Check out the cosmological argument for God on the YouTubes. You might learn how it DESTROYS
atheism or how it has been totally DEBUNKED. I wish philosophy worked that way, as if proving
or debunking God were as easy as making fudge. But the question of God is hard and there are
deep and difficult issues to work through in order to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
So this video is not about how the cosmological argument is a grand slam for team God
or how team atheist has shown to be an epic fail. No—this will be a sober,
even-handed exploration of the various possible explanations for the existence of
the cosmos and the logical space surrounding this argument for God. Let's talk about the cosmos.
By "cosmos" I mean all of physical reality, the universe, the world, all the stuff that exists.
The first question is this: did the cosmos have to exist? Instead of this vast physical reality,
could there have been nothing at all? In other words, is the cosmos necessary
or contingent? Contingent things just happen to exist: tennis balls, Mount Fuji, New York City.
These are all contingent things. They exist, but they didn't have to.
It's easy to imagine a world where these things just didn't come to be. So maybe the cosmos is
like that — here it is... but it very well might not have been. Necessary things, on
the other hand, don't just happen to exist, they have to. It's impossible for them not to exist.
This is tough because examples of necessary things are hard to come by.
God is traditionally viewed as a necessary being, but let's set that one aside.
Some philosophers think numbers exist necessarily, or propositions, or states
of affairs. Sorry—like I said—there aren't many easy, clear examples. But our question here is:
could the cosmos be a necessary being? Does it make sense to say that the lack of a cosmos
was impossible? If the cosmos is a necessary being, then we're done. There's nothing left
to say about it. It had to exist and that's the end of it. But if the cosmos is contingent,
then there are further questions. For instance, does the cosmos have a finite past?
That is to say, did it have a beginning, or has it always been here, existing all
the way into the eternal past? It has to be one or the other: either the cosmos began
or it didn't. Let's say the cosmos is eternal, with no beginning. Notice that even being eternal,
it would still be contingent. In other words, it has always existed but it didn't have to.
It could have not existed. It just happens that it does and always has into the infinite past.
Now that's complicated... but coherent. At least, I think so. We'll come back to that later.
But since the eternal cosmos didn't have to exist— and yet it does — it makes sense to wonder: What
explains the existence of this eternal cosmos? It didn't have to be, so what's the explanation
as to why it does? There are only two answers I know of. One is that the existence of the eternal
cosmos is grounded in God. God is the reason this eternal cosmos exists rather than not existing.
The other answer is... it just exists, okay?! The eternal cosmos didn't have to exist
but lucky for us it does, and that's all there is to it. There literally is no explanation.
In philosophy we call this a 'brute fact'. But let's go back. It could be that the cosmos has a
finite past. There was no cosmos and then suddenly — boom! — there was a cosmos. It
didn't have to happen, so what's the explanation as to why it did? Here again, there are only two
available answers. First, God did it. God created the cosmos out of nothing. The other possibility
is that it just happened. We should stop seeking further explanation because there isn't one.
The universe began and that's all there is to it. In other words, the beginning of the cosmos
is a brute fact. And just like that, we've covered all the possible answers to the age-old question,
Why is there something rather than nothing? 1. The necessary cosmos hypothesis.
The cosmos exists because it was impossible for it not to exist. End of story. Side note:
this logically entails an eternal past and an eternal future. 2. The eternal cosmos brute
fact hypothesis. The cosmos exists and always has but it didn't have to exist. Fortunately for us,
it does. But there is no further explanation. The cosmos has just always been around and that's
all there is to say. The existence of this eternal cosmos literally has no explanation—
period. 3. The eternal cosmos God hypothesis. The cosmos exists and always has, but it didn't
have to exist. Fortunately for us, it does and it does because it is grounded in God's existence.
God is the explanation as to why the eternal cosmos exists. And by the way, God's existence
is necessary — it's impossible for God not to exist. End of story. 4. The finite cosmos brute
fact hypothesis. The cosmos has a finite past. In other words, it began to exist at some point.
It didn't have to begin, but fortunately for us it did. And that's all there is to it.
The cosmos' beginning literally has no explanation — period. 5. The finite cosmos God hypothesis. The
cosmos has a finite past. In other words, it began to exist at some point. It didn't have
to happen, but fortunately for us it did. The explanation for the cosmos beginning is God.
God created the cosmos. And by the way, God's existence is necessary. It's impossible for God
not to exist. End of story. So there you have it. Five hypotheses about the existence of the cosmos.
Nothing I've laid out here is controversial. The most committed atheist and the most devoted theist
can agree about all this, so far. The real action takes place in determining which of
these hypotheses is the most reasonable. There are many versions of the cosmological argument, but
all of them are an attempt to show that the God hypothesis is more intellectually respectable than
the alternatives. In the same way, any objection to the cosmological argument — whatever version
it may be — is an attempt to show either that the alternatives are more reasonable
than the God hypotheses, or that we just have no reason at all to prefer any of these hypotheses.
If I surveyed all the complex philosophical moves in this debate,
my short YouTube introduction would turn into an 80 hour documentary!
So instead, I'll just close with a brief outline of where some of the sticking points are located.
First, science clearly has some role to play in this debate, particularly here. What does our
best current physics tell us about the nature of the cosmos? Philosophy comes into play here, too.
I said earlier that an eternal cosmos with an infinite past is coherent and a live hypothesis,
but there are philosophers who argue that there are good reasons to think that an
infinite past is impossible. They think this entire area of our hypothesis map should be taken
off the table. Are they right about that? And then there are questions of necessity and contingency.
Is it at all plausible to say that the cosmos is a necessary being? Is it more or less plausible
than a God who is a necessary being? Here we encounter deep questions about modal epistemology.
That is, about how we come to know or have a reasonable belief about the possibility
or necessity of things. For instance, how do we establish the odds that the universe is necessary
versus the odds that it's contingent? Lastly, there are deep questions here about what counts
as a good explanation or whether everything has an explanation. Some people find the brute fact
hypotheses deeply unsatisfying... a sort of intellectual cop-out. Others have pointed out,
"Why should we expect the deepest truths of the universe to be intellectually satisfying?" As for
me, I love the cosmological argument, regardless of whether it's an epic fail or a grand slam.
With so many deep questions involving the nature of time, infinity, scientific methodology,
and fundamental philosophical principles, it's an intellectually rich area of exploration.