Evidence · Case 09 · Atheism
The universe as the necessary or brute foundation
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Rather than a necessary being behind the universe, one can say the universe, or the wider physical reality, is itself the thing that just exists, either as a brute fact that needs no explanation or as the necessary foundation. But the universe looks like the kind of thing that could have been different, in its constants, its contents, and its arrangement, which makes it an odd candidate for something that could not fail to exist. Still, this reply leans on the principle of sufficient reason, which one may reject, so the disagreement is real.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Why can’t the universe as a whole be necessary? Saying it looks like the kind of thing that could have been different is an appearance, not a modal fact.
The argument rather than the appearance is this: a necessary being must exist in every possible world, and it seems clearly possible for the universe to have had different constants, a different number of particles, or not to have existed; a thing whose every feature could have been otherwise is a poor candidate for necessity. The naturalist can reply, as Graham Oppy does, that only some underlying physical reality is necessary and the details are contingent. At that point the debate is whether an impersonal necessary reality can explain the contingent world without a choice. That is the real question, and Oppy’s Arguing About Gods is the place to see the atheist side of it argued in full.