State and Assess Two Different Objections to the Cosmological Argument.

Mackie poses the question: ‘How do we know that everything must have a sufficient reason?’ And tries to show that if the answer to this question is that we do not know everything must have a sufficient reason then it becomes true that everything must not have a sufficient reason.  Even if it is assumed that at the present time the principle of sufficient reason is only known through inference it does not hold that it is not a priori truth.  There are mathematical proofs that prove that 1+1=2 a priori truth.  Would it make that truth not a priori if there were no mathematicians to prove it?  It is possible that humans do not yet have the sufficient powers of reason to know the principle of sufficient reason a priori.  But unless he can prove it to be false by a priori truth then his argument is weaker than that of Leibniz since he does not have inference to fall back on.

Hume objects to the argument from contingency by arguing that that ‘Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction.’ and ‘whatever we can conceive as existent we can also conceive as non-existent’.  Therefore there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction.  Mackie elaborates on this point asking: ‘How can there be a necessary being, one that contains its own sufficient reason?’  Then states that if this question cannot be answered satisfactorily ‘… it will follow that things as a whole cannot have a sufficient reason.’  Mackie the goes on to make the point that a necessary being might have failed to be.  But one can say in response to this that it doesn’t make any sense.  Restated without using the word necessary the objection would read: a being which could not not-exist might not exist.  Is this not an obvious contradiction?  It seems wrong to claim that ‘might’ expresses ‘at least a conceptual possibility’, as Mackie does, in this case.  One could easily suppose that 1 + 1 might equal 4 and then claim to be able to imagine it being true.  But this indicates a conceptual error rather than a conceptual possibility.

The difference in the suppositions is that mathematical necessity can be proven but a demonstrative proof of an existential proposition, as yet, cannot.  Hume gives the example of the products of the number nine ‘it is observed by arithmetic that the products of 9 compose always either 9 or some lesser product of 9 if you add together all the characters of which any of the former products is composed…To a superficial observer so wonderful a regularity may be admired as the effect either of chance or design; but a skillful algebraist immediately concludes it to be the work of necessity, and demonstrates that it must forever result in the nature of these numbers.’  The necessity of a being cannot be proven in such a way and thus the meaning of a ‘necessary being’ is lost.

Bertrand Russell touched upon the meaninglessness of the phrase ‘necessary being’ drawing comparisons with work done in the field of logic.  Russell argued that a being is not something that can be logical necessary and therefore the phrase is meaningless.  It becomes apparent that there are difficulties with a necessary being and they are easily found when it is stated that a necessary being could exist.  Since this phrase implies that it is possible that it may not exist, but this would render the word necessary obsolete and instead the word contingent would be needed.  In this case one would be left with the possibility of an infinite number of contingent reasons in the universe or the possibility of starting the argument again but assuming that a necessary being does exist.  This last assumption in the argument for the existence of God has more in common with an impatient parent than a sound argument since it is akin to answering the question ‘why does God exist’ with the answer ‘God just does exist’.

The Cosmologial argument and in particular the argument from contingency falls short of proving that God exists. However, the objections put forward on the grounds of refuting the principle of sufficient reason do very little to tarnish the it.  Merely stating that the principle has not been proven a priori truth does not mean that it isn’t one and even if it isn’t proven a priori it could still be true.  It is worthwhile noting that even mathematics is thought not to be logically perfect; Kurt Gödel published a proof to this effect in 1931.  His work essentially denied that the consistency of the tools with which to create flawless mathematical edifice could ever be proven.  And his work shows that there are statements in mathematics which are true but which can never be proven to be true.  This being the case it seems reasonable to assume that the principle of sufficient reason, as long as it remains unfalsified, could be true.  The second objection to the argument from contingency as stated by Hume shows the logical and metaphysical problems with a necessary being.  And the objections that he brings to light show how the argument from contingency fails as a demonstrative proof.  Even if the argument was sound and there is a necessary being the only thing about it which would be necessary would be its existence.  Therefore it’s will to create the universe or any of the other qualities ascribed to God would be contingent and therefore a God in the sense that religion requires would still not be a certainty.

Bibliography

David Hume: Dialogues IX. In Rowe and Wainwright – Philosophy of Religion, Selected Readings, Third Edition, pp. 137-40.

David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part III, Section III.

        J.L. Mackie: The miracle of theism, Chapter 5.

Simon Singh: Fermat’s Last Theorem, Fourth Estate (London, 1998).

Russell and Copleston, Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, Third Edition.