 of our argument seeks to establish two fundamental aspects of our argument in order to overcome the so-called “Glendower Problem”; i) There is a general explanatory principle (i.e. minimally a modest version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason or “PSR”) which states that “every thing that exists, has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence [Aspect 1].And,ii) The general explanatory principle in question applies to the particular case of the existence of the universe (i.e. the explanandum or “cosmic feature” to be explained) [Aspect 2].ASPECT #1 OVERALL ASSESSMENT: With respect to the first aspect, we evaluated various Positive/Negative evidences which are said to confirm/disconfirm the truth of the “PSR” in general. Using the various evidential factors that achieved a 50.01% or higher normative probability value, we can plug those values into the Bayes Theorem formula to calculate the overall cumulative probability for the truth of the existence of a general “PSR” [Aspect 1].On the Positive side, the Properly Basic Belief/Self-Evident Argument achieved a 100% Proven level. The No Widespread “PSR” Violations Argument achieved a 99.99% Proven Level and finally, the Nature of Modality Argument achieved a 100% Proven level.On the Negative Side, none of the various arguments or evidences achieved a 50.01% or higher Proven level and thus all such considerations have been ignored from our calculation.Thus, the total Probability of the truth of Aspect 1 = (100%- PBB/Self-Evidence) * (.9999- No Widespread Violations) * (.100- Nature of Modality) / [(100%)(.9999)(.100) + (1-1)(1-.9999)(1-1]= (100%)(.9999)(100%) / [(100%)(.9999)(100%) + (0%)(.0001)(0%)] = = .9999 / [ (.9999) + (0%)] = .9999 / [.9999] = 1 = 100% Therefore, the overall probability of Aspect 1 is 100% Proven true (it is absolutely certain).ASPECT #2 OVERALL ASSESSMENT: With Aspect 2, we had the Properly Basic Belief in the 99% Proven level and the Nature of Modality argument also held in the 100% degree of warrant in terms of warranting the notion that the PSR applyies to the universe without justified exemption/exception. No other Positive arguments in Aspect 1 were assigned values to prove the case and no other independent positive evidences were presented to warrant the truth of Aspect 2.Therefore, with no “successful” Negative evidences against Aspect 2 (or rather rational justifications for exempting/excepting the PSR in the case of the universe) presented by the skeptic, we conclude that it is 100% Proven that Aspect 2 is true.P(Aspect 2|Evidences) = (99%- PBB/Self-Evidence) (100%- Nature of Modality Argument) / [(.99)(1) + (1-.99) (1-1)] = = (.99)(1) / [(.99)(1) + (.01)(0) = .99/ .99 = 1 = 100% Proven for Aspect 2.OVERALL CONLCUSION FOR PREMISE #2: Premise #2 about the truth of a universe-applicable explanatory principle, in the form of our definition for the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” or PSR, is in fact warranted in the degree of 100% Proven.3. Premise #3- If the universe has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, that explanation is “God-1”;With the PSR in Premise #2 firmly established, we can now conclude that the universe is an “existing thing” that requires a “sufficient explanation” for its existence, either in the necessity of its own internal nature or in an external cause/s; and ultimately we want to say that that explanation is going to be God (or at least the “God-1” Hypothesis). In assessing the warrant for this most controversial premise of our argument, we shall have to overcome the 3 remaining hurdles against the success of any Cosmological argument; namely, the Infinite Regress, Taxicab Fallacy and Gap problems. But first, we must discuss a way to entirely short-circuit the need to warrant the truth of this premise directly. Drs. Stephen T. Davis and William Lane Craig have capitalized on the fact that many Atheists try to argue that “if Atheism is true, then the universe simply has no explanation for its existence; it exists inexplicably merely as a contingent brute fact”. With this admission, the Atheists are thereby also admitting the logically equivalent statement that “if the universe has an explanation of its existence, then that explanation must be God/Theism (and/or minimally, the truth of the “God-1” hypothesis). Therefore, by logical equivalence, it would seem that many Atheists already implicitly accept the truth of Premise #3.However, this is clearly an unsatisfactory way to warrant the truth of Premise #3 as it does seem to be quite circular in simply relying on the acceptance of the Atheist to concur that, if Atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation. There are clearly Atheists who can and do reject that claim. As such, I don’t like this method of argumentation for the truth of this premise, it may serve as an effective short-cut to avoid unnecessary disagreement with Atheists who already feel warranted in accepting the truth of the logically equivalent claim, but without providing actual argumentation/evidence to accept the fact that on Atheism, the universe has no explanation, it is simply a pragmatic or practical way to establish the premise without providing any actual warrant for its truth directly. Accordingly, this consideration will not be a relevant factor in our assessment.So, given that the universe is in fact an “existing thing” (Premise #1) and that every existing thing (including the universe) requires a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, how might we establish that that explanation is “God-1”?PROBLEM #1: OVERCOMING THE “TAXICAB FALLACY” PROBLEM & THE USE OF METAPHYSICALLY/LOGICALLY NECESSARY EXPLANATIONS;i) The Universe Itself is Contingent (i.e. Not “Logically Necessary”):Well in the first place, perhaps the Atheist might try to falsify Premise #3, by simply using the fact that the PSR as defined in Premise #2, allows for two types of “things”; beings that exist out of the necessity of their own internal natures and things that exist due to an external cause/s. As such, the Atheist could potentially take the route of claiming that the explanation of the universe’s (presumably eternal) existence is that it exists out of the necessity of its own nature (i.e. it is a metaphysically/logically necessary thing).This position is largely dismissed by most educated Atheists and skeptics, they simply “know better” than to advance such an obviously fallacious explanation for the existence of the universe. In the first place, most of us have a set of cognitive and modal evaluating faculties which are not so defunct that they can still produce a properly basic belief within us whereby we “know” that it is conceivable (i.e. “logically possible”) for a universe to be different than the one in which we inhabit. The planet Earth may not have formed, or the laws of nature can be conceived to be different than they are in our universe and/or it is even possible to conceive of a world without any space/time or physical objects at all. Our modal-evaluating faculties, when used properly (without malfunction) seem to be generally reliable and Atheists trust them when it comes to arguing that a physical planet like the Earth exists contingently rather than necessarily, and there is nothing different about the physical universe as a whole that would lead us to doubt our modal knowledge of its contingency (this factor provides about 99%-100% Proven that the universe is contingent and not logically necessary).This is especially obvious when we consider that none of the things that make up the universe, such as planets, intergalactic dust, radiation, galaxies, etc., exist necessarily (they could have failed to exist and are thus contingent things). However, a smart alec skeptic might try to be clever at this point and say that while none of the “formed” objects within the universe are themselves necessary, the matter that they are comprised of itself, is nonetheless necessary. The problem with using this line of reasoning, is that according to modern science, matter is composed of “fundamental sub-atomic particles” like quarks and electrons. Every physical thing in the universe is comprised of these fundamental particles at the most basic level, and hence the “universe” just simply is the total collection of all of these particles. The obvious issue here is that one can easily conceive of a logically possible world in which we had an entirely different total set of fundamental particles (different electrons or different quarks, etc.) and this alone would prove the universe is contingent irrespective of whether these new particles held the same spatiotemporal dimensions as the ones that exist in our universe. If a different collection of quarks or electrons existed, then we would have an entirely different universe, but then this proves that our universe exists contingently since it could have been prevented from existing. This relies on the modern scientific “atomic theory of matter” understanding that physical objects/things just are mereological aggregates (i.e. property-things) and thus, by changing any physical part and/or relation in the unified collection, this constitutes the bringing about of an entirely new physical thing (in the case of the universe, this means an entirely new universe would come about). Think of the example of raft nailed together using five wooden planks; if you swap out any one of the five boards and replace it with a new board (physical part), it becomes an entirely new raft. On the other hand, there may be another way for the Atheist to escape here, by claiming that the “fundamental particles” of matter reduce further down to various underlying quantum physical fields but then this requires these quantum fields/underlying laws of the nature themselves to be logically necessary in their own right. But once again, we can conceive of different values for the laws of nature/ quantum fields (the conceivability of the multiverse explanation is a case in point against claiming they are logically necessary) and even if we do say that quantum fields/laws of nature are necessary-dependent “things”, they would still be contingent on the existence of the particular type of “fundamental particles” that exist (i.e. quarks, electrons, etc.). Thus, even this qualification still fails to demonstrate that the laws/quantum fields are logically necessary because our modal evaluating faculties provide us with a properly basic belief that there could very well have been different fundamental particles or substances that might have obtained and thereby an entirely different set of quantum fields/laws of nature. Further, there could very well have been no physical particles/laws of nature at all. This is like saying that a window made of glass would still be the same window even if were made of steel; a logically absurd notion and we all know it!A second way to prove the contingency of the universe is by warranting one of the premises of the next argument for God’s existence, namely the Kalam Cosmological Argument, one of its premises entails that the universe began to exist and hence it hasn’t existed eternally in the past. Since, it is essential property of something being logically necessary for it to be eternal, if something is not eternal, then it can’t be necessary. As such, one could co-opt the truth of that premise from the Kalam argument here in order to prove that the universe is in fact contingent. However, keeping things independent from the Kalam argument for the moment, I don’t even need to prove whether the universe is in fact eternal vs. began to exist because our modal evaluating faculties tell us very clearly that both scenarios (i.e. the universe being eternal or beginning to exist) are conceivable/logically possible. It is perfectly conceivable, a priori, to envision the universe as existing eternally (certainly we can conceive of things existing eternally/necessarily) and on the other hand, it is also equally conceivable to think of the universe as having begun to exist as a contingent thing at some finite point in the past (say 13.82 billion years ago for example) via an external cause. Thus, irrespective of whether the universe is in fact eternal or not, both scenarios are perfectly logically possible and hence there is a “logically possible world” in which the universe is not eternal but began to exist at some point in the past. But if there is a possible world in which our universe began to exist, then it cannot be logically necessary since there is at least one possible world in which it doesn’t exist eternally. This consideration alone provides me with absolute certainty, 100% Proven level/warrant in claiming that the universe does not exist out of metaphysical necessity, but instead exists contingently and therefore requires an external cause/s to account for its existence.ii) Overcoming the “Taxicab Fallacy” Problem & the Casual Efficaciousness of Logically Necessary Beings:The “Taxicab Fallacy” states that the Theist or proponent of a Cosmological argument, can’t use the “PSR” arbitrarily in order to arrive at a First Cause/Ultimate Explanation (i.e. God and/or “God-1”) as the explanation for the existence of the universe and then simply neglect to apply that same explanatory principle to God Himself. As even the most casual of readers will deduce, the very definition of the PSR that we gave in Premise #2 provides the immediate solution to this problem; in the same way the desperate Atheist tried (and failed) to claim that the universe just exists necessarily due to its own internal nature, the proponent of our Leibnizian argument can simply say that God (or God-1) exists necessarily out of the necessity of His own internal nature. Unlike the universe, there are no reasons to suppose that God can’t exist in a metaphysically necessary way and hence, it makes no sense to ask what external explanation/cause accounts for God’s existence because His existence is easily explained via His logical necessity. Therefore, there is no arbitrary abandonment of the application of the “PSR” to the First Cause/Ultimate Explanation (i.e. God or “God-1”) and the Taxicab Problem has effectively been overcome.But perhaps we were too hasty in claiming that “there are no reasons to suppose that God can’t exist in a metaphysically necessary way”; some Atheists, miffed that their desperate attempt to claim the universe is logically necessary has failed, may then try to block the Theist from claiming that God is the logically necessary explanation of the universe because it is simply not possible for a metaphysically necessary Being/thing to cause a contingent thing (like the universe) to come into existence. Thus, it is claimed that the only types of things that can be logically necessary are abstract objects, but abstract objects don’t stand in causal relation to anything.By way of response, Alexander Pruss argues that it may be the case that necessary abstract things like propositions and numbers can in fact be causally efficacious due to the odd coincidental nature that our propositional beliefs align with reality, however I personally reject this notion as it seems to me that abstract entities very clearly do not stand in causal relations (when was the last time the number 2 ever causes anything to happen in the real world). In any event, regardless of the causal efficacy of “abstract” necessary entities, God is not supposed to be a necessary “abstract” entity (like a number or proposition), but a concrete non-physical (i.e. spiritual) and personal substance/Being/Mind and we know that personal “Beings/Minds” are in fact casually efficacious from our own experience as being causally efficacious personal agents every day. Now, some clever Atheists have tried to use David Hume’s old principle that in order for anything to exist, it must be possible for it not to exist; consequently, the only things that can possibly exist necessarily are said to be abstract analytic truths such as numbers, sets, etc. But why on Earth should one accept this mistaken nonsensical notion; why is it the case that only abstract beings can be logically necessary; given the Principle of Indifference and lack of any reason to suppose otherwise, why is it that a concrete Deity existing necessarily is any more or less plausible than an abstract number existing necessarily. Apart from using biased special pleading tactics to assert and assume that it is impossible for a concrete Being/substance to be logically necessary, there is simply no reason that an Atheist can provide to override our properly basic knowledge that a Being like God can indeed exist necessarily; certainly, this didn’t seem to be an issue for many Atheists when the prospect of the universe itself existing necessarily was still considered plausible.It is thus, 100% Proven that our version of the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument is able to overcome the Taxicab Fallacy Problem. Likewise, it is 99% Proven that a metaphysically necessary God with freewill can explain a contingent universe.Problem #1 Conclusion: We have provided 2-3 reasons to warrant the claim that the universe exists contingently and not due to the logical necessity of its own internal nature (100% Proven Cumulative Total). Further, our argument has overcome the Taxicab Fallacy Problem (100% Proven) and the desperate attempts of the Atheist to rule out any other necessary Being (such as God) from consideration as a plausible explanation for the universe’s existence has utterly failed (99%-99.99% Proven a metaphysically necessary God with libertarian freewill can be a viable cause of a contingent universe’s existence), as they have no proof, on a balance of probabilities, that would make such an explanation improbable or implausible to be true. Hence, 100% * 100% * 99% = 99% Proven that this aspect has been established in warranting Premise #3 of our argument.PROBLEM #2: OVERCOMING THE INFINITE REGRESS PROBLEM & THE MULTIVERSE EXPLANATION;Another common tactic that an Atheist might try to use to escape this argument is by admitting that the universe does indeed require an explanation for its existence and further it doesn’t seem to be logically necessary; thus, requiring an explanation via an external cause/s. However, since the universe is eternal, the Atheist might try to appeal to the use of an infinite regress of external causes to provide a “sufficient explanation” for the existence of universe. Various Atheists such as David Hume, Paul Edwards and Joseph Campbell have tried to adopt this line of reasoning as a way to avoid the Theistic implications of the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument. It is supposed, by them, that by providing a cause of each individual thing in a collection/set (whether infinite or finite), this constitutes a “sufficient reason/explanation” for the whole collection itself; in other words, the whole is adequately explained via explaining the cause of each its parts.Unfortunately, most philosophers have recognized the fallaciousness of this kind of reasoning because there are obvious cases whereby more explanation is required for the whole collection or set, beyond merely explaining each of its individual parts/conjuncts. Richard M. Gale used the counter-example of explaining why 100 Inuit were standing on a given street corner in New York on a particular afternoon, merely providing explanations for each individual person’s presence is not a sufficient reason to explain why there is the coincidence of 100 Inuit people all being in the same place at the same time; hence, the coincidence itself requires an independent explanation in its own right (one from outside the set of individual personal explanations). Why is it 100 Inuit people are all on the same corner, all on the same day and time; quite obviously we might appeal to the fact that there was an organized protest taking place and this provides the additional explanation as to the coincidence of occurrence.That said, the Atheist may still have a trick or two up his sleeve on this front, Joseph Campbell recognizes the validity of these counter-examples and in response he modifies and significantly weakens the classical Humean claim. Instead of stating that “in explaining every conjunct of things in a collection/set, one has thereby explained the whole collection/set”, he merely claims that “for any collection/set that one has explained every conjunct/part one might have thereby explained the whole”. Suppose, there are only 2 Inuit people standing on that same street corner in New York one afternoon, clearly that kind of coincidence does not seem to require an explanation in its own right (unless one considers random chance a “sufficient explanation” perhaps- which I do). What’s more, even in the case of the 100 Inuit people on the corner, even then, all we are rationally justified in saying is that it seems “likely” that there is a further explanation beyond individual ones for that kind of coincidental occurrence, not that there necessarily is such an explanation (again this is barring random chance being considered a sufficient explanation).Of course, even this modified or weakened version of the causal efficacy for each of the parts explaining the whole has been shown to be insufficient for defeating the impossibility of an infinite regress of individual causal explanations. Richard Swinburne conclusively refutes this notion by arguing that regardless of whether a given collection/set of things to be explained is infinite or finite, an underlying causal principle of any such series/collection is that “any (full )cause of the occurrence of any collection of things or state of affairs/events is any collection of (full) causes of each, which are not members of the former collection”. This principle is the case because it is logically absurd for something to be “self-explanatory/caused”. To illustrate, we can imagine a finite collection of cause and effects whereby the full cause of (A) is (B), the full cause of (B) is (C) and the full cause of (C) is (D); further the (full) cause of (E) is (F) and for (F) its (G). Given the self-evident causal principle which rules out the logical absurdity of self-explanation/causation above, we can then ask what is the “full cause” of the collection/series “A+B+C+E+F” as a whole? Obviously, we would look to external causal factors not included in the collection/series to be explained and say that the cause, in this case, is “D+G”. Hence, we can say that with finite collections of a series of things/events standing in causal relations to each other, it must have its cause outside of that collection of things/events.Quite obviously, this logic would also apply in the case of a finite universe as a collection of individual physical things and states of affairs/events throughout its history. However, the same would also hold true even if the universe were an infinite/eternal collection of such physical things/events in the past. In asking what sufficiently explains (via a full causative & sufficiently contrastive explanation) why this entire infinite collection of things/series of events exists rather than nothing or even rather than another infinite series of such causal-chains, we obviously require a cause from outside the members of the “universe causal-set” as it were. Since the “universe” itself is defined as being the entire collection of all physical things and physical events throughout the history of space and time, this would require an external cause beyond the confines of physicality and space/time as we know it. An example can be cited to help illustrate the point above, Alexander Pruss uses the example of an infinite regress of circular causes whereby one builds a time machine using instructions sent to them by their future self, whereby they only had those instructions because they had the time machine to base the instructions on. Then that person makes the time machine because they had the instructions to do so for their future self to then have the time machine to base the instructions on. This infinite explanatory regress provides a causal loop with individual explanations for each member in the collection, but there is simply nothing contained within the individual explanations that can explain why the loop itself exists in the first place; unless we can appeal to a cause outside of the loop (such as God willing it or something). The simple fact remains that without an external cause (outside the set/collection to be explained), the set/collection as a whole is left completely unexplained (which would violate the PSR).Now, believe it or not, in the light of this basic explanatory/causal rule or principle, the entire “Infinite Regress” problem is simply beside the point when it comes to our specific version of the Contingency Argument. The reason for this is because the “universe” simply refers to all of space/time and its contents and as such, the issue of an infinite regress of cause and effects simply does not obtain. William Lane Craig put it this way, “the universe is to be inclusive of all space-time reality. One doesn’t begin with a present event or state of affairs and seek its explanation and then in turn ask for an explanation of that event or state of affairs and so on, arguing that such a series can’t go on to infinity, lest nothing be explained. No, instead one just lumps everything together under “the universe” and asks, what is the explanation for the universe?”. It’s at this point that I think we need to make mention of the multiverse as a potential explanation of the universe’s existence. Now, in appealing to a multiverse theory, it is important to recognize that there are various types and versions of the theory, but essentially, there are three main categories of multiverse on offer; i) Physically-Consistent Models (Inflationary, string, etc.) whereby they are based on the constraints of current physical laws and their possible variations, ii) Metaphysical Models (David Lewis and Max Tegmark models whereby there are no constraints (contingent or otherwise) on the actualization of a universe except for the laws of logic) and, iii) Supernatural Models (John Leslie, Klaas J. Kraay, etc.). All of the Metaphysical and Supernatural models are infinite, whereas only some of the Physically-Consistent Models are postulated to be infinite vs. finite in nature. For the time being, let us focus on the fact that the “Physically-Consistent Models” at least, can be denied to be metaphysically/logically necessary (since we can envision possible worlds with an entirely different set of physical/natural laws and “fundamental particles” that obtain and/or even worlds with no physical/natural laws or fundamental particles at all-see above). As such, we can easily expand our definition of “universe” to encompass all of physical reality, including these versions of the multiverse (or cosmos); in effect, we would simply need to understand that by explaining the existence of the universe we include any and all “Physically-Consistent Models” of the multiverse as well.On this understanding, we can effectively rule out metaphysical necessity as an explanation for these types of multiverses in exactly the same way we did in the case of the universe above. As such the multiverse itself is shown to be a contingent thing requiring an external cause for its existence (whether it is eternally contingent or not) and we are thus in the same position as before. Further, in the same article quoted above, Dr. Craig continues; “there’s just no need to talk of an infinite regress for non-temporally ordered explanations (like an embedding multiverse). Just lump them all together as Leibniz did with the past states of the universe and ask, “Why does this hierarchy of entities exist rather than nothing?” There must, I think, be a metaphysically necessary being in order to explain why something exists rather than nothing…. for the universe includes all that hierarchy of contingent things that might be imagined to exist.”Given this more expansive definition of the particular collection of things/events that we are trying to explain, namely, the entirety of physical reality itself (i.e. all of space/time and its contents, it follows that we must appeal to things that are timeless, spaceless and non-physical in nature in order to be considered something outside of the collection/set being explained. However, I think one can go further here; what about the Metaphysical/Supernatural Multiverse explanations? If such explanations can be shown likewise to be contingent rather than metaphysically necessary, then ultimately even they could be incorporated into our definition of “universe” if we slightly tweaked its meaning in Premise #1 to include “all that hierarchy of contingent [and possibly also necessary-dependent] things that might be imagined to exist”; we can call this the “universe+”. Since contingent and necessary-dependent things that exist require an external cause to explain their existence, it follows that one must arrive at a cause that is metaphysically/logically necessary to explain the entire universe+’s existence. Unfortunately for the Atheist, Metaphysical and Supernatural Multiverses do not appear to be logically necessary either, there is no obvious logical contradiction entailed in conceiving that not every logically possible world (including supernatural ones) would or must be actualized. What possible supernatural or natural thing might explain the fact that every metaphysically possible world actualizes into existence rather than staying as a mere potentiality? Finally, even Atheists can use their modal evaluating faculties to know in a properly basic way that it is possible for God to exist alone without any contingent things (i.e. a multiverse) at all. Again, it seems that any multiverse which might exist, exists contingently and as such we encounter the same issue of explaining why an infinite multiverse should actually obtain rather than there only being only some logically possible/supernatural universes that obtain and/or rather than none of them existing at all. Problem #2 Conclusion: It has been firmly established that even an infinite series of events or eternal collection of things requires an external explanation from outside the members of the set in order to “sufficiently explain” why the whole infinite series/set/collection exists in the first place rather than nothing and/or some other infinite set/series/collection. Otherwise, we would have a “self-explanatory” or “self-caused” thing to explain its own existence and that is logically impossible. As such appealing to an infinite regress is simply not a plausible option to take in trying to account for the universe’s existence and therefore at least, one or more, metaphysically necessary causes are needed to sufficiently explain the existence of the “universe” (or “universe+”). I am 99%-100% Proven/Warranted in claiming that the Infinite Regress Problem has been overcome.Furthermore, appealing to various “Physically-Consistent” Multiverse models does nothing to prevent the success of our argument since we know with a degree of 100% warrant that such explanations are contingent themselves and can simply be incorporated as part of the definition of the “universe” as outlined in Premise #1 of our argument. Full assessment of the other Multiverse models (Metaphysical and Supernatural) will be deferred to the “Gap Problem” section below.Therefore, I am 99% * 100% = 99% Proven that Problem #2 has been overcome in establishing the warrant of Premise #3.PROBLEM #3: OVERCOMING THE “GAP” PROBLEM & THE USE OF METAPHYSICALLY/LOGICALLY NECESSARY EXPLANATIONS;Given our assessment of the first two premises of our argument above and in overcoming the Taxicab Fallacy and Infinite Regress problems, we now know that the “universe/universe+” does indeed have a “sufficient explanation” for its existence and that explanation must entail something/some event that is metaphysically/logically necessary (and consequently eternal) in nature. That said, we still have the remaining “Gap Problem” to deal with and this is by far the hardest problem to overcome in developing a successful Cosmological argument. How can we possibly bridge the “gap” from proving a metaphysically necessary First Cause/Ultimate Explanation explains the universe/+, to saying that God and/or minimally, the “God-1” hypothesis does?Well, in the first place, our job could be said to be done right here and now, as most Atheists find it objectionable that there should be the need for any metaphysically necessary explanation for the universe’s existence in the first place; hence, we could simply stop here and claim this is the only provable attribute needed to establish the truth of the “God-1” hypothesis. If you remember we gave ourselves a very flexible definition of “God-1” to mean only whatever divine attributes can be proven via the argument as constituting the “God-1 Hypothesis”. So, even 1-2 attributes of God are sufficient to say the “Gap Problem” has been overcome. However, I suspect this is not enough for the Theist who may be content to come up a little short in terms of proving all of God’s divine attributes, but would nonetheless like a little more than simply proving that the existence of the universe/+ requires a “metaphysically necessary” and eternal First Cause/Ultimate Explanation. As such, while it is not necessary to overcome the “Gap Problem”, we will attempt to go further and further derive yet more divine attributes traditionally associated with God/Theism.One way to fill the “gap” might entail a Properly Basic Belief as to the truth of the attributes, which is triggered by the objective proof for the existence of a metaphysically necessary First Cause/Ultimate Explanation. Perhaps it’s the case that given, we can prove at least that much, that alone is enough to prompt a Properly Basic Belief/s that can take us the rest of the way. Thus, a PBB contingent on the objective warrant for a necessary cause/explanation for the universe is an entirely valid way of deriving God’s other attributes, however it may not be the case that a PBB is triggered in response to this. Personally, while I do have a direct Properly Basic Belief in the existence of God (i.e. a Maximally Great Being which includes all of the great-making properties to the maximal possible degree), I don’t have a PBB giving me knowledge of this contingent on the success of Cosmological argument (at least not at this stage of the argument anyways) and hence, there may need to be some other objective ways to bridge the gap for any non-PBB experiencers.Luckily, we just so happen to have some. i) The Personhood/Agency of the Logically Necessary First Cause/Ultimate Explanation:There have been several supplemental or attached arguments that philosophers have come up with to try and establish the agency or personhood of the logically necessary First Cause/Ultimate Explanation. In the first place one must recognize that there are exactly three main ways, that we know of, to explain something, either through; i) Conceptual explanations, ii) Scientific explanations and/or, iii) Personal/Agent-Causation explanations (via the causal activity of an agent and/or substance of some kind).Taking the second way, using a scientific explanation, we are immediately able to rule this option out because as we saw above, the laws of nature/physics, constants and initial conditions (such as the existing fundamental particles/quantum fields) are in fact contingent in nature and thus cannot possibly serve as the needed logically necessary explanation of the “universe/universe+”. With regard to Conceptual explanations, whereby a fact is explained via another conceptually-connected fact, an issue arises because any conceptual explanation of a contingent fact/proposition will itself merely involve a contingent proposition and necessitate the existence of some non-conceptual explanation (either in part or in full) to explain an actually” existing thing” like the universe. This is because the “universe+” contains within it various existing physical substances and substances are “self-standing” (even the fundamental particles are physical “substances” in their own right) and conceptual explanations are totally causally inefficacious, thus requiring another substance to create a substance. William Lane Craig has similarly argued that since the “universe/universe+” includes all of space/time and physical reality, in order to avoid any self-causation or self-explanatory logical absurdities, the metaphysically necessary explanation for the “universe+” must transcend all of space and time and physicality itself. Given there are only two kinds of things that can possibly fit that bill; abstract/conceptual objects (like numbers, sets, etc.) and involve some kind of spaceless, timeless, non-physical/immaterial Mind (and/or soul, agent and/or a personal substance), then we know that the latter must in fact be the true explanation of the “universe+” since abstract/conceptual objects don’t stand in causal relations to anything. Additionally, we need to think about how it might be possible for a contingent effect to derive from a necessary cause without it leading to that effect existing necessarily itself (necessary-dependent that is). If it’s the case that the cause of the universe is an impersonal mechanical set of necessary and sufficient conditions then the effect must be logically entailed (and thus exist necessarily) as well; this was the idea behind the first premise of the Van Inwagen/Swinburne Modal Fatalism-type argument mentioned in Premise #2 above. Only if the metaphysically necessary cause/explanation of the universe is a personal agent endowed with libertarian freewill can one explain how a metaphysically necessary cause explains why a contingent thing exists in a way that does not logically entail the necessity of the effect. In the light of the above reasons, it seems that one is able to effectively rule out the use of a logic-bound necessarily existing Multiverse theory (whether Physically-Consistent, Metaphysical and/or Supernatural) in favour of a personal agent (or agents) engaging in some kind of agent causation to explain the existence of the “universe/universe+”.Now, of the three main ways to explain something, some philosophers have posed a fourth possible category of explanation via a metaphysically necessary governing Principle of Optimism/Optimization. It is important to note that one can’t simply appeal to any old metaphysical principle such as the philosophical First Principles, but appeal to a principle that actually entails the causal efficacy to actualize things into existence from mere potentiality; the Principle of Optimism has so far been the only plausible candidate in that regard. Such a principle has been advanced by John Leslie and Nicholas Rescher whereby they explain the existence of the universe/universe+ by saying that the governing principle makes it logically necessary that the best possible world/s must actually exist in order for the optimal overall “utility” of reality to obtain. Some philosophers (both Atheist and Christian) have rejected this explanatory option because of the Problem of Evil/Suffering (in other words this world doesn’t look like the best possible world) and others have further objected it on the grounds that they feel it is not possible to speak of a “best possible world” to begin with. However, such objections can and have been overcome in my opinion, and as such one must use other reasons to rule this option out. And it just so happens that we have such reasons! As was the case with appealing to abstract conceptual explanations, the use of abstract governing principles suffers from the fact that metaphysical principles do not stand in casual relations to things or substances but, like the laws of nature, they merely describe the governing behaviour of such things once they do in fact exist; as Alexander Pruss puts it, “an abstract principle cannot by itself pull beings into existence as if being pulled out of a metaphysical magic hat”. Furthermore, the claim that an abstract principle can just exist, as if floating around in some kind of Platonic Realm, is simply unintelligible since we know from our experience that abstract objects or principles (such as the laws of logic, moral principles, etc.) don’t seem to exist independently, but are mere descriptions, dependent on the behaviour and/or properties of already existing things/substances. To quote Dr. Pruss once again, “a principle itself must be true of something and true in virtue of something”.Lastly, and perhaps somewhat ironically, the truth of the Principle of Optimism/Optimization itself would entail the existence of God (proper) as it would be optimal to have an existing God who serves as a Maximally Great Being and thereby has all the great-making properties to the maximal possible degree. As such the use of this explanatory option, not only does not help the Atheist avoid the truth of the consequent “God-1” hypothesis (as per the successful conclusion of our Contingency argument), but would allow us to go even further in warranting the truth of a full-blown existing God with all of His traditional attributes! In the words of Dr. Pruss, “Leibniz thought that because there is a God everything happens for the best [Principle of Optimism is true], whereas someone like Rescher would think, everything is for the best [as per the truth of the Principle] and so therefore there must be a God”.Agency/Personhood Attribute Conclusion: We have seen that whatever else the First Cause/Ultimate Explanation of the universe/+ must entail, we can know that there must be at least one or more metaphysically necessarily external cause/s that have cognitive faculties (such as libertarian freewill and some level of rationality, etc.) that are minimally sufficient for “personhood/agency”.I am 95% Proven that an impersonal metaphysical principle such as the Principle of Optimism/Optimalism cannot explain the universe/+’s existence * 99%-100% Proven that an impersonal conceptual explanation cannot account for the existence of the universe * 99% Proven that a scientific explanation cannot account for the universe/+’s existence (else it be self-explanatory or self-caused from within the collection of scientifically explained physical things within space/time, which is logically impossible)* 95% Proven there are no other explanatory options that I haven’t thought of outside of the 4 ones discussed here = 88.45% Proven that the necessary First Cause/Ultimate Explanation of the universe/+’s existence must involve agent causation via a personal agent with freewill.Table of Overall Divine Attributes that have been Proven via the success of our Leibnizian Cosmological Argument:DIVINE ATTRIBUTESTATUS (FROM CONTINGENCY ARGUMENT)1. LOGICAL/METAPHYISCAL NECESSITY2. ETERNALITY3. PERSONAL AGENT4. OMNIPOTENT?5. SPIRITUAL/SUPERNTURAL6. ONENESS/ONE BEING?7. VERY POWERFULPremise #3 Overall Conclusion: The overall truth of this premise is 100% Proven (the universe/+ is not itself logically necessary) * 100% the Taxicab Fallacy Proper Objection overcome * 99% that a necessary freewill God (or God-1) can explain it (and thus overcomes the Taxicab Extended Fallacy) * 99% Proven Problem #2 of the Infinite Regress is overcome (and thus a metaphysically necessary explanation is mandatory to explain the universe/+) * 88.45% that the explanation must involve a free agent/person or agents/persons = 86.69% Proven that God-1, as defined by a metaphysically/logically necessary free willed Person/Agent or multiple such constitutes the Ultimate explanation for the universe/+’s existence.A1. Overall Conclusion on The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument:In closing, we have seen that each of the premises is shown to be logically sound, on a balance of probabilities, and thus this allows one to claim to have a Warranted True Belief (i.e. knowledge) that God and/or the “God-1” hypothesis is true and explains the existence of the universe/+.By way of reminder, our version of the argument was as follows;Premise #1- The universe/“universe+” exists (i.e. is an “existing thing”). [Note: the cosmic feature of the universe under assessment here is its very existence].Premise #2- Every “existing thing” (including the universe) has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. [Note: this premise posits a Principle of Sufficient Reason or “PSR” as its general explanatory principle].Premise #3- If the universe has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence, that explanation is “God-1”.Conclusion: Therefore, the universe has a “sufficient explanation” of its existence and that explanation is “God-1”.Premise #1 is unassailable and was shown to be 100% Proven true via my normative assessment of the warrant for the truth of the premise. The truth of Premise #2 entailed a little more controversy but was relatively firmly established with near certainty as well with an assigned 99% Proven level (my normative value). The third and final premise, resulted in showing that it is 86.69% Proven that the “God-1” hypothesis very probably is the explanation of the universe/+. “God-1” was shown in our assessment to, minimally, entail a metaphysically/logically necessary (and hence eternal) First Cause/Ultimate Explanation; further, that Ultimate Explanation must involve the role of agent causation via the agency/personhood of that explanation.The overall total for the truth of our argument based on my own normative probability values is; 100% (Premise #1) * 99% (Premise #2) * 86.69% (Premise #3) = 85.82% that the “God-1” hypothesis is true and thus exists as the explanation of the universe/+. ................
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