The Universe's Existence is Explicable

I think some important clarifications are required here. First, we need to distinguish between ontology, epistemology, and language. Ontology is the study of being, epistemology is the study of how we come to know things, and language deals with how we express things. Second, explanations in the sense that I have used it refers to something that explains why another thing exists. It's important to note that I did not claim that "everything has an explanation" (nor was it implicit). Instead, the argument simply demonstrated that explanations are in general superior to brute facts (inexplicable propositions) in order to support a certain claim, namely that the universe is explicable. My formulation should demonstrate how this does not entail the plausibility of brute facts at all. To see this more clearly, observe the following counter argument that one would need to make: 1. A proposition is plausible if it has explanatory power. 2. If some explicable proposition cannot exist, then it must be inexplicable. 3. Some explicable propositions cannot exist. 4. Therefore, we must sometimes posit inexplicable propositions. This is the only way in which a brute fact can be posited. Plausibility is thus inherently determined by one's explanatory power, which is what a brute fact would lack by definition. Now unless my opponent is prepared to deny premise one, it is simply not the case that "inexplicable propositions would have to be plausible". Rather, brute facts must be the only possible solution. Even if we suppose this to be too demanding, it is still true that the formulation I offered in the first round supports the claim that explanations are more plausible than brute facts. The only real assumption that matters here is what I stated in premise one. Lacking the assumption that "everything has an explanation" does not suddenly reverse this argument. At best it would only suggest that some inexplicable propositions are possible but it would not prove that they're plausible, such a claim would require an extra argument. This is precisely what my opponent attempts to do and is what I will now proceed to address. The argument that my opponent has presented seems to equivocate between expressibility and explicability. The distinctions I previously made should help to illuminate this. To use the examples, a person could have eyesight and yet be incapable of expressing this because such a word did not exist. This is a linguistic problem. On the other hand, a person could have eyesight and yet be incapable of relating it to a blind person. This is an epistemological problem because the blind person does not know what it is like to see. Lastly, what is it that makes someone see is an ontological problem because it deals with the nature of being. Now as we can see (no pun intended), these are some rather crucial distinctions. Ontology is logically prior to epistemology, for without being you cannot know or be anything. And epistemology is logically prior to language, for without knowledge you cannot express anything. Now in practice we may use a combination of all three but this does not eliminate the differences. Something can exist without us knowing about it and consequentially we do not express it. However, this does not mean that a being needs our ability to know and express it in order to be what it is or to have an explanation for why it exists as it does. We can further clarify by making a distinction between the different kinds of explanations. Something may have explanatory power in the sense that it accurately describes our ability or inability to know something, which is an epistemological explanation. On the other hand, something may have explanatory power in that it accurately describes our ability or inability (e.g, "Some things are inexpressible") to express something in words, which is a linguistic explanation. Finally, some other being may have explanatory power because it explains what makes X be what it is rather than not be, which is an ontological explanation. In all of these cases, we think them to have explanatory power precisely because it tells us something about something in different ways. If we apply these principles to my opponent's objections, we can clearly see that an explanation is not first a function of language but instead is first a function of ontology. Furthermore, I am only concerned with ontological explanations here. Whether we're capable of explaining our perceptions of beauty to another or to ourselves is irrelevant to this debate as those are strictly an epistemological and linguistic concern. The fact that a painting is perceived as beautiful is still useful insofar as it explains what a person thinks of a painting. Tautologies are only useless when we ask a different question, namely why a person thinks that way. We can explain beauty by arguing that it exists objectively within a being or to appeal to some kind of mechanism in the brain that brought this about. The fact that a person does not know or can only appeal to a tautology is not a reason to think that there is no ontological explanation. Similarly, the fact that some things may be inexpressible does not make it inexplicable. That's a non sequitur. It is certainly explanatory to say that I cannot express how evolution works but that does not entail that evolution works inexplicably without any ontological reason. This is the same as saying that gifts can be explained by a Santa Claus that popped into existence and then into non existence. He argues that this is an unfair analogy because it deals with the knowable and the expressible whereas the universe is apparently neither of those. I have seen no persuasive argument for this other than to suggest that "some things are inexplicable" without showing how it includes the universe. Since we know the universe exists, I see no reason why the proposition that it has an explanation cannot be meaningfully expressed. The next objection seems to misunderstand my position because I never said that our default position should be to seek explicability. Though, I do think that any worldview should have some kind of reasons for their faith. Nevertheless, people do put faith into a religion that affirms things that are otherwise currently unknowable to them but that does not mean that there is no explanation for those things. Such faith does not strictly contradict my position unless it is intrinsically irrational. To clarify another point, the fact that you need a reason to say a proposition is inexplicable is meant to be a proof of premise one. My opponent seems to agree, which means that he too must affirm that explicability is the default position. Later on he argues that "the cause of A" must be tautologous or false but I see no reason to think this to be true. I can assert that the cause of A is B and there would be no tautology. Strangely enough, my opponent then agrees that there is a cause of some kind. Not sure how he can deny causal statements as tautologous and then affirm it but if this is true, then it seems as if we agree that there is an ontological explanation. In which case, I do not see what there is to further discuss unless he wishes to reinforce his expressibility objections against my distinctions. Lastly, my opponent appeals to Wittgenstein's argument from the limits of language. This still rests on the assumption that since we cannot express it that therefore it has no ontological explanation. Even if I assumed that it had some relevancy, I do not see how it is even a sound argument. The frame of reference that I appeal to is to general concepts like ontology that can be known logically and applied in all possible worlds. There does not seem to be anything inexpressible about the proposition "The universe has an ontological explanation" because I just meaningfully expressed it. So with that said, I hope this has clarified my position some more.