Abstract
In reply to certain cosmological arguments for theism, critics regularly argue that the causal principle ex nihilo nihil fit may be false. Various theistic counter-replies to this challenge have emerged. One type of strategy is to double down on ex nihilo nihil fit. Another, very different strategy of counter-reply is to grant for the sake of argument that the principle is false, while maintaining that sound cosmological arguments can be formulated even with this concession in place. Notably, one can employ a weaker opening premise formulated in modal terms, proceeding for instance from the proposition that for any contingent object coming into existence it is at least possible that it (or a duplicate) have a cause. My aim here is to try out a related strategy for weakening the relevant opening premise. Granting that it is possible for a contingent object to come into existence out of nothing without a cause, I proceed from the extremely modest claim that the obtaining of exceptionless (or nearly exceptionless) longstanding contingent regularities demands an explanation. As such, the contingent regularity that empirically accessible macro-level contingent objects do not pop into existence causelessly demands explanation. And as it turns out, that explanation will have to be in terms of an object or objects possessed of at least some of the traditional divine attributes.
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25 November 2016
An erratum to this article has been published.
Notes
For further expressions of scepticism concerning ex nihilo nihil fit see for instance Everitt (2004, chapter 4), Oppy (2002, 2006, p. 151, 2009) and Smith (in Craig and Smith 1993, p. 135). Draper (2008, p. 50), while not questioning the typical applicability of the principle, argues it may nevertheless be inapplicable to the origin of the universe.
See Pruss (2009, pp. 30–32). He is actually discussing ex nihilo nihil fit simply as an application of a still more robust principle of sufficient reason, but the point carries over.
This sort of point regarding induction is of course familiar from the literature on regularity theories of law; the inability of such theories to supply a rational ground for inductive inference is a well-known problem for them.
Joshua Rasmussen in correspondence makes the interesting suggestion that premise 1 might be weakened still further by formulating it in probabilistic terms, resulting in something like this: “Exceptionless (or nearly exceptionless) longstanding contingent regularities probably have an explanation that accounts for why they obtain”. And since the specific regularity I am considering falls under this category, it too probably has an explanation, which as it turns out can only be found in a powerful indestructible object…Reformulated in this way, the argument as a whole will then count as a piece of abductive rather than deductive reasoning. I think this strategy warrants further consideration; my worry though is that it may weaken this opening premise too much, conceding as it does that in our world there can in fact be exceptionless (or nearly exceptionless) longstanding contingent regularities. That concession then raises the issue of how to distinguish which such regularities have explanations and which don’t, and whether there could be a principled answer to that question. An inability to distinguish them would again raise skeptical worries and problems for the sciences. Given these complications (which may in fact admit resolution), I prefer the current formulation.
Pruss’ principle of sufficient reason is a stronger principle than ex nihilo nihil fit, and implies it.
Or perhaps the explanatory object could dispense with the intermediary of a natural law, and directly efficaciously decree that this state of affairs obtain. Or perhaps laws of nature are ultimately reducible to efficacious decrees of this kind, as Foster (2004) argues. However, while one might be able to cut out the intermediary of the law, the reverse move will not work. i.e., one might be tempted to cut the concrete object out of the picture, and claim that the law itself (conceived along Platonist lines as an independent abstractum) could explain the regularity on its own. That won’t work, since the law obtains contingently (remember, by hypothesis the regularity under consideration is itself contingent), and as a result something must explain why that law obtains rather than not. This in turn requires, ultimately, a concrete object to fix the law in place.
Joshua Rasmussen has in correspondence suggested ending the argument here, rather than proceeding according to the more ambitious aim of undermining metaphysical naturalism specifically. Conclusion 2 does leave us with an interesting proposition, and one which is clearly consonant with theistic commitments. However, I like the idea of at least attempting to draw out explicitly some additional implications of Conclusion 2, based on the further sorts of properties a causally powerful, genuinely indestructible object would have to possess. Still, it is worth pointing out that should the reader think the remainder of the argument is unsuccessful, Conclusion 2 could remain standing and would retain independent interest.
Additinal support for the claim that indestructibility entails immateriality can be found in Goldschmidt (2011), who presses its intuitive plausibility.
I am tempted to pursue a more robust point here, and argue that genuine indestructibility entails necessary existence. After all, one might argue that even a non-physical contingent object (an angel or Cartesian ego for instance) is still a contingent object and so could, in principle, be wiped out of existence by something sufficiently powerful. If this line of thought were correct, it would imply further that the only way to explain adequately the contingent regularity under scrutiny would be by reference to a powerful object that exists not just immaterially, but also necessarily. That would in turn permit one to construct an even more modest (and thus still more easily defensible) opening premise. That is, one could deploy a modal version of the present argument, along the following lines:
Premise 8 can of course be justified by reference to the S5 system of modal logic (according to which the possible truth of a necessary proposition entails the actual truth of that proposition). This is a tempting line of thought, insofar as it would give us another traditional divine attribute, necessary existence, and thus get our conclusion closer to classical theism, and insofar as it permits the use of an even more modest opening premise. However, I will not pursue this modal version of the argument further; the idea that genuine indestructibility entails necessary existence, while perhaps plausible, would require substantial defence that I cannot here pursue.
For discussions see for instance Rea (2002), Ritchie (2008), Stoljar (2010), and Goetz and Taliaferro (2008). Note that not everyone follows my practice of taking those three terms as synonymous; thus Rea distinguishes sharply between metaphysical naturalism and materialism, and only his use of the latter accords with mine.
Why formulate this core commitment of naturalism in terms of objects instead of properties? Because some self-identified naturalists wish to affirm the reality (in some sense) of non-physical properties/states/events, in particular mental properties/states/events; think for instance of self-identified non-reductive physicalists, emergentists etc. in the philosophy of mind. There is of course an internal dispute within naturalism regarding whether such views are legitimately naturalist. However, all agree that naturalism rules out the reality of non-physical substances. Schneider (2013, p. 135) draws attention to this fact when she writes that “…advocates of non-reductive physicalism have generally neglected the topic of the nature of substance, quickly nodding to the view that all substances are physical, while focusing their intellectual energy on understanding how mental properties relate to physical ones…Nowadays, the question of whether minds are physical is often viewed as being settled in favor of the physicalist; what is viewed as being up for debate is whether, given that all substances, and indeed, all particulars, are physical, mental properties are reducible to physical ones”. In support of this contention, she goes on to cite several sources from recent work in the philosophy of mind, including Kim (2006, p. 274), who observes that, within physicalism, the claim that all substances are physical is “…a starting point for discussion rather than a conclusion in need of defense”.
My thanks to an anonymous referee for this objection, which I reproduce here verbatim.
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Acknowledgments
A version of this paper was presented at the Toronto Philosophy of Religion Work-in-Progress Group, held at Ryerson University on March 18, 2016. I would like to thank all those in attendance for their helpful comments, and to thank Klaas Kraay for the kind invitation to speak. Thanks are also due to Tyron Goldschmidt, Joshua Rasmussen, Bruce Reichenbach, and an anonymous referee for the IJPR for much insightful input. Work on this paper was completed thanks in part to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, for which I am grateful to the government and taxpayers of Canada.
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An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9593-y.
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Dumsday, T. Regularities, laws, and an exceedingly modest premise for a cosmological argument. Int J Philos Relig 83, 111–123 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9586-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9586-x