1. A contingent being exists.

2. A contingent being has a grounding (which is/are (a) being(s)) for its existence.

3. The grounding of a contingent being is not that being itself.

4. The grounding of a contingent being is either wholly contingent or not.

5. A grounding cannot be wholly contingent.

6. Therefore, the grounding must include a necessary (non-contingent) being.

7. Therefore, a necessary being exists.

Objections to 1

-Heidegger- “what is being?”

-Response: argument requires only a very weak understanding of ontology, and no

specific ontics

-Necessitarianism- Anthony Collins, Spinoza

-only one possible world (actuality)

Objections to 2

-Brute fact objection

Russell: “the universe just is”

-Hume-like. Our understanding of cause-effect comes from experience. We do not

experience the universe as a whole.

-but…if parts are contingent, whole is contingent

-Russell: fallacy of composition

-informal fallacy, though

-Rowe’s objection

-Koon’s mereological argument

-Objecting to the principle of sufficient reason

-Hume: not a priori, as we can conceive of effects without causes

-Conceivability to possibility needs specification

-Not inductive (similar to Russell’s objection)

-Taylor: principle makes the universe intelligible (transcendental argument)

 -if transcendental avoids Mackie’s objection

-Koon’s response: scientific success

-Pruss: self-evident

-problem with self-evidence, Russell’s paradox

-Lewis: if concretism is true the principle is absolutely false

Objections to 5

-Grounding issue

What is grounding? An explanation? Sufficient reason?

Swinburne and Pruss:

-full explanation: nothing puzzling is left in the explanandum (“effect”); it either

reappears in the explanans (“cause”) or disappears.

-complete explanation: nothing puzzling remains.

-grounding demands the latter

-problems with free will?

-Pruss doesn’t think so

-Infinite series/circularity

Duns Scotus. If the grounding is infinite, no one member can answer this question, “why is there
something rather than nothing?” But our definition of grounding precludes this (Premise 2)

-Explaining the parts explains the whole - Hume

Rowe- mistaken, as the question of why anything exists is not

Objection to 7

-Kant, existence is not a predicate, cannot be proved, argument relies on ontological argument, which is
unsound

-Logical necessity, or metaphysical necessity? (Reichenbach)

-if the latter, it means God could not exist (Mackie)

-PSR can be invoked here

-Davis: no it can’t: God is logically contingent but metaphysically necessary; PSR applies
to contingency only in the metaphysic sense
1. A contingent being exists.

2. A contingent being has a grounding (which is/are (a) being(s)) for its existence.

3. The grounding of a contingent being is not that being itself.

4. The grounding of a contingent being is either wholly contingent or not.

5. A grounding cannot be wholly contingent.

6. Therefore, the grounding must include a necessary (non-contingent) being.

7. Therefore, a necessary being exists.

1. A contingent being exists.

2. A contingent being has a grounding (which is/are (a) being(s)) for its existence.

3. The grounding of a contingent being is not that being itself.

4. The grounding of a contingent being is either wholly contingent or not.

5. A grounding cannot be wholly contingent.

6. Therefore, the grounding must include a necessary (non-contingent) being.

7. Therefore, a necessary being exists.

1. A contingent being exists.

2. A contingent being has a grounding (which is/are (a) being(s)) for its existence.

3. The grounding of a contingent being is not that being itself.

4. The grounding of a contingent being is either wholly contingent or not.

5. A grounding cannot be wholly contingent.

6. Therefore, the grounding must include a necessary (non-contingent) being.

7. Therefore, a necessary being exists.