196 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSPremise 1 is a version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
2 There exist things whose existence it is logically possible to explain is
a true logically contingent existential proposition.
There are rose bushes, there might not have been rose bushes, and there is
an explanation of there being rose bushes; hence premise 2 is true.
3 There is an explanation of the truth of There exist things whose
existence it is logically possible to explain (from 1, 2).
Premise 3 obviously follows from premises 1 and 2. So if they are true, so is
it. The success of stage one depends on what is true regarding the first
premise.
Cosmological Argument, stage two
4 The truth of There exist things whose existence it is logically possible
to explain cannot be explained by there being things whose existence
it is logically possible to explain (the existence of those things is just
what is to be explained).
Suppose that Pat wants to know why there now are golden retriever
puppies. She is told that there are golden retriever parents. She asks why
there are golden retriever parents. She is told about golden retriever
grandparents. Pat then wants to know why there are any golden retrievers
at all. She cannot now be told about golden retriever parents, grandparents,
great grandparents, or the like; these will all be things she wants to know
about – why have any golden retrievers at all existed? Here, one either
refuses to answer, claims that there being golden retrievers is just a
fundamental feature of the world, or explains that there were non-golden
retrievers that caused there to be golden retrievers.
If Pat asks why there have ever been any possibly explicable things at
all that exist though they might not have existed, she cannot properly
be told about there being possibly explicable things that exist but might
not have existed; those are the things she asks about. So one can refuse
to answer, claim that there being possibly explicable things that exist
but might not have existed is a fundamental feature of the universe, or
refer to something that is not such as to exist and be possibly explicable
though it might not have existed. This line of thought is correct, and is
what premise 4 says.