J. Joseph Porter

“It’s the Principle of the Thing”: On Mackie, Metaphysical Principles, and the Cosmological

Argument

I. Introduction

“The principle of sufficient reason,” J.L. Mackie writes in The Miracle of Theism,

“expresses a demand that things should be intelligible through and through. The simple reply to

the argument which relies on it” — that is, the cosmological argument for the existence of a

necessary existent (and thus of God) — “is that there is nothing that justifies this demand, and

nothing that supports the belief that it is satisfiable even in principle” (Mackie, 85).

I believe that Professor Mackie has overstated his case both against the principle of

sufficient reason (hereafter, the PSR) and against the cosmological argument which depends on

it. Moreover, I believe that he has overstated the implicit case which he makes against the very

class of principles to which the PSR belongs, which I shall call the class of metaphysical

principles: the class of (putative) metaphysically, but not logically, necessary truths.

In this essay, I seek to accomplish three thing: first, to defend the PSR, a particular

metaphysical principle, against Mackie’s chief objection to it; second, to dispute his implicit

claim that there are no true metaphysical principles such as the PSR; and, third, to put forward a

version of the cosmological argument which depends not on the PSR but on similar metaphysical

principles.

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II. Mackie on the Principle of Sufficient Reason

The cosmological argument, which Mackie calls “par excellence the philosophers’

argument for theism” (Mackie, 81), has been put forward by many different philosophers

through the centuries, and appears in many versions as a result. The best known of these may be

Leibniz’, which Mackie sums up as follows: “[N]othing occurs without a sufficient reason why it

is so and not otherwise. There must, then, be a sufficient reason for the world as a whole, a

reason why something exists rather than nothing” (82). What follows is my own formulation of

Mackie’s more detailed summary of Leibniz’ cosmological argument:

1. For any existent x, if x exists, then either x exists necessarily or x exists contingently.

(Premise)

2. If x exists necessarily, then there exists a sufficient reason R why x exists, and R is

identical to x. (Premise) 1

3. If x exists contingently, then there exists a sufficient reason R why x exists, and R is

neither identical to nor a part of x. (Premise)

4. If and only if x exists contingently, then x is either identical to or a part of the world.

(Definition)

5. The world exists contingently. (Premise)

6. Therefore, there exists a sufficient reason R0 why the world exists, and R0 is neither

1 Strictly speaking, (2) is unnecessary to establish the conclusion of the argument. It has been added so that the argument contains within it a complete formulation of the PSR.

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identical to nor a part of the world. (3, 5)

7. Therefore, the sufficient reason R0 why the world exists does not exist contingently. (4, 6)

8. Therefore, the sufficient reason R0 why the world exists exists necessarily (1, 7).

The conjunction of (1)­(3) is one feasible formulation of the PSR. (4) defines the world as that

which is made up of all and only contingent existents — as Edward Feser puts it, “the totality of

possible [i.e., contingent] things.” (5) is a relatively (though not absolutely) uncontroversial

premise. (6)­(8) follow from (1) and (3)­(5). One certainly may question the exact wording of 2

the argument, and especially of the PSR in (1)­(3). (As stated, the PSR pertains toexistentsrather

than, for instance, to facts or states of affairs.) Such questions notwithstanding, however, the

argument as formulated is at least valid, and therefore sound if (1) and (3)­(5) are true.

Mackie names two objections to the cosmological argument, which may be “summed up

in the questions ‘How do we know that everything must have a sufficient reason?’ and ‘How can

there be a necessary being, one that contains its own sufficient reason?’” (Mackie, 82). These

objections respectively amount to a denial of (3) and to a denial of the coherence of (8). For 3

now, I will consider only the first objection, which is Mackie’s chief objection both to the

cosmological argument and to the PSR. I will return to the second objection shortly.

Mackie gives at least two separate reasons for denying the PSR. He notes Samuel

Clarke’s observation that “someone who has a good reason for doing either A or B, but no reason

for doing one of these rather than the other, will surely choose one arbitrarily rather than do

neither” (Mackie, 85). But if that is the case, then there may be no fact of the matter why A was

2 Anyone who disputes (5) will likely dispute (4) as well. I am not sure that anyone who does not dispute (5) will dispute (4). 3 Mackie, as I understand him, would object only to (3), not to the other two constituent premises of the PSR.

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chosen instead of B; in other words, that A was chosen instead of B may be a brute fact, a

contingent fact which has no explanation. And such a fact would be a counterexample to the

PSR, or at least to certain versions of it: for the PSR is commonly supposed to rest on the

supposition that there simply are no brute facts, that everything happens for a reason, that

“nothing occurs without a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise” (82). Of course, some

versions of the PSR — including my own in (1)­(3) — may not entail the proposition that every

fact (such as the fact that A was chosen instead of B) has a sufficient reason or explanation, only

that every existent has an explanation. Still, many proponents of the PSR would be reluctant to 4

concede that there are any brute facts at all.

Mackie’s chief objection to the PSR, however, is that it is unknowable a priori. Though

Mackie never explicitly says so, he seems to believe that only a priori truths should be

considered necessary truths, and thus that only the necessary truths of logic — the truths that are

true in all “logically possible worlds” (Mackie, 84) — area priori. Mackie also seems to believe

— correctly, I think — that the PSR, if true, is necessarily true. But if these beliefs of Mackie’s 5

are correct, then the PSR, if it is unknowable a priori, is not necessarily true (because it is

unknowable a priori), and therefore false (because it is only true if it is necessarily true). 6

To be sure, Mackie acknowledges that there is somea posteriorievidence for something

like the PSR, though he considers this evidence far from sufficient to establish it; he

acknowledges “the degree of success we have had in interpreting the world” with the help of

4 Obviously, if facts exists — that is, if facts are existents — then these versions of the PSR may be no less vulnerable to Clarke’s objection. 5 Plausibly, a contingently true PSR is self­refuting. For if the PSR were not necessarily true, then it would be contingently true; but if it were contingently true, then what sufficient reason would there be for its being true? And if there were no sufficient reason for the truth of the PSR, then the PSR would be an exception to itself. 6 And, plausibly, necessarily false, according to some systems of modal logic — though Mackie never explicitly makes such a claim. I will return to this point later.

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principles like the PSR (Mackie, 85). Elsewhere, however, he seems to retract statements such as

this one and to hint that the PSR is justifiableonly ona priori grounds, and thus not justifiable at

all: “[T]here is nothing that justifies [the demand of the PSR], and nothing that supports the

belief that it is satisfiable even in principle. […] [I]t is difficult to see how there even could be

anything that would satisfy it” (Mackie, 85). Such claims that the demand of the PSR is not

“satisfiable even in principle” and that there likely could not even “be anything that would

satisfy it” appear to confirm that the PSR, for Mackie, is justifiable only on a priori grounds.

Mackie seems to dispute the aprioricity of the PSR because it is not logically necessary; it

is false in some logically possible worlds. (Logical necessity is the only criterion of aprioricity

which I am able to discern in Mackie’s discussion of the cosmological argument and of the

PSR.) Admittedly, the PSR does not appear to be logically necessary; its negation does not entail

a contradiction, or at least not an obvious contradiction. There is presumably a logically possible

world in which the PSR is false and in which all kinds of inexplicable things happen as a result:

Entire galaxies come into existence spontaneously, out of nothing; the usual laws of nature

sporadically “give out” and cease to apply (perhaps only in certain pockets of space­time,

perhaps only on Tuesdays); the mental states of all philosophers are causelessly transformed

overnight such that they all agree on everything. There is something odd about this possible

world, but there is nothing logically impossible about it. But if so, then the PSR is not logically

necessary, and therefore not knowable a priori, and therefore not necessarily true, and therefore

false — not true at all.

It seems to me that this argument of Mackie’s against the PSR fails and that he has not

yet disproved the principle of sufficient reason. As I understand them, Mackie’s conditions for

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necessity, upon which his argument depends, are excessively strict. Consider, for one, his

apparent supposition that only a priori truths should be considered necessary truths: that, if a

proposition P is necessarily true, then it is knowable a priori. This supposition is false; as Saul

Kripke has shown, there are in fact a posteriori necessary truths, such as the truth that water is

H20. (However, perhaps Mackie’s initial supposition can be revised: If a proposition P is

necessarily true, then either it is knowable a priori or it is an identity proposition.) Or consider,

more importantly, a second supposition of his that only logically necessary truths are knowablea

priori: that, if a proposition P is knowable a priori, then it is logically necessary. This

proposition has some far­reaching and questionable consequences. For example, if it is true, then

(putatively necessary) ethical principles such as the categorical imperative or the principle of

utility are unknowable a priori, because they are not logically necessary — and therefore,

according to Mackie, not necessarily true, and in fact outright false. (Mackie himself, as a moral

error theorist, will not be bothered by this conclusion, but many others likely will be.) Moreover,

this second supposition may entail that Mackie’s first supposition — that, if a proposition P is

necessarily true, then it is knowable a priori — is itself unknowable. For this first supposition

appears to be knowable, if at all, only a priori — and yet it does not appear to be logically

necessary. But if it is not logically necessary, then it is not knowable a priori, and thus,

plausibly, not knowable at all. It seems, therefore, that necessity does not entail aprioricity, and

that aprioricity in turn does not entail logical necessity. And if that is the case, then it is not clear

that Mackie’s argument against the PSR succeeds.

It is true, of course, that the PSR is not logically necessary; it is premature, however, to

claim that it is therefore unjustifiable, or that any version of the cosmological argument “which

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relies on the principle of sufficient reason therefore fails completely as a demonstrative proof”

(Mackie, 87). Mackie is perhaps correct to write, “Even if, as is possible, we have some innate

tendency to look for and expect … symmetries and continuities and regularities [in the world],

this does not give us an a priori guarantee that such can always be found” (85). But even in that

case, does the preponderance of such symmetries, continuities, and regularities in the world not

count as any grounds for accepting the PSR? Does the actual world justhappen to be one of the

comparatively few possible worlds which unfolds symmetrically, continually, and regularly —

without inexplicable creation or destruction of matter, or inexplicable transpositions in the

space­time locations of random particles, or inexplicable fluctuations in the laws of nature? (One

could easily put forward an argument from apparent explicability for the PSR parallel to the

argument from apparent design for the existence of God.) “Even if, within the world, everything

seemed to have a sufficient reason … this would give us little ground for expecting the world as

a whole … to have a sufficient reason of some different sort” (ibid.). But why only little ground?

Scientists demand explanations for subatomic particles; for atoms, which are collections of

subatomic particles; for molecules, which are collections of atoms; and so on, all the way up to

galaxies, which are themselves only huge collections of matter and energy. (Mackie is therefore 7

wrong, I think, to dismiss “[t]he notion that everything must have a sufficient reason” as a mere

“metaphysician’s demand” on p. 92 — for it seems to me that the demand for a sufficient reason

is almost always uncontroversial). The world itself, according to Mackie and many other atheists,

is nothing more than a collection of matter and energy even huger than a galactic collection.

Why should it (and apparently it alone) be exempt from the demand for an explanation? Mackie

7 It seems to me, in fact, that many scientists would respond to Clarke’s example mentioned above by insisting that there would have to be an explanation for why was A was chosen over B — an “unconscious” or neurological explanation if not a “conscious” or prudential one.

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acknowledges that, if the PSR and similar metaphysical principles are false, then any explanation

of a contingent fact will somehow include “premisses which state ‘brute facts’” (86) —

inexplicable contingent facts. But why should it be more likely that some brute facts are true than

that the PSR is true? And even if some brute facts are true (such as the fact that A was chosen

rather than B), why should it not still be likely that some restricted version of the PSR is true?

These last questions underscore an important distinction between (metaphysical)

necessity and epistemic certainty. Mackie will seemingly accept as necessarily true only those

propositions which are epistemically certain — that is, knowable a priori. But it is not clearly

wrong to accept a putatively necessarily true proposition even if one is not certain that the

proposition is true; it is not clearly true that one should accept a putatively necessarily true

proposition such as the PSR or the categorical imperative only if one knows that proposition with

certainty. Therefore, it is not clearly wrong to assign the PSR a prior (epistemic) probability of,

say, 0.5 (or even lower), evaluate its posterior probability given the conditional probabilities that

the world is as apparently explicable as it is if the PSR is true (0.9?) and if it is false (0.1?), and

then accept the PSR on probabilistic grounds. (If these are the right conditional probabilities —

which admittedly is, as they say, a big if — then the PSR’s posterior probability is 0.9.) And if

that is the case, then Mackie has not yet demonstrated that the PSR is false or that the

cosmological argument fails.

III. Deflategate? Mackie’s Deflationary Theory of Metaphysical Necessity

Mackie’s major criticism of the PSR and of the cosmological argument seems to be a

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criticism of any similar metaphysical principle — and, even more broadly, of any putatively

necessary truth which is not logically necessary. I ought now to return to Mackie’s second

objection to the cosmological argument — “How can there be a necessary being, one that

contains its own sufficient reason?” (Mackie, 82) — in order to illustrate this point. Mackie

writes,

Since it is always a further question whether a concept is instantiated or not, no matter how much it contains, the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self­explanatory: there might have failed to be any such thing. This “might” expresses at least a conceptual possibility; if it is alleged that this being none the less exists by a metaphysical necessity, we are still waiting for an explanation of this kind of necessity. The existence of this being is not logically necessary; it does not exist in all logically possible worlds; in what way, then, does it necessarily exist in this world and satisfy the demand for a sufficient reason? (84)

Mackie claims that “there might have failed to be” even a being “whose essence included

existence.” For the existence of such a being is not logically necessary; it is a “conceptual

possibility” that it might not have existed. And “if it is alleged that this being none the less exists

by a metaphysical necessity, we are still waiting for an explanation of this kind of necessity.”

But these claims seem to beg the question against the cosmological argument. To assert

that “it is always a further question whether a concept is instantiated or not” is, as far as I can

see, simply to assert the denial of the cosmological argument’s conclusion. Perhaps it is true that

“the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self­explanatory”

— but the proponent of the cosmological argument has not merely insisted that a necessary

being’s existence is self­explanatory (as, arguably, the proponent of the ontological argument

has), but rather argued for the existence of a necessary being on other grounds: the contingency

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of the world and the PSR. Mackie says that he is “still waiting for an explanation” of

metaphysical necessity, but that explanation has already been given: The PSR and the

proposition that the world exists contingently — premises (1)­(5) stated above — entail that

there is something that exists necessarily, and thus that something is metaphysically necessary.

Mackie’s objection, then, seems to amount to little more than the objection that

metaphysical necessity is nothing more than logical necessity — that something is

metaphysically necessary if and only if it is logically necessary. Put differently, Mackie seems to

argue from a deflationary theory of metaphysical necessity to the conclusion that the

cosmological argument is false — just as he seems to have argued from that same deflationary

theory to the conclusion that the PSR is false. For it seems to me that Mackie could criticize the

PSR with almost exactly the same words that he used to criticize the existence of a necessary

being. It is not too difficult to “translate” his criticism of the latter into a criticism of the former:

Since it is always a further question whether a (non­tautological) proposition is true or not, no matter how much it contains, the truth even of a metaphysically necessary proposition would not be self­explanatory: it might have failed to be true. This “might” expresses at least a conceptual possibility; if it is alleged that this proposition none the less is metaphysically necessarily true, we are still waiting for an explanation of this kind of necessity. The truth of this proposition is not logically necessary; it is not true in all logically possible worlds; in what way, then, is it necessarily true in this world?

Importantly, this precise criticism extends to any putative metaphysical principle like the PSR.

Indeed, I do not even have to say that this precise criticism extends to any putative metaphysical

principle like the PSR “mutatis mutandis” — for nothing within it, not a single world, needs to

be changed. The translated criticism above nowhere refers specifically to the PSR; it has, so to

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speak, no mutandis to mutatis. It seems, therefore, that Mackie implicitly objects to any

metaphysical principle, and indeed to any putatively necessary truth which is not logically

necessary.

Perhaps, of course, Mackie is right to do so. Perhaps metaphysical necessity just is

logical necessity, in which case the PSR is false and the cosmological argument fails. The price

which he pays for this conclusion, however, strikes me as prohibitively steep. First, it is not clear

that Mackie’s deflationary theory of metaphysical necessity is not self­refuting; it is not clear, in

other words, that Mackie’s rejection of all metaphysical principles is not itself a metaphysical

principle. After all, Mackie does not seem to believe that the falsehood of the PSR is contingent,

but rather necessary; he does not see how the PSR could be true even “in principle” (Mackie,

85), and furthermore does not appear to see how any metaphysical principle could be true even

in principle. He therefore seems compelled to accept his own rejection of these metaphysical

principles as true in principle: for, if all metaphysical principles are necessarily false, then his

claim that all metaphysical principles are false is necessarily true. But necessarily true in virtue

of what? “The truth of this proposition is not logically necessary; it is not true in all logically

possible worlds; in what way, then, is it necessarily true in this world?” It seems that Mackie’s

claim that there are no non­logically necessary truths may itself, if true, be a non­logically

necessary truth. But then Mackie, to borrow the Bard’s memorable phrase, may be hoist with his

own petard. (Or to do so again: The philosopher doth prove too much, methinks.)

Suppose, however, that I am wrong, and that Mackie’s rejection of metaphysical

principles is not self­refuting. (Perhaps I have misinterpreted Mackie; perhaps he does not reject

metaphysical principlessimpliciter.) Even if it is not self­refuting, why should it be correct? Why

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should there not be true metaphysical principles? Most of us — including, I think, many

philosophers — accept “ethically necessary” truths (akin to metaphysically necessary truths)

which are not logically necessary but still putatively necessarily true. For example, most of us

accept as necessarily true the proposition that killing babies for no reason is wrong, even though

it is not true in every logically possible world. This proposition strikes most of us as extremely

plausible (and some of us, for that matter, as knowable a priori). Why should it nevertheless be

false — why, moreover, should any such ethical proposition be false — simply because it is not

logically necessary? And if we should not reject ethically necessary truths wholesale, why should

we reject metaphysically necessary truths wholesale? Consider the proposition that nothing

causes itself — a proposition which is about as likely as any other to be a metaphysical principle.

It seems clear to me that self­causation is impossible, not just in the actual world but in any

(metaphysically) possible world. It seems clear to me, in other words, that self­causation does

not merely happen to be impossible in the actual world: Self­causation not onlyisimpossible in

the actual world, but also could not have been possible in the actual world. (Compare: Killing

babies for no reason not only is wrong in the actual world, but alsocould not have been right in

the actual world.) But if that is right, then the principle of non­self­causation is an obvious

counterexample to Mackie’s claim. Of course, there is more to say about the putative

metaphysical impossibility of self­causation than I have just said; I do not claim to have proved

the “PNSC” in just a few sentences. But the principle of non­self­causation does still strike me as

plausible enough not to be dismissed simply because it is not logically necessary — and I doubt

that I am alone in this view. In fact, more generally, it seems to me that many metaphysical

principles are plausible, even if they are not logically necessary.

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As a result, if Mackie objects that metaphysical principles cannot be necessarily true

because they are not true in all logically possible worlds, his opponent can (somewhat

impolitely) reply, “So what? A metaphysical (or ethical) principle, if true, is true in all

metaphysically possible worlds. Logical possibility does not entail metaphysical possibility —

or, if it does, you have not yet explained why. I agree with you that the PSR (or the principle of

non­self­causation, or the categorical imperative, or what­have­you) is not logically necessary.

But I do not believe that the actual world truly could have been such that the PSR (or many other

principles) were false; and so I believe that it is metaphysically necessarily true.” If Mackie then

asks for an explanation of the supposed metaphysical necessity of the principle in question, his

opponent can argue that it is self­evident, or axiomatic, or knowable a priori, or epistemically

near­certain due to Bayesian considerations. He can ask, much as I have already asked, “Why

should it be more likely that some brute facts are true than that this principle is true? Why should

it be necessarily true only if it is logically necessary?” He can claim that he is more confident

that the principle in question is true than that the space of logically possible worlds is the

appropriate beginning point for metaphysical inquiry. Or he can simply say, as philosophers for

centuries have done, that to deny it would be absurd.

Of course, if Mackie is not convinced by any of these replies, then I am not sure that

there is much more to say; an impasse may have been reached. I, however, still believe that

logical necessity is not the only kind of necessity. I believe that at least some metaphysical (and

ethical) principles are necessarily true, whether or not every specific such principle is itself true;

and I would guess that many others will share this belief.

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IV. Metaphysical Principles and the Cosmological Argument

I disagree with Mackie that the PSR is false in principle; but I do understand why he and

others may believe that the PSR, or at least certain versions of it, are false. At least some

versions of the PSR seem to entail necessitarianism, the thesis that the actual world exists

necessarily and is the only (metaphysically) possible world. (Other worlds, of course, are still

logically possible even if necessitarianism is true; necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle,

not a logical one.) For if certain versions of the PSR are true, thenex hypothesi every contingent

factFhas an explanationE, a sufficient reason why it is true and not false, such that, ifE, thenF.

If that is the case, then the conjunction C of all contingent facts itself has an explanation E0.

Plausibly, E0 is not a conjunct of C — for, if it were, it would explain itself — and is therefore

not a contingent fact but a necessary one. But then it seems thatC itself is necessarily true: forC

follows from E0, and E0 is necessarily true. And if C is necessarily true, then it seems that there

are no contingent facts — or, in other words, that necessitarianism is true. Necessitarianism, of

course, is a controversial thesis and extremely counterintuitive to many. Many would sooner

reject the PSR than accept necessitarianism — myself likely included.

Proponents of the PSR have their responses to such objections to it, which I will not

rehearse here. Instead, I shall simply note that my formulation of the PSR in (1)­(3), according to

which only existents (not facts or events) necessarily have sufficient reasons for their existence,

does not obviously succumb to either Clarke’s or the non­necessitarian’s objection to the PSR. I

do still believe that my formulation of the cosmological argument above is sound; but, in any

case, I think that there are metaphysical principles other than the PSR which are just as useful, if

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not more so, to proponents of the cosmological argument.

Consider the following three:

Everything which exists contingently has a cause. (“If xexists contingently, then there is

a cause y of x, and y exists.”)

Nothing causes itself. (“If y is a cause of x, then y is neither identical to nor a part of x.”)

The world exists contingently. 8

If these principles are true, and if (as I shall assume) premises (9) and (13) below are

uncontroversially true, then the following cosmological argument for a necessary existent — the

basis of which I owe to both Edward Feser and Jon McGinnis’ formulations of Avicenna’s

argument from contingency — is both valid and sound:

9. For any existent x, if x exists, then either x exists necessarily or x exists contingently.

(Premise)

10. If x exists contingently, then there is a cause y of x, and y exists. (Premise)

11. If y is a cause of x, then y is neither identical to nor a part of x. (Premise)

12. If and only if x exists contingently, then x is either identical to or a part of the world.

(Definition)

13. The world exists contingently. (Premise) 9

8 The first two of these three principles are together similar to my formulation of the third conjunct of the PSR in (3), which amounts to the claims that everything which exists contingently has an explanation and that nothing explains itself. And, of course, all versions of the cosmological argument of which I am aware suppose that the world exists contingently. 9 Of course, if the world exists necessarily, then there is a necessary existent (and (12) is false). Insofar as the

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14. Therefore, there is a cause y0 of the world, and y0 exists. (10, 13)

15. Therefore, y0 is neither identical to nor a part of the world. (11, 14)

16. Therefore, y0 does not exist contingently. (12, 15)

17. Therefore, y0 exists necessarily. (9, 16)

This argument, if sound, establishes the existence of a necessary existent which causes the world

and which is therefore neither identical to nor a part of it — and this we call God, at least as

Avicenna and most other pre­modern theistic philosophers have understood Him.

(17) follows from (9)­(13). I do not know of anyone who would dispute (9). If anyone

were to dispute (12), I suppose that “the world” could be replaced throughout the argument by

“the set of all contingent things” or something similar so that (12) would more obviously true.

Necessitarians would dispute (13), but I do not know any necessitarians, and I do not know

exactly what I would say to convince them that (13) is true if I did. (It is always difficult to put

forward arguments for one’s axioms which will convince those who do not already consider

them to be axiomatic.) The same goes for (11): “Self­causationalists” would no doubt dispute

(11), but I do not know any self­causationalists, and I do not know exactly what I would say to

convince them that (11) is true if I did. That leaves us (10) — likely the most controversial of

these five premises — to consider.

I do know at least two very intelligent persons who would dispute (10) on the grounds

that an eternally existing contingent thing would not need a cause. One of them is Mackie: “Why

… might there not be a permanent stock of matter whose essence did not involve existence but

cosmological argument is intended to prove that God exists separately from the world, however, it seems to be successful only if it demonstrates the existence of a necessary existent which is neither identical to nor a part of the world.

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which did not derive its existence from anything else?” (Mackie, 91). (To paraphrase for our

present purposes: Why might there not be an eternally existing stock of matter which exists

contingently but which is uncaused?) After all, such a stock of matter is (according to one friend

of mine, the other very intelligent person I know who would dispute (10)) imaginable: One can

imagine, for instance, an eternally existing, uncaused, contingent rock. Or can one? Perhaps our

imaginations are incapable of imagining eternal existence, uncaused­ness, and contingency

themselves; perhaps we can imagine only rocks simpliciter, and must use our other mental

faculties to evaluate their eternal existence, caused­ness, or contingency. Even still: One can

conceive that such a metaphysically exotic rock exists; such a rock exists, as Mackie would say,

in some logically possible worlds. For that matter, anon­eternaluncaused contingent thing is no

less conceivable: “As Hume pointed out, we can certainly conceive an uncaused beginning­to­be

of an object” (89).

And yet the principle that nothing can come from nothing “is constantly confirmed in our

experience” (Mackie, 89), as Mackie himself admits. Why? It seems to me that the constant

confirmation in our experience of the caused­ness of contingent things is much more likely if

(10) is true than if it is not. Perhaps, however, what is confirmed in our experience is merely that

non­eternal contingent things have causes. But then I — enlightened, or alternatively blinded, by

my fondness for the PSR — must ask the following: “Why should any one specific eternal

contingent thing have been uncaused­ly actualized rather than another? (Is it possible for a

contingent thing to exist without being actualized in some way? But is ‘uncaused actualization’ a

coherent concept?) Why should our world contain this much matter and energy rather than that

much? Why should changes within it unfold in accordance with these laws of nature rather than

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those? Even if the PSR is false, we do still usually expect facts to have explanations and

questions to have answers. Why, then, should these specific questions not have any answers?

Why should any explanation of a contingent thing’s existence be less reasonable or likely than

the claim that there is no explanation of its existence at all? (Under what circumstances is no

explanation at all preferable to any explanation — even an outlandish one?)”

The proper response to this barrage, as far as I can see — besides “Why so many

rhetorical questions?” — is simply to insist that some questions do not even in principle have

answers, and that some facts do not even in principle have explanations. This response is at least

consistent. After all, anyone who denies (10) and the PSR need not give a sufficient reason why

they are false; he may simply deny that there even is a sufficient reason why they are false.

(Since he rejects the PSR, he is presumably not required by his metaphysical commitments to

give a sufficient reason for anything.) Of course, internal consistency is not much — Berkeleyan

idealism, solipsism, and Last Thursdayism are all internally consistent — but it is something.

I, nevertheless, continue to accept (10). I am persuaded by my own barrage of rhetorical

questions, as unimpressive as they may be to anyone else. I understand that a counterexample to

(10) such as an eternally existing uncaused contingent thing may be logically possible; but I am

far from convinced that such a thing actually numbers among the metaphysically possible things

which might actually have existed, and I secretly wonder whether Mackie or my friend truly

consider such a thing genuinely metaphysically possible. I may not be able to prove (10) to its

detractors, just as I am not able to disprove idealism, solipsism, and Last Thursdayism to their

proponents. (So it goes in philosophy.) But I continue to find (10) much more plausible than its

negation, and thus I continue to find the cosmological argument as formulated above sound.

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V. Conclusion

Mackie, after concluding his examination of several different deductive versions of the

cosmological argument, writes,

We have no general grounds for expecting to be able to demonstrate, by deductively valid arguments, using premisses that are known with certainty, conclusions which go far beyond the empirical data on which they are based. And particularly since Hume and Kant philosophers have tended to be very sceptical about such a possibility. (Mackie, 95)

Perhaps proponents of the cosmological argument have not yet demonstrated the existence of a

necessary existent in this way. Of course, such an argument as Mackie describes would be the

gold standard of philosophical arguments — and many contemporary philosophers, as Mackie

notes, rather doubt that anyone has the argumentative Midas touch.

Even still, there is plenty of room between the gold standard of philosophical arguments

and an argument which “fails completely as a demonstrative proof” (Mackie, 87), as Mackie

claims that the cosmological argument does. If the cosmological argument fails to reach the gold

standard, it certainly does not follow that it fails completely as an argument. As things stand, in

my opinion, it is about as good a philosophical argument as any: Its premises strike me as

near­certain, and the arguments against them as very doubtful. Those who deny it must accept

the existence of a necessary world or uncaused (or self­caused) contingent things — if not also a

whole cornucopia of inexplicable brute facts. The cost of accepting its premises seems quite low

in comparison.

I accept, therefore, at least some metaphysical principles, among them some (perhaps

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restricted) version of the PSR. I maintain that at least some version of the cosmological argument

is sound — and hopefully at least two, if I have crafted my formulations of it above with enough

care. Do I know the metaphysical principles which I accept and upon which the cosmological

argument depends with certainty? If “know with certainty” means “know to be true in all

logically possible worlds,” then I do not — just as I do not know anything but logical axioms and

tautologies to be true in all logically possible worlds. But I do in fact believe that I still know

these metaphysical principles. I do not have logically certain reason for accepting them — only,

as it were, sufficient reason. But that, I think, is enough.

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Bibliography

Feser, Edward. “Avicenna's Argument from Contingency, Part I.” Edward Feser.

Gale, Richard M., and Alexander R. Pruss. “A New Cosmological Argument.”Religious Studies

35.4 (1999): 461­76.

Kripke, Saul A. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1980.

Mackie, J. L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. Oxford:

Clarendon, 1982.

McGinnis, Jon, and David C. Reisman. Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources.

Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Tucker Brooke and Jack

Randall Crawford. New Haven: Yale UP, 1947.

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