Argument from Beginnings
Many would say that nothing happens or begins without an explanation (or prior condition):
being never arises from non-being. The size of a beginning doesnt matter, they say: even
quantum events are governed by probabilistic laws concerning prior energy states. To motivate
the idea that beginnings have explanations (or prior conditions), stare below:
Will something spontaneously arise in the black square? If not, why not?
If youre still skeptical, no worries: I propose merely that
(1) Any beginning can be explained (or have a prior condition),
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which can be true even if some beginnings happen to lack an explanation. All I say is that any
given beginning is compatible with an explanation (or prior condition). I intend this principle to
apply to any kind of beginning, since it provides a simple explanation of the conceptual and
empirical data we have about particular beginnings.
Now it seems likely to me that contingent thingsthings that dont exist of necessitywould
have begun to exist some time ago (evidence for a Big Bang might support this). But for the sake
of argument, I suggest merely that
(2) There can be a Beginning of Contingencya beginning to the existence of all contingent
things.
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The argument to come works equally well with the slightly more cautious principle that any beginning or
an intrinsic duplicate of it, can be explained (or have a prior condition). But Ill use the simpler one for ease of
presentation.
From here, suppose that a Necessary Beinga concrete thing that would exist no matter what if
it existed at alldoes not exist. Then, there couldnt be a Necessary Being because a Necessary
Being would be included in every possible total situation were it included in any. Thus, a
Beginning of Contingency couldnt possibly be explained by a Necessary Being if one didnt
exist.
But a Beginning of Contingency cannot be explained by a contingent thing (or state), either, not
without circularity: a contingent thing (or state) would have to already exist before (or prior to)
the Beginning of Contingency, which is not coherent. Therefore,
(3) If there can be an explanation of a Beginning of Contingency, then there is a Necessary
Being.
From (1)-(3), it logically follows that there really is a Necessary Being.
To avoid multiplying entities beyond necessity, I suggest we begin with the hypothesis that there
is just one Necessary Being, N.
What might N be like? Well, N should be eternal, since it exists no matter what.
N should be powerful enough to causally explain any and every possible Beginning of
Contingency, since no contingent thing could cause any of them. Thus, N would seem to be as
powerful as anything could beor maximally powerful. This makes N godlike.
What else? I suspect N is not a spatial, material thing, since any spatial, material thing could, it
seems, have a beginning (e.g., in a Big Bang), but a Necessary Being could not. Plus, no
material thing is evidently capable of producing every possible Beginning of Contingency.
N is capable of spontaneous actions, for it can produce contingent effects without being
determined by its nature to do so. An immaterial entity capable of spontaneous activity seems to
best fit into the familiar, though controversial, category of immaterial Mind (or spirit).
I also suspect that N is maximal in its great-making attributes, for this seems to be the simplest
hypothesis about Ns measure of greatness (other than that N has no degree of greatness and thus
no power). Heres further support. Suppose that N had some positive (great-making) attribute A
to a finite degree. Then we may ask why N has exactly that much greatness, rather than slightly
more or slightly less. Any exact value within a continuum of possible values will be arbitrary and
so call out for an explanation. But no non-circular explanation seems feasible because N cannot
explain its own degree of A without already having A to a certain degree (e.g., it cannot explain
its degree of power without having power to some degree; it cannot explain its own degree of
goodness without already having goodness to some degree; and so on). Therefore, it is plausible
that N is infinite in any and all its positive attributes.
