In this essay I will discuss a type of cosmological argument branded “The Argument from Contingency”. This line of thought is intensely relevant to endeavors in philosophical analysis of the divine, for many philosophers consider it to be the strongest argument for the existence of a Necessary being. Not only is the Argument from Contingency important for philosophical studies of God, but it also seems to exist as a rigorous formulation of the basic question most humans will find themselves contemplating at least once in their life: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I plan to briefly discuss the nature and historical development of cosmological arguments in general before I movye into a more in depth focus on the argument from contingency, assessing its premises, goals, and assumptions to see how logically compelling its conclusion for the existence of a non-physical necessary being is.

In focusing intently on the topic at hand, I will regrettably be forced to leave the long and reputable history of Cosmological arguments and their authors at best examined in very shallow detail. The topic of consideration (the contemporary Contingency Argument) largely derives from the thought of philosophers such as Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), David Hume (1711-1776), and even contemporary thinkers like Alexander Pruss and William Rowe, all of whom represent small periods in time of the much larger history of Cosmological arguments. This does not, however, preclude a short overview of their nature and history, to which I shall now turn.

The Nature of Cosmological Arguments

First, let’s address the obvious question: What is the Cosmological Argument? It must first be made clear that Cosmological arguments come in many forms, with different assumptions, premises, and demonstrative goals. David Oderburg was correct in stating “There is no such thing as the cosmological argument” to begin his article about cosmological arguments in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Instead, the Cosmological Argument is best described as the name for a family of a-posteriori style arguments which seek to infer from the existence of temporality, contingency, movement, or change in or of the universe to an ultimate cause beyond the universe. In an attempt to create an organizational typology of the subject, William Lane Craig divides cosmological arguments into three categories: “(1) Those that maintain the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress, (2) those that maintain the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered regress, and (3) those that have no reference to an infinite regress at all.” This illustrates the fact that there is far more than just one “Cosmological Argument”. Throughout the history of human thought, different versions of the cosmological argument have been formulated, all of which fit into one of these categories which Craig has insightfully supplied. Let us very quickly trace these formulations and their criticisms as they arose throughout history.

A History of Cosmological Arguments

The ancient philosophers Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) are considered “the originators of the classic prime mover argument.” The “prime mover” argument fits into the second classification of Craig’s typology as arguments which maintain the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered regress. Plato, considered the “inventor of philosophical theism”, authored the first cosmological argument in an attempt to prove the existence of God by the existence of motion. His main thesis was this: In the world exists motion. There are two main types of motion: communicated motion (motion received by a being and then given away) and self-motion (motion which originates in a being). Communicated motion implies self-motion, because communicated motion can never be the source of itself by its very nature. Therefore, self-motion must exist in a self-mover, or, a soul. Aristotle made use of Plato’s logic and developed his argument far more elaborately, resulting in an argument for an ultimate ‘unmoved mover’, or ultimate cause of the cosmos. Due to the brevity of this essay, a more focused look at these topics is not possible, and so we move on in history. 

A very important group of thinkers to consider in the history of cosmological arguments is the collection of Arabic philosophers and theologians around the ninth to twelfth centuries AD. Two schools divided Islamic thought on the cosmological argument: kalām and falsafa. From the kalām school emerged arguments from temporal regress (these fit into Craig’s 1^st category), and from the falsafa school emerged primitive arguments from contingency (these fit into Craig’s 2^nd category). Without prematurely getting into too much discussion of the actual content of the arguments, the kalām school attempted to demonstrate the existence of God from the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress of moments in time and infer from this a beginning of the universe. The beginning of the universe, to their minds, called for a cause beyond the universe. The falsafa school produced argumentation which seems to be the first reflection on an argument from the contingency of the universe. This school’s contention was that the universe was equally possible to exist or not exist, and because of this it required a “determinant” which gave it being. The universe, then, according to the falsafa school needed an explanation because of its contingency. The explanatory principle, in this argument, is an early (and slightly different) version of what would later be expressed by Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason. There is much debate and discussion about the nature of these arguments which I will not be attempting to cover currently.

Various versions of these three categories of argument have been formulated and supported by different thinkers throughout subsequent history, most notably Jewish Philosophers, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), and Leibniz. Jewish philosophers are known for having derived much of their thought from Islamic philosophy. Aquinas authored the celebrated “Five ways”—five arguments for the existence of God, the first three of which are cosmological arguments from different categories. Duns Scotus’ singular cosmological argument is considered one of the most “outstanding contributions ever made to natural theology” because of its complexity and rigor. Spinoza’s argument is very different from other cosmological arguments in that it called into question the nature of the being proved by cosmological arguments. Leibniz is responsible for a version of the argument from contingency which is now well known as the “Leibnizian Cosmological Argument”, an argument we will examine later in this paper. All of these and many more affirmed the effectiveness of at least one type of cosmological argument. For all its supporters, however, the Cosmological argument has run into critics.

 In the late 18^th century, philosopher David Hume (and others) forcefully criticized the argument from contingency, questioning the premises on which it is based such as the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I will not discuss these criticisms yet because they are relevant to my interaction with the argument later in the paper. With criticisms of other versions of the cosmological argument arising along with Hume’s, suffice it to say that David Oderburg is accurate in claiming that most philosophers today do not think that the cosmological argument has yet recovered from its modern criticisms. Nevertheless, contemporary defenders (and critics, of course) of the cosmological argument exist in the contemporary philosophical setting. Philosophers Alexander Pruss, William Lane Craig, Joshua Rasmussen, and Richard Taylor are a few of many proponents of the arguments, while William Rowe, Quentin Smith, Graham Oppy, Wes Morriston, and John Mackie have criticized contemporary cosmological arguments. 

As I stated earlier, the argument I wish to focus on is from the 3^rd category supplied by Craig– an argument which does not make reference to an infinite regress. First, however, let me state my goals in analyzing this argument: I do not wish to defend any argument, but I do wish to find the best possible expression of the argument from contingency and then discover whether the argument stands despite being subjected to the most penetrating criticisms available. If this occurs, I will consider the argument a successful piece of evidence for the existence of a necessary being. Let us then move on to the main task at hand as we first consider the Leibnizian argument from contingency.

Constructing the Argument from Contingency via Leibniz

Apart from his use of an existential premise, Leibniz’s argument from contingency relies upon two main principles: the first being the principle of non-contradiction, and the second being the Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter PSR). Since we all take the principle of non-contradiction for granted, I will not spend time elaborating on it or providing defense for it. Leibniz elaborates on his PSR here:

…And that of the principle of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we hold that there can be no fact real or existing, and no statement true, unless there be a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise…

Leibniz’s PSR essentially states that any state of affairs has a sufficient explanation or reason for its being so. In accordance with the a-posteriori nature of the argument from contingency Leibniz joins the PSR with an observable fact of experience: something exists. That “something” of which Leibniz speaks, of course, is the universe. It is evident that Leibniz takes the universe to be a collection of contingent beings, of which a “sufficient reason” is required for explanation. When I say contingent beings, I mean beings which do not necessarily exist, or, could have not existed. The true fact that a contingent being exists is not necessarily true, yet it is still true that such a being can exist contingently. Leibniz makes a distinction between necessary truths and contingent truths in his Monadology:

There are also two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible.

Using this distinction, then, one can see that in his argument Leibniz applies the PSR to contingent facts– for necessary truths and beings do not call for any more explanation than their own necessity. But if contingent facts exist, Leibniz reasons, there must be a sufficient reason for their existence. I’ll let him speak for himself:

…But a little while ago we proved [the necessary being] a posteriori, since there exist contingent beings, which can have their final or sufficient reason only in the necessary being, which has the reason for its existence in itself.

If the contingent beings of this universe have an explanation, as the truth of the PSR guarantees, then they require an explanation which is not contingent. That explanation is best found in a Necessary being, according to Leibniz’s reasoning. But what if the explanation for the contingent beings of our universe arises from the fact that there is an explanatory regress of causes all the way back to infinite? Would that not destroy the need for explanation in a Necessary being? The reply to this question is what distinguishes Leibniz’s argument as a third category argument—an argument which makes no reference to the impossibility of an infinite regress. The distinguishing trait of arguments from contingency is that they do not require that the universe began. Leibniz himself would reply to the question in this way: 

There is an infinite of present and past forms and motions which go to make up the efficient cause of my present writing; and there is an infinity of minute tendencies and dispositions of my soul, which go to make its final cause… And as all this detail again involves other prior or more detailed contingent beings, each of which still needs a similar analysis to yield its reason, we are no further forward: and the sufficient or final reason must be outside of the sequence or series of particular contingent things, however infinite this series may be.

His reason for rejecting the force of the counter-argument is this: Even if every contingent being which exists has a causal explanation—think with me as far back as your mind will allow—, even if billions and billions of causes into the past are sufficient and explanatory for the effects which occur subsequent to them and events which occur now, in looking to every cause for an explanation, one still finds that these are, on the whole, unexplained. Contingent beings can never fully explain everything, because in the end these very contingent beings themselves need explanation. If this reasoning is correct, then the explanation of all of the contingent beings of the universe as a whole is a necessary being in which the sufficient reason for all contingent beings exists. This concludes a brief summary of Leibniz’s argument from Contingency. Let us now listen to his critics.

Hume’s Criticisms

  In his writings, philosopher David Hume published several criticisms of Leibniz’s style of argument from Contingency. His first attack is aimed at the idea that the Universe itself needs an explanation if all of its parts are explained. His fictional character Cleanthes claims, “Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.” This charge is similar to the question asked in the previous paragraph, “Why should the universe need a cause if each contingent being it contained could be explained by an infinite regress of causes?” Leibniz seems to have anticipated this question, however. He would answer this question with the same statement he made in a passage I made use of earlier: “And as all this detail again involves other prior or more detailed contingent beings, each of which still needs a similar analysis to yield its reason, we are no further forward: and the sufficient or final reason must be outside of the sequence or series of particular contingent things, however infinite this series may be.” Leibniz thinks that, in an infinite regress of contingent beings (which is being supposed, for this argument), explanation of it all simply could not lie in the contingent beings, because all contingent beings require an explanation for their existence, according to the PSR. Contemporary philosophers of religion seem to think this is an adequate reply. Dr. Joshua Rasmussen, in his article about Arguments from Contingency, shows why: 

Imagine a world in which there are purple balls of an unspecified quantity. Suppose we want an explanation as to why those purple balls exist. Here’s an answer that would not satisfy us: the fact that those balls exist is explained by the fact that each purple ball was itself produced by a purple ball. This answer is not satisfying because it in no way alleviates the sense of curiosity concerning why there should be those purple balls… even if there were an infinite number of purple balls, for example, where each one was produced by an ancestor purple ball, the fact that there have been those purple balls at all isn’t explained solely by the purple balls themselves.

This reply by Hume, then, can be laid aside as ineffective. But Hume’s next criticism may hit closer to home.

 “…But further, why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent Being, according to this pretended explication of necessity?” This counter-argument that, again, comes through the mouth of Hume’s fictional character “Cleanthes” in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, if sound, could remove the need to explain the Universe by some factors beyond itself. What if the Universe is a necessary being, and could not possibly not exist? There are a couple ways to respond to this objection: The first is that Hume treats the universe as if it were some sort of necessary being prior to its contingent parts. But the universe is not the type of candidate for “necessary being” since all Leibniz or contemporary philosophers mean by “universe” is the collection of contingent beings. To sustain this type of reasoning requires that one supplies a sort of necessary “essence” or “substance” to the universe which, apart from implying a sort of pantheism, is very doubtful. Rasmussen pointed out to me via email that, “If [by ‘universe’] you mean something that contains everything else as a part, then it’s not a trivial matter that there even is such a thing as that.” The second way to reply to this objection is to simply show that there are contingent facts. The fact that “there are the contingent things that there are” is a fact which calls for explanation. If contingent facts are true, they need not have obtained, thus requiring explanation for why they indeed do obtain. 

Hume’s last objection to be considered is an objection to the PSR. In his Treatise on Human Nature Hume makes arguments against the insistence of philosophers contemporary to his time that everything that begins must have a cause. Though his attack seems more aimed at category one arguments that claim that the beginning of the Universe requires a cause, it equally applies to formulations of the PSR.  Hume claims that “new existence[s]” cannot be shown to require a cause until first one has shown that it is impossible for anything to begin and not have a cause:

…it will be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible for the imagination; and consequently the actual separation of these objects is so far possible, that it implies no contradiction nor absurdity; and is therefore incapable of being refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas; without which it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause.

Again, this argument is directed more at causes for beginnings of things. But these same principles can be applied to the PSR and causal explanations. Might it be the case that contingent facts cannot be shown to require an explanation unless we first show that it is impossible for a contingent fact to obtain without an explanation? Surely we can imagine things popping into existence uncaused. This question essentially boils down to, “what evidence do we have for the PSR itself?” Many naturalists claim that the universe is just a “brute fact”, or that, like Bertrand Russell said, “The universe is just there, and that’s all.” Does every contingent fact really have to have an explanation? Despite the power of this objection, there are several ways to defend the PSR: 1) appealing to every-day experience and 2) illustrating the price of rejecting it, just to name a few. I will now attempt to answer this objection with these methods.  

First, it seems that our every day experience is very inconsistent with the falsity of the PSR. Nothing in our collective empirical experience has been shown to have no explanation. If nothing we know of is bereft of explanation, then we have evidence that is very inconsistent with the idea that contingent facts require no explanation. Though this does not prove the PSR with certainty, it lends credence to the fact that contingent things require explanation. Second, if the PSR is indeed false, why should we not expect inexplicable contingent events to occur all of the time?  Surely if contingent facts require no explanation then we genuinely should expect that things come into existence often and for no reason whatsoever. What’s more, science needs the PSR to function. In creating explanatory hypotheses, one may explain away disconfirming facts simply by appealing to the fact that these particular facts have no explanation. Suppose I postulated a theory that the earth was eternally existent and had never been created—all of the evidence that the earth formed four billion years ago could be chocked up to phenomena which have no explanation, removing any inferential duties based on facts that prima facie suggest that the earth actually did form four billion years ago. If one takes this reasoning even further, she sees that supposing the falsity of the PSR allows us to create hypotheses consistent with almost any amount of facts which would have otherwise disproved them. Science collapses on the falsity of the PSR. Not only does science require the principle, but Philosophy also requires the truth of the PSR. Alexander Pruss illustrates this brilliantly: “In this world, torture is wrong. In that world, exactly alike in every other respect, torture is a duty. Why? No reason, just contingent brute fact. Here Pruss points to the absurdity of supposing that even immaterial, moral facts have no explanation. Though there are massive amounts of literature concerning the PSR, I cannot continue to discuss it in this paper for brevity’s sake. Perhaps it is not evidence for the PSR that is in question however—some have simply suggested that Leibniz’s version of the PSR entailed falsehoods.

Contemporary Criticism

The last objection to the Argument of Contingency I wish to consider, then, is an argument against the PSR. The argument is that the PSR either is false or entails that everything is necessary—which is taken to be false. Peter Van Inwagen articulates the argument in his book Metaphysics; I will summarize it here. The argument goes like this: suppose that the PSR is true. If there are contingent facts, there will be a set of all contingent facts. To explain these contingent facts, you must find a contingent explanation. But there could never be a contingent explanation of the set of all contingent facts, for that would be circular. Thus there can only be necessary truths (which is clearly implausible). According to this, the PSR is false, because there can be no explanation of these contingent facts. 

 This counter-argument has received the attention of many contemporary philosophers. Some think that there is no way around this objection, at least for this version of the PSR. Timothy O’Connor wrote in his book Theism and Ultimate Explanation, “The Argument from Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) to the necessity of all truths is, I believe, unanswerable.” Other philosophers believe that there is a chance for this version of the PSR still. William Lane Craig admits to being influenced by Alexander Pruss’ work on the PSR on his website Reasonable Faith: “On the basis of Alexander Pruss’ work, moreover, I’ve come to question whether the sort of objection expressed by Van Inwagen really does succeed against a strong version of the PSR.” The complexity, however, of this response to the counter-argument requires that I leave it out of this paper. I will instead make use of a different way to respond: revising the PSR. 

The second way of responding to this argument is simply to revise the PSR. Leibniz’s PSR seems too strong and open to counterexamples, at least according to Craig. But Rasmussen shows that one can revise the PSR in such a way that avoids these counterexamples. Leibniz’s PSR, “no fact could be found to be genuine or existent, and no assertion true, without there being a sufficient reason why it is thus and not otherwise”, boiled down, sounds like, “Every contingent fact requires an explanation”, and this is susceptible to counterexamples. But if we modified it to, “Every contingent fact concerning the existence of things requires an explanation”, we have a more modest, but also less vulnerable principle. The reason this is so is because in restricting the scope of beings that it claims require explanation, this principle avoids counterexamples like Van Inwagen’s mentioned above. A Necessary being’s willing contingent things to exist could be the contingent explanation of the existence contingent things, and itself lack an explanation, for example. Thus, the PSR as a principle can be restricted and still successful against this objection.

The question may arise, then, as to what the nature of this new revised PSR is and what it can do. Does it match up with the requirements of science and philosophy? 

Does the Argument from Contingency provide a substantial argument for a Necessary Being, then? If one can believe that it is more likely that our universe is not a brute fact or a necessary being, and that the PSR is in some form true, then the answer is in the affirmative. I believe that in this paper I have found good reasons to affirm that these options are more likely to be true than their negations (and no compelling reasons otherwise), and thus one can find a respectable argument for a necessary being in the joining of the premises of the Argument from Contingency. The important thing to remember, however, is that this does not prove God’s existence—for 1) it must be shown that the Necessary being has God-like qualities and 2) this does not prove a necessary being in the absolute sense of the word “prove”. It is simply an argument which can lead to confidence in the existence of a necessary being. 

Works Cited

1. Craig, William L. “Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument and the PSR.” Reasonable Faith. http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/theism-origin.html. (accessed 4/20/2012).

2. Craig, William. The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1980.

3. Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Edited by Richard H. Popkin. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1998.

4. Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature. Public Domain. Kindle.  
5. Inwagen, Peter Van, Metaphysics. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2009.

6. Leibniz, Gottfried. The Monadology. In Classics of Philosophy, edited by Louis P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
7. O’Connor, Timothy.  Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012.

8. Oderburg, David S. “The Cosmological Argument.” In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, edited by Paul Copan and Chad Meister. New York: Routledge, 2007.

9. Pruss, Alexander. “Philosophy needs the Principle of Sufficient Reason.” Alexander Pruss’s Blog.http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/search?q=contingent+brute+fact. (accessed 4/20/12).

10. Rasmussen, Joshua. “Cosmological Arguments from Contingency.” Philosophy Compass 5/9 (2010): 806–819.

11. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “John Duns Scotus”.

Evan Garrett — 5.4.2012