Because natural things possibly have a cause, God exists.
The prospect of proving God’s actual existence from God’s possible existence has always interested me. (That, and celebrity gossip). Descartes famously made his attempt, and before him St. Anselm, each with their respective ontological arguments. Tersely summarized, the argument of Descartes is that in God the concept of essence and existence are innately inseparable (since existence belongs to the essence of God) and, since, according to Descartes, whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived to belong to a thing, really does belong to a thing[1] (such as valleys wherever there are mountains); hence existence really does belong to God; hence God really does exist. Not surprisingly, many philosophers argue these attempts to demonstrate God’s existence are if nothing else an abysmal failure, confusing the conceptual with the actual, whereas others have not only defended their soundness, but see them as entirely obvious, possibly even self-evident. The range of opinion on ontological arguments is immense, with brilliant thinkers on every side of the debate. St. Thomas, for example, rejected such a priori attempts to demonstrate the existence of God[2], whereas contemporary philosophers – Alvin Plantinga, for example – have revived the tradition of ontological arguments with their modal formulations.[3]
Following is what I believe to be a successful argument for God’s actual existence from the possible existence of an external cause of natural things. I take initial inspiration from Descartes while building upon recent developments in the necessary existence and modal argumentation literature put forward by thinkers like Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen, particularly in their book Necessary Existence.[4]
My argument, in summary, is this.
Possibly, there is a cause of all natural things. Therefore, a supernatural thing (i.e. God) exists.
The explicit steps are these:
1) Possibly, there is a cause of all natural things.
2) But all natural things cannot be caused by something natural (circular causation).
3) Possibly, then, natural things are caused by something supernatural.
4) A supernatural thing is just what we mean by God.
5) Possibly, then, a supernatural thing (namely, God) exists.
6) But God can’t exist unless God exists in all possible worlds. (Whatever is possible is not also impossible. S5.[5])
7) Therefore, God exists in the actual world.
We’ll begin with definitions.
By “natural thing,” I mean any qualitatively finite or non-maximally great thing (I borrow great making properties from Plantinga to include power, knowledge, and goodness, respectively).[6] Anything which is finitely limited in positive attributes would be a natural thing; in other words, anything which is restricted to acting in some particular way, having some but not all powers (including knowledge), being in some but not all places, etc. Example candidates include electrons, Gloria Steinem, and classic Whitesnake albums. Even angels – if such beings exist – would count as natural things, under this definition.
By “supernatural thing,” I mean that which is qualitatively infinite and therefore not limited in great-making properties. Such a supernatural thing would not be restricted or bounded in its existence (including either spatially or temporally) and so also possessed of all possible powers (maximal greatness = the ability to bring about all possibilities of being) and knowledge (maximal greatness = knowing only and all true propositions) and goodness (maximal greatness = lacking no perfection, moral or otherwise). Traditionally, most people would think of such a supernatural thing as God.[7]
Before examining my argument, it would be helpful to provide a brief review of Descrates argument for God and make the relevant comparisons from there. The following is from his 5th meditation.
“From the fact that I am unable to think of a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that a mountain or a valley exists anywhere, but only that, whether they exist or not, a mountain and a valley are inseparable from one another. But from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and that for this reason he really exists.”[8]
The argument with Descartes rests upon his notions of innate ideas and clear and distinct perception. For example, the idea of a supremely perfect being is, according to Descartes, innate, and that an understanding of that innate idea entails (through clear and distinct perception) necessary existence. That is, within the notion of a supremely perfect being is that thing’s necessary existence, since to not exist – and to not exist necessarily – would be a privation, and therefore less than supremely perfect. So, with supreme perfection comes necessary existence, just as with triangularity comes trilaterality. Most people can probably agree with the second contention but will be caught up on the first, that is, the idea of God being innate, and then moving from conceptual to actual.
To run the argument up to contemporary times, we have modal formulations, which do not rely on the Cartesian thesis of innate ideas, but, instead, developments in the logic of possibility, such as Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument, summarized in Necessary Existence as:
Possibly, there is a necessary being. Therefore (by S5), there is a necessary being.[9]
Or, to push it further, we could say:
Possibly, there is a maximally great being. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.[10]
The most notorious difficulty of these arguments is determining whether a necessary or maximally great being is possible. If that premise can be successfully argued, then one is sucked into the tractor beam of logic, whereby the conclusion of God’s existence follows. So there needs to be, as it were, some sort of symmetry breaker regarding God’s possible existence – some reason to think that a supremely perfect being is, in fact, possible – especially since modal formulations of the ontological argument are open to parody and reversal, namely, “Possibly, there is no necessary being. Therefore, no necessary being exists.” Again, same system of logic, but with a different outcome. How to overcome this?
Furthermore, the possibility of a necessary being excludes the possibility of there not being a necessary being, and vice versa. Either a necessary being is necessary or impossible. Intuitively, think of it like this: a necessary being is one which, if possible, would span all possible worlds, including the actual world; which means, if possible, then actual; otherwise a necessary being is impossible. It is one or the other, not both. So, again, we need a symmetry breaker; some way to get past the epistemic stalemate regarding the possibility of God.
Brian Leftow suggests one way to break the symmetry is through people’s mystical and/or personal experiences of God.[11] The argument is that people have claimed to experience God and that perhaps at least some of these experiences are legitimate, or at least they provide some positive justification for the controversial possibility premise. Because nobody has ever claimed to experience a square-circle or a color-less green frog; after all, experience of something must be an experience of that which is coherent and, by those lights, possible. According to Leftow, this provides warrant for the argument breaking in the direction of theism. But it does require leaning on experience. So, I note it only in passing.
The upshot, however, of the argument from there possibly being a cause of natural things is that the possibility premise is compatible with the possibility of there not being a cause of natural things. After all, natural things could be caused, and natural things could not be caused, logically speaking. Put differently, the argument I’m presenting is at least initially compatible with there being brute facts in the world, of natural things which attain but with no causal explanation whatsoever. In that sense, my argument offers a specific advantage that complicates more traditional theistic arguments: brute facts are not a legitimate objection; but also avoid objections concerning reversal/parody.
For example, as Pruss and Rasmussen argue with respect to their Modal Argument from Beginnings, “Consider, first, that the conclusion of MAB (modal argument from beginnings) is actually compatible with this parody principle: Possibly, a Beginning of Contingency has no cause. After all, there is no requirement that necessary concreta must cause contingent things…In order to defeat MAB (modal argument from beginnings), then, one needs a strong parody premise, such as this one: Possibly, there is no necessary being.”[12]
I contend my argument is afforded the same resiliency to such objections, even though I am arguing for a possible cause of all natural things regardless of temporal duration, and not just a beginning of contingency. Additionally, to assert there could “possibly, be no necessary being,” or, in our case, “possibly, no supernatural thing exists,” would just return us to the question we are attempting to resolve through the possibility of a cause of all natural things, making the reversal possibility assertion — without any other independent motivation — question begging. In other words, the symmetry is starting to break.
Now, if it is possible that all natural things have a cause, then that cause must be supernatural, since we are positing a possible external cause.[13] To avoid circularity, some supernatural concrete thing is required for the possible external cause of all natural things; no other candidate is available. Of course, we could weaken the casual premise by admitting the possibility of circular causality, and still maintain the possibility of external causality, but I see no reason to do that. Circular causality seems an obvious non-starter and not worth admitting, even if the conclusion of a supernatural thing can still be argued for.
Really, all that is left to be done is to further motivate that initial premise. So, why think, possibly, all-natural things have an external cause? I list the following reasons:
– To avoid chaos and radical skepticism. Possibly, if natural things could happen without a cause, then, possibly, our beliefs could be currently happening without a cause – occurring without any good reason behind them. This possibility – which we have no reason to think is improbable given the possibility of uncaused events would ruin probabilistic reasoning – would give reason to become dubious of our beliefs, including the belief that natural things could happen without a cause. Alex Pruss argues this skeptical scenario gives reason to think our knowledge of sufficient explanation (specifically, the principle of sufficient reason) may be known a priori.[14] If this is true, then there is certainly warrant to expecting an external cause of all natural things, or at least the possibility thereof.
– General induction and special pleading. We look into the world of natural things and see they typically (if not always) have causes. Science assumes this is the case, and so does philosophy (at least up until God becomes a live explanatory option). Not only does our uniform experience of finding external causes to natural things give warrant for extrapolation to all-natural things having some external cause, but also makes us wonder why denying the possibility is not a case of special pleading. We also frequently extrapolate this expectation far beyond the realm of normal experience – for example, whether positing dark matter, the possibility of a multiverse, etc. Of course, independent motivation may be given for making a principled exception to such extrapolation, but until that motivation is provided, the upfront denial of all natural things possibly having an external cause seems arbitrary.
– Simple conceivability. There is nothing logically incoherent or contradictory in the notion of there being an external cause of all natural things. Meaning, it is perfectly conceivable that there be such an external cause, and conceivability, while not a definite proof, provides at least some justification or warrant toward possibility. (Note: Because various philosophers in the tradition of Hume sometimes assert conceivability counts against causal reasoning, then perhaps everything comes out a wash concerning arguments from conceivability, especially once we deploy conceivability toward a theistic outcome.)
– Basic intuition. Suppose some natural thing – say, a purple elephant – snapped into existence before your eyes. Naturally, you would be inclined to seek some external explanation. It would not be at all intuitive to just assume there is no explanation, even if no explanation is immediately obvious. You would sooner consider the possibility of teleportation before accepting that the purple elephant snapped into existence from nothing. But what is relevantly different about one purple elephant, or twenty purple elephants, or an infinite number of purple elephants? Or bigger or smaller purple elephants? On the face, nothing seems relevantly different when it comes to expecting some external explanation. Now, replace purple elephants with cats, potato sacks, electrons, electromagnetic fields, or whatever other natural thing you want, including Gloria Steinham. What is relevantly different about these examples that would exempt us for expecting some external explanation for all these natural things which exist, but seemingly need not existed? Of course, our intuitions to expect explanations for natural things could be wrong – sometimes intuitions can be misleading – but not always, and unless some reason or defeater is provided to overrule our intuition toward external explanations of natural things, then this would seem to provide justification in favor of it.
– The run-around argument. Of course, various cosmological arguments for God also provide motivation for thinking there could possibly be a cause of all-natural things, by providing independent motivation for God’s existence, who could obviously serve as just such a cause. This is something of a run-around argument, but still worth considering. For example: There must be at least one unconditioned and uncaused reality in the totality of reality, otherwise everything would be (collectively) a caused reality with nothing to cause it (outside of “everything” is nothing) — which is absurd. But an unconditioned and uncaused reality must be unrestricted (qualitatively infinite) in being, otherwise possible realities would be impossible, and we get a contradiction. To see why this is so, consider how boundaries, finitude, and restrictions on being exclude one aspect of reality from another and generate incompatible states of affairs. For example, to be restricted to “being a circle” is just not, in the same aspect, “to be square.” The boundaries of being on one (the circle) ontologically exclude and are incompatible with the boundaries of being on the other (a square), hence why square-circles are impossible. Alternatively, consider how “acting as a proton” excludes “acting as an electron” (again, in the same aspect) such that if the ultimate ground of reality were a proton, electrons would not be possible, because they are ontologically excluded by, and incompatible with, protons (the boundaries of one exclude the boundaries of the other with respect to the same comparative domain). But protons are possible – in fact, protons are actual – and so an electron cannot be the ultimate foundation of reality. This reasoning generalizes and can be applied for all possible realities. Boundaries exclude, but no possible reality can be excluded from the ultimate foundation/explanation of things (a possible reality which cannot have its conditions for existence fulfilled = an impossible reality = a contradiction) otherwise said reality would not, in fact, be possible. But logically possible realities are logically possible, and so, by modus tollens, the ultimate foundation of reality must be unrestricted and qualitatively infinite – unbounded, in a word.[15] But an unrestricted and qualitatively infinite reality would have all possible powers, including the power to possibly be a cause of all-natural (finite) things. And so, it is possible that there is a cause of all-natural things.
Assuming a person finds any of these reasons plausible for the possibility of an external cause of all natural things, the argument is then set into motion, and the result of a supernatural thing (namely, God) is produced from it. And returning to Descartes, it is indeed clear and distinct that within the idea of a qualitatively infinite being, God exists both necessarily and perfectly.
Footnotes/references
[1] Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. (Hackett Publishing Company: Indianapolis, 2009. Second edition), 59.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 2, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.
[3] Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1989), Part II, Section 7.
[4] Alexander R. Pruss and Joshua L. Rasmussen, Necessary Existence (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2018).
[5] Dr. Joshua Rasmussen, “From Possibility to Actuality: The Argument from S5,” Joshua Rasmussen (blog). Date accessed 2July2020 at joshualrasmussen.com
[6] Plantinga defines maximal greatness as having maximal excellence (which is omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection) in all possible worlds. Quick overview: Kenneth Einar Himma, “Anselm: Ontological Argument for God’s Existence,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (website). Date accessed 2July2020 at iep.utm.edu) Thus, great making properties at least include omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection. Great making properties, however, do not include being a certain size or having a number of pepperonis, so we need not worry about anything like a maximally great pizza. Obviously, it is greater to know all things rather than only some things, but it is not obviously, objectively greater to have ten pepperonis instead of only four.
[7] Another way to think about natural vs supernatural things, is this. Whatever is a natural thing is not completely intelligible in and of itself. The limited essence of any natural thing inherently makes room for another coherent question about why such a natural being is so. For example, why is this natural thing behaving this way rather than that, or with these powers instead of those, or here instead of there, etc. A supernatural thing, on the other hand, in virtue of being qualitatively infinite, would have to contain within itself the complete set of answers to the complete set of coherent questions that could be asked about it; meaning, if we could grasp its nature, we would see that it is intrinsically and unrestrictedly intelligible. Our minds, in other words, would be satisfied with respect to explanation regarding the supernatural thing without recourse to an external cause.
[8] Aries and Watkins, Modern Philosophy. 59.
[9] Pruss and Rasmussen, Necessary Existence, 29.
[10] Again, I am assuming the modal system S5; an explanation and defense of which is beyond the scope of this article. But such an explanation and defense can be found in Pruss and Rasmussen, Necessary Existence.
[11] Brian Leftow, “Rethinking the Ontological Argument,” YouTube video, from Center for Philosophy of Religion on 3 October 2015, at http://www.youtube.com.
[12] Pruss and Rasmussen, Necessary Existence, 90.
[13] To posit a possible external cause does not mean there could not be a possible internal cause. That is a question that can be left entirely open with no detriment to the argument.
[14] William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken: 2012), 28.
[15] This argument is inspired by Robert Spitzer; a similar presentation of which can be found in Robert J. Spitzer, New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2010), 110-143.