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    Traditional defenders of the cosmological argument cannot... — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
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    Traditional defenders of the cosmological argument cannot invoke the requirement of an absolute explanation.

    Natural Theology
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, when applied within actualist realism, entails that every contingent fact must have a fully determining cause, leaving no explanatory room for genuinely contingent outcomes.
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    • 2.Libertarian free will requires that agents could have done otherwise under identical prior conditions, a possibility actualist realism forecloses by denying reality to non-actual alternatives.
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    • 3.Therefore, invoking absolute explanation commits the traditional cosmological arguer to a determinism incompatible with the very volitional act of a creator freely choosing to create.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Van Inwagen's consequence argument shows that if determinism is true, no agent is the ultimate source of their actions, which would strip the theistic God of the libertarian agency classical theism requires.
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    • 2.An absolute PSR applied to modal space collapses the Kripkean distinction between metaphysical necessity and contingency, since every 'contingent' truth would be fully explained only by what could not have been otherwise.
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    • 3.Classical theism's doctrine of creation ex nihilo presupposes a genuine modal alternative—non-existence of the universe—which an absolutist PSR within actualist realism renders incoherent.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.If traditional defenders invoked absolute explanation, given their metaphysic of actualist realism, they would face the impossibility of libertarian free will, of indeterministic quantum effects, of modal imagination about lawless worlds where things pop into existence, and the collapse of modal distinctions.
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    • 2.Since all is determined on an absolute explanation, these problems arise from the conjunction of an absolutist PSR with actualist realism (only the actual is real).
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    Topics

    Natural Theology

    Related

    An absolute PSR applied to modal space collapses the Kripkean distinction betwee...Classical theism's doctrine of creation ex nihilo presupposes a genuine modal al...If traditional defenders invoked absolute explanation, given their metaphysic of...Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, when applied within actualist realism,...
    +4 moreShow less
    Libertarian free will requires that agents could have done otherwise under ident...Since all is determined on an absolute explanation, these problems arise from th...Therefore, invoking absolute explanation commits the traditional cosmological ar...Van Inwagen's consequence argument shows that if determinism is true, no agent i...

    Similar

    The best explanation required of a sound cosmological argument is an a...86%The version of the PSR used by traditional defenders of the cosmologic...83%The cosmological argument is defective.82%The cosmological argument can only establish an ultimate ground or fir...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: cosmological-argument
    Michael Almeida (2018)
    View source passageHide passage
    Michael Almeida (2018) builds on the critical arguments of van Inwagen and others regarding the PSR. He contends that the version of the PSR used by defenders of the cosmological argument is inadequate because it fails to provide the best explanation for the universe. The best explanation, and hence the one required of a sound cosmological argument, is an absolute explanation, where everything is explained completely. There are no brute or contingent facts. He notes that in constructing their respective cosmological arguments, Pruss and Swinburne reject absolute explanation for complete explan...
    Extraction notes

    The premises accurately capture Almeida's argument as presented in the passage: that combining absolute explanation with actualist realism generates a host of serious philosophical problems, which is why traditional cosmological argument defenders cannot invoke absolute explanation.

    Validity:

    Confidence: Clearly entailed argument: Almeida argues that switching to absolute explanation is also not viable for traditional defenders given their actualist realism.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit