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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    What sufficiently causes or fully adequately explains the... — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    What sufficiently causes or fully adequately explains the existence of contingent beings must include a non-contingent (necessary) being, and therefore a necessary being exists.

    Natural Theology
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) exists.
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    • 2.All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for their existence.
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    • 3.The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings is something other than the contingent being itself.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.An infinite regress of contingent causes, each explaining the next, constitutes a formally complete explanatory structure requiring no terminus.
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    • 2.P5 assumes without justification that explanatory completeness requires a non-regressive foundation, which Hume's Dialogues Part IX explicitly denies.
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    • 3.If each contingent being in an infinite series is explained by its predecessor, the series as a whole need not have an explanation beyond its members.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The concept of a 'necessary being' whose non-existence is impossible is either analytically vacuous or smuggles existence into essence, as Kant argued in CPR A592/B620.
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    • 2.If necessity is a logical property of propositions rather than an ontological property of beings, then P4's category of 'non-contingent being' is incoherent as stated.
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    Topics

    Natural Theology

    Related

    A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) e...All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation f...An infinite regress of contingent causes, each explaining the next, constitutes ...Contingent beings alone cannot provide a sufficient cause of or fully adequate e...
    +6 moreShow less
    If each contingent being in an infinite series is explained by its predecessor, ...If necessity is a logical property of propositions rather than an ontological pr...P5 assumes without justification that explanatory completeness requires a non-re...The concept of a 'necessary being' whose non-existence is impossible is either a...The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of conti...The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of conti...

    Similar

    The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existenc...97%The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existenc...94%Only a necessary being provides a satisfactory ground or explanation f...93%All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate exp...92%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: cosmological-argument
    Deductive Argument from Contingency (steps 1–7)
    View source passageHide passage
    However, this contradicts the original conclusion that if total nothingness is metaphysically possible, there are no possible states of affairs in that possible world. Hence, there is a reductio against the original thesis that there can be nothingness. One might counter this reductio not only by questioning the principle that what is metaphysically possible in one world is so in every world, but also by contending that the argument trades on a confusion between metaphysical necessity, as evidenced by appeal to an Aristotelian principle regarding the relationship between actuality and possibil...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The extracted argument faithfully reproduces the deductive argument from contingency explicitly laid out in the source passage (premises 1–7), where premises 1–5 logically entail that the sufficient cause must include a non-contingent being, and therefore a necessary being exists.

    Confidence: High confidence; this is the explicitly laid out deductive cosmological argument in the text.

    Details

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