We closed with an objection that can undermine one of the hidden assumptions in the Kalam. Namely, the reality of the passage of time. That, I said, moves us into the next argument: The Contingency Argument.
Some Background:
This argument looks at the existence of the universe as a whole asks, “Why does anything exist at all?”
But in order to state this argument in its logical form, we first need to define some vocabulary. So let’s get that out of the way.
Contingent / Non-Necessary: A “contingent” thing refers to any state of affairs, thing, quality, or being which could have not occurred.
Necessary / Non-Contingent: A “necessary” thing refers to any state of affairs, thing, quality, or being which must exist. It couldn’t not exist.
The Logical Form:
There are different ways to state this argument. This formulation is my own formulation. I try to combine the Leibnizian Argument from Contingency with Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Argument from Motion.
(Not because there is any deficiency in either. This is just how I understand it better.)
It goes like this:
Premise 1: Everything that exists has some explanation for its existence – either in its own necessity or in some external cause.
Premise 2: An infinite series of contingent causes is insufficient to provide an explanation.
Premise 3: Contingent things exist.
Conclusion 1: There must be a necessarily existent thing which ground the explanation for other things.
Premise 4: The universe does not exist with necessity.
Conclusion 2: The necessarily existing thing transcends and causes the universe.
Explaining Premise 1:
Premise 1 is another philosophical first-principle. If you were to find a garden gnome statue among the leaves while strolling through the forest, you would immediately start wondering how it got there.
Similar questions can be asked of all things. Large or small. Why does it exist? Why is it there? Why is it like that? For contingent things, the answers for these questions rest outside the thing.
So, for instance, the size of your iPhone is the result of a choice made by a designer. The existence of the iPhone is due to a manufacturing facility in China and Apple Corp. In all of those cases, something different could have occurred.
An example of a necessary thing could be the proposition “1+1 = 2”. That mathematical equation is true simply by its own nature. There is no possible alternative reality where 1 + 1 equals something other than 2.
So the first premise is that things fall into one of those two categories. Either it is contingent or not contingent. Either it could have been different (or not at all) or it could not have been different.
Explaining Premise 2:
Premise 2 points out that you cannot fully explain a contingent thing by pointing to another contingent thing… because then you could simply demand the explanation of THAT. The result being a logical scenario known as an “infinite regress”.
A good illustration of this principle is found in the story of the cosmologist and the old woman:
A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
The humor of the story is that it invites the question, “Down to what, exactly?” An infinite number of turtles still doesn’t explain how the earth is being held aloft. If those little turtle feet never rest on something solid, then the whole system couldn’t exist for an instant.
In a similar way, an infinite number of contingent causes cannot explain the existence of anything. Each step merely pushes the question back until it reaches.... what?
Explaining Premise 3:
Well… they do.
Explaining Conclusion 1:
The result of the first three premises is this: All contingent things do have causes which are external to themselves. The attempt to explain a contingent thing by appealing to other contingent causes results in an infinite regression. But since contingent things do exist…. that means there must be something which terminates the infinite regression of causes.
In other words, the infinite stack of turtles must touch a solid support. There must be a necessarily existing thing which causes and explains contingent reality. In the philosophy of Aristotle this was called the “Unmoved Mover” or the “Uncaused Cause”. Thomas Aquinas called it “Pure Actuality”.
To ask the question, “What caused it?” is a logical absurdity. Whatever this thing is, it exists through its own nature. It could not have failed to exist, nor could it have been different.
Explaining Premise 4:
Now we move onto the cosmological part of this argument. This is the observation that the universe does not exist with the sort of non-contingent necessity we’ve been describing.
Whereas the Kalam Cosmological Argument depends upon the assumption that the flow of time is a real feature of reality, this argument doesn’t really care. Even if the universe exists as a 4-Dimensional Spacetime Object, we can still recognize it’s contingency.
At our current moment the length of time going back to the Big Bang is 13.9 Billion years. It could have been 15.2 billion years. Likewise, it could have been a universe with no earthlike planets. It could have been a universe composed only of hydrogen atoms. Or there could have been no universe at all.
Explaining Conclusion 2:
This all means the universe needs a cause. And now we can refer back to the conceptual analysis done in the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It must be a timeless, non-spacial, immaterial, immensely powerful causal agent.
But now we can go one step further in describing this thing. We can say that it exists with metaphysical necessity – that is, through its own nature.
The "Brute Fact" Objection:
This objection essentially denies the first premise of the argument. It asserts that contingent things can exist without any explanatory cause whatsoever. This is a so-called, “Brute Fact”. (Not dissimilar to someone believing that things can come into existence uncaused).
In my mind, all this objection really amounts to is the refusal to follow the argument to its conclusion. Actually believing the universe exists as a brute fact is much harder than merely stating it. By denying the principle of sufficient reason, the person has proposed that the universe is fundamentally absurd.
It is normally inconceivable to us that something could exist for no reason or cause whatsoever. The entire project of science - of reason itself - presupposes that there are discernible reasons for the things of our experience.
The person who insists the whole universe is a brute fact has denied that principle, and stated the whole universe stands as an exception to the principle which underlies all rational thought. All to avoid the conclusion that God exists.
For more on the possibility of brute facts, I'd send you to someone who has given more thought to the matter.
In Any Event:
That concludes my formulation of the Argument from Contingency. Now, so far these arguments give a timeless, immaterial, and powerful something-or-other. What is lacking is any evidence that it is a conscious thing with a mind. For instance, it could be impersonal like the Force from Star Wars.
We’ll see if we cannot resolve that next time. See you then.
[The Design Argument]
[Return to Part 0]
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