ARGUMENTS FOR MONOTHEISM 199it is compatible with there being an infinite number of contingent truths,
each explained by some other contingent proposition. It is also compatible
with the fact that, if there are any logically contingent propositions – and
there plainly are – then some must be true: if Q is a logically contingent
proposition, so is not-Q, and of (Q and not-Q) one must be true.
What it does require is that there being logically contingent true
existential statements is possibly explicable – as it is – and hence that it has
an actual explanation. If it does have an explanation, it seems that the
Cosmological Argument has the right sort of explanation. Obviously no
necessary truth will explain it, and no possibly explicable contingent
proposition will explain it, and no non-existential statement will explain it.
What is left, since necessary falsehoods and contingent falsehoods explain
nothing, is a logically contingent existential statement whose truth is
necessarily inexplicable. While it is true that of any pair composed of a
logically contingent existential statement and its denial, one must be true,
it might always be that it was the denial that was true. So it is not a logical
necessity that there be true logically contingent existential statements.
There remains, then, this question: is it contingently inexplicable that there
are true logically contingent existential statements? That there are such
statements is possibly explicable, so if there is no explanation of there
being such, there is a perfectly intelligible question – Why are there true
logically contingent existential propositions? – that might perfectly well
have had an answer, but that in fact has none. What PSR denies is that this
is possible – the possibly explicable is actually explicable.
Is PSR true? There does not seem to be anything more obviously true
than PSR from which it follows. PSR does not seem to be contradictory,
and if it is true, it is necessarily true. So it is, if not contradictory, then
necessarily true. But (I) It is contingently inexplicable that there are
logically contingent true existential statements is not obviously
contradictory, and it is, if true, then necessarily true. So if it is not
contradictory, then it is necessarily true. Nothing in the Cosmological
Argument shows that it is PSR rather than (I) that is true. So the
Cosmological Argument is not a proof that extends our knowledge.
There is a bit more to be said regarding PSR. A standard objection to
weaker formulations of the Cosmological Argument is that if one infers
from the world to God, and it is logically possible that God not exist, then
one might as well have stopped with the world. A Cosmological Argument
with PSR as an essential premise, assuming the remainder to be crafted in
line with PSR’s content, will be subject to no such objection. Further, if
one rejects PSR one is left with an ultimate mystery, an intelligible and
basic question to which there might have been an answer, but is not. Reject
PSR and mystery lies on your side of the fence, not on the monotheists’
side.