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Exclusion and Sufficient Reason
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2010
Abstract
I argue for two principles by combining which we can construct a sound cosmological argument. The first is that for any true proposition p's if ‘there is an explanation for p's truth’ is consistent then there is an explanation for p's truth. The second is a modified version of the principle that for any class, if there is an explanation for the non-emptiness of that class, then there is at least one non-member of that class which causes it not to be empty.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2010
References
1 While Aquinas often says that God's nature is his own being, suum esse, he also often says that God is ipsum esse. For references see Kretzmann, Norman, The Metaphysics of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 127, n 14Google Scholar. Kretzmann thinks that when Aquinas says that God is ipsum esse, being itself, he is suggesting that God is nothing but existence, and is open to the objection that nothing subsistent could be just existence, that a merely existent substance is too thin to be possible. (The Metaphysics of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 127) The objection is developed by Hughes, Christopher, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, ch.1. Gilson seems by contrast to think that though we cannot conceive of being as anything other than the being of something, of an existent, the reality is otherwise, and it is just because the reality is otherwise that God is unknowable. The unknowability of God is based on the fact that ‘the intellect is not able to represent to itself the quiddity of the act of esse except under the form of the existent that it causes to exist.’ (Gilson, E., ‘Propos sur l'être et sa notion’, in Piolanti, A. (ed.) San Tommaso e il pensiero moderno (Citta Nuova: Roma, 1974), 16Google Scholar). To say that God is ‘beyond being’ is perhaps to say that ‘God exists’ is in some sense reducible to the fact that ethical requiredness, itself not existent, is nevertheless creative, or to the fact that when there was nothing its being better for there to be something itself ensured that something came to be. John Leslie develops a doctrine on these lines in ch. 8 of his Universes (London: Routledge, 1989).
2 For example, Kretzmann attributes to Aquinas, and himself accepts, a cosmological argument which requires the principle ‘Every existing thing has a reason for its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in the causal efficacy of some other beings.’ This he calls (PSR2). Here is his justification for believing (PSR2). ‘Not only the history of science but even a fundamentally rational, attitude toward ordinary reality presupposes (PSR2). And since there is no ordinary existing thing about which we could tolerate the blithe announcement that there simply is no reason for its existence, rationality forbids our abandoning the principle when the existing thing in question is extraordinary or all-pervasive a thing such as the universe, or matter.’(‘Aquinas's Disguised Cosmological Argument’, in Jordan, J. and Howard-Snyder, D. (eds.), Faith, Freedom and Rationality (Lanham: Maryland, 1996), 200Google Scholar).
3 Gale and Pruss have constructed a cosmological argument which employs S-PSR Necessarily, for every contingent proposition, p, if p, then there is an explanation for p. And, as evidence for S-PSR, they cite W-PSR Necessarily, for every contingent proposition, p, if p, then it is logically possible that there is an explanation for p, See M. Gale, Richard and Pruss, Alexander R., ‘A new cosmological argument’, Religious Studies 35 (1999), 461–476CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On plausible assumptions, W-PSR entails S-PSR: see Oppy, Graham, ‘On “a new cosmological argument”’, Religious Studies 36 (2000), 345–353CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Is W-PSR true? That seems doubtful: see Daley, Kevin and Clifton, Rob, ‘Insufficient reason in the “new cosmological argument”’, Religious Studies 37 (2001), 488–90Google Scholar, Gale, and Pruss, , ‘A response to Oppy, and to Davey and Clifton’, Religious Studies 38 (2002), 89–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Oppy, , Arguing about gods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My SR is, needless to say, not the same as W-PSR. For another cosmological argument, different from the one I have defended, but employing a principle which does seem to be the same as PSR*, see Pruss, ‘A restricted Principle of Sufficient Reason and the cosmological argument’, Religious Studies 40 (2004), 165–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Thanks to Graham Oppy for comments on a previous version.