The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument is Sound

I will note here: Though the second premise deals with a highly interesting epistemological problem, it will not be contested in this debate. Principle of Sufficient Reason The reasoning given here is really quite inadequite, not to mention the fact that the premise can be shown to be false a priori. Pro’s basic argument here is that we should accept this premise as true until I can demonstrate otherwise, and he really offers no substantial reasoning to support the acceptance of this premise. While I do intend to demonstrate this premise to be false, it is worth noting that Pro’s own source describes the PSR as a “controversial” principle, meaning that Pro does have a responsibility to demonstrate its truth, not just to assume as much until otherwise demonstrated. Pro: Denying the Antecedent Almost from the beginning of his arguments here, Pro fails to make sense. Pro writes: “If Con says the PSR is false that leaves us with no explanation for the universe. ” This is untrue. Negating the PSR does not entail nothing having a sufficient explanation, merely a lack of a necessity for everything lacking a sufficient explanation. This denies that antecedent, which entails stating: If p, then q. Not p. Therefore, not q. Obviously, in this case p = the PSR being true and q = the Universe having a sufficient explanation. Such reasoning is clearly fallacious. . http://www.fallacyfiles.org... With this in mind, Pro’s rambling about looking for explanations being necessary, etc. becomes irrelevant. Pro: Appeal to Experience The other (actually really the only) attempt made by Pro at justifying this argument is an appeal to our experiences and say that our common experiences demonstrate that things tend to have explanations. Quite rightly, Pro argues that if things didn’t have explanations, science couldn’t work. In adressing this, there are two things I’d like to point out. First, I’d like to reitereate that denying the PSR does not necessitate that nothing has an explanation. All it entails is denying that everything necessarily has an explanation. Me: Our Experiences Don’t Encompass Beginning of Universe-Type Cause and Effect Second, I’d like to point out that the bredth of our experience as humans with situations of cause and effect hardly contain the kind of cause and effect that would be occur in the creation of a Universe (at least in all everyday cause and effect observations, this isn’t necessarily quite true universally, pun intended, as it could be argued that quantum events don’t always have sufficient explanations, but I digress). In our everyday experiences with cause and effect, we only see something physical causing something else physical and we only observe causation in a continuum of time. The conditions in the causation of a universe, however, would be different. If we accept my opponent’s later assetion that the cause of the Universe must be nonphysical (If we dont’ accept this assertion, the argument still fails overall because then the cause doesn’t have to be God. ), then this case would be something nonphysical causing something physical outside of a continuum of time as there would be no time in the state causually prior to the Universe. Thus, Pro must provide a reason to think that our experiences can be any sort of indication of whether the Universe must have had a sufficient explanation, something he has not done. It is easily statable that events within the current, non-quantum conditions of our Universe have sufficient explanations, a concept to which I adhere, without necessarily extending this principle beyond the reaches of our knowledge. Me: Backing This Up Modally In the beginning of this debate, Pro brought up Modal logic, and I’d like to demonstrate why the PSR cannot be confirmed as simply in the way Pro seems to assume it can be, using Modal logic. Basically, one can conceive of a possible world in which the PSR is false, a world where things happen randomly and for no reason. I see nothing that is logically inconsistent about such a state of affiars, so such a possible world is concevable. If a possible world is conceivable in which the PSR is false, then the PSR is not true necessarily, and cannot be accepted a priori. Since the bredth of our experience does not give us sufficient knowledge of cause and effects that would have brought the Universe into existence, we cannot confirm the PSR a posteriori either. Me: Pro’s Style of Reasoning Rejects God aka No Special Pleading Please We can easily take Pro’s simple “Basic human experiences to too broad applications” style reasoning and turn that against God in the following syllogism: 1. All personal beings have beginnings. 2. God is a personal being. 3. Therefore, God had a beginning. Clearly, the first premise is confirmed through all of our human experiences in the same way that all of our experiences confirm the PSR, and God, by the agreed to definitions, must be personal, thereby confirming the second premise. I think, however, Pro would find the conclusion to be disagreeable to his case. So, it’s special pleading to use Pro’s style of reasoning to confirm the PSR, but to reject its use in confirming this first premise. . http://www.fallacyfiles.org... Me: The PSR is False A Priori And here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the a priori negation of the PSR. I really wish I had more space to discuss this, but the argument can basically be summed up in the following way: Assume the PSR is true. Suppose we list all of the contingent things making up one big contingent proposition, C. For example, our set could look something like this: The Universe exists, people exist, cats exist, milk exists, toothpicks exist, and on and on and on. Since C is contingent, if the PSR is true, C’s explanation must be necessary, as if the explanation contingent, it would be a part of C and could not be C’s explanation. Something with a necessary explanation, however, is also necessary. So, if C was the result of some necessary explanation, then it follows that C must also be necessary. Yet, C, by definition, cannot be necessary. Therefore, the PSR is false (MT). Since accepting the PSR leads to a logical impossiblity, we must conclude that the PSR is false. God is the Answer. Me: What Do We Mean By “Universe? ” This is an important question that must be answered before we can proceed with our discussion. Does “universe” mean include all physical things in existence, or does it merely encompass our specific domain in a larger Multiverse or something else beyond our knowledge? To separate between the two, I will be using a system I have previously seen used in which “Universe” means our specific domain and “universe” means everything. Random Reader: So? So, something physical in the broader universe could have cause our Universe. This rejects the necessity of a nonphysical cause. And, although our specific Universe may be finite as Pro has suggested, I see no reasoning that rejects an infinite universe. Additionally, as I have already argued, a necessary cause cannot be the explanation for a contingent effect. So, either there must exist an infinite regretion of contingent explanations or eventually we reach a first contingent explanation for which the PSR is not true. Either way, the LCA fails. Finally, Pro’s grounds for accepting a personal explanation are that the only nonphysical things we have experience with are abstract or personal. I think this is special pleading yet agian, as all of experiences with personal beings are experiences with physical personal beings, not to mention the syllogism I previously presented. So, I think it is plausible that if I conceded the other requirements, the explanation would still plausibly be something with which we have no experience. Conclusion I have demonstrated that both the first and third premises of the argument do not stand.