Description
The major arguments in favor of God’s existence all argue that the only coherent conclusion to some particular fundamental regression is God. The atheist objection to avoid this conclusion is to posit a “brute fact.” Now, when I use the term “brute fact” I am not referring indiscriminately to fundamental things. I am referring to a tool used to excuse something from explanation by arbitrarily claiming it is fundamental. I will demonstrate that this baseless logical leap, which atheist interlocutors so often accuse theists of, is – ironically – exactly what an atheist must do to avoid theistic conclusions.
Preface
If you’ve read the preceding areas of the site, you’ll be familiar with the “major” first-step arguments for God’s existence. Note that these arguments do have a second step, but that will be detailed following this list. In case you aren’t familiar with these arguments, here is a brief reiteration, each with a hyperlink to the complete form of the argument:
(1) Motion. Things change from one state to another. But for anything to change, it must be preceded by an external “actualizer.” For example, it is impossible for a cup of coffee to change itself from 75° to 70°, as that would require the cup to be 70° before being 70° – a contradiction. But clearly, if everything needed external actualization, we would have an infinite regress. Plugging a TV into an infinite series of extension cords would never give it the power to turn on; likewise, an infinite series of unactualized actualizers would have no power to change. So, something must be purely actual, without any potential therein, and this “unchanging changer” must serve as the terminus of change.
(2) Cause. We notice that at least some things are caused by other things. Now, there are two types of causal chains: accidental and efficient. An accidental series is a series of independent beings. For example, a man has a son, and then he has a son, and so on. These chains could theoretically go on forever. But an “efficient cause” denotes a simultaneous logical regression, in which each step continuously depends on the prior. For example: you are composed of organs, and those organs are composed of cells, and they of molecules, and they of atoms, and so on. Those cannot go on forever without a problem of infinite regress. Thus, something must be an uncaused cause, serving as the terminus of causality.
(3) Contingency. We know there are some “contingent” beings – that is, they exist, but could be different, or could have not existed at all. A red apple, a green chair, a teacup, so on. In all our experience, contingent things unfailingly have explanations. If you saw a broken window, you’d assume there’s a reason the window is broken and search for a projectile. Now, each contingent item is the way it is because of something external to itself. Again, it is impossible for a cup of coffee to change itself from 75° to 70° (one contingent state to another), as that would require the cup to be 70° before being 70° – a contradiction. But if every contingent thing is contingent upon another contingent thing, then we have an infinite regress. As such, there must be a non-contingent thing somewhere, which serves as the terminus of this existential dependency.
(4) Gradation. Certain beings have characteristics “of themselves.” Heat is “that which is hot of itself,” and the hotter a thing is, the closer it approaches to the nature of heat. Aristotle argues in Metaphysics II that transcendentals operate in the same way; that a thing has “more truth” the fewer intermediaries it depends on – that is, the closer it approaches to being self-evident. Likewise, a being has “more existence” the fewer intermediaries it depends on – that is, the closer it approaches to being self-evident. So, a fox has more being than his shadow, or, a man has more being than his dreams. As such, there must be something which has self-evident existence; having the power to exist of itself, as opposed to deriving it from another. Else, as in the previous examples, we have an infinite regress where things exist, but nothing has existence.
(5) Governance. Imagine you were standing near a target and suddenly an arrow flew into it – bullseye. There’s a chance that may have just been some random cosmic occurrence. Now imagine billions of arrows fly into that target as well as 500 other targets nearby. The only reasonable explanation is that a mind is directing the arrows to their respective targets. The universe is remarkably coherent and predictable, even if only looking at something mundane, like acorns becoming trees. Now, one may point to evolution or the laws of nature as an explanation. But calling such things “laws” is anthropomorphizing; acorns do not think. And furthermore, evolution is not a conscious being; nor is gravity, the speed of light, nor the other forces of nature. Thus, we have an infinite regress of unconscious organizers – unless we posit a conscious terminus of coherent governance.
Now, as I said, there are two steps to these arguments. Once you’ve established one (or more), then you need to prove the terminus is something like God. That second step, though a little different for each, goes something like this:
We know that if something is “purely actual” (the unchanged changer), it must have specific characteristics. Namely: there can only be one fully actual being, for any distinction from pure actuality is potency. A fully actual being cannot be material, because material always has potency – so He is immaterial. He must be eternal, for if He wasn’t, something would have to have moved Him from potential existence to actual existence. He must be perfect – that is, lacking in absolutely nothing, for any lack denotes unfulfilled potential. This means He is omnibenevolent, having all that is desirable innately. What is fully actual acts upon others without ever being acted upon, and since that is the principle of all motion, He is all-powerful. He must know all things, for if He did not know something, He would have potential to know it. And so on and so on.
Thorough explanation here, if desired.
Brute Fact Objection
That preface has hopefully explained the basic framework of classical theism well. But as I said in the introduction, the point of this article is not to discuss classical theism. Rather, it is to discuss the atheist objection to the five major arguments: the “brute fact” argument.
There’s an obvious formula to the five major arguments: (1) demonstrate something which seems to require explanation, (2) demonstrate through deduction that that thing can only be explained by a terminus, (3) demonstrate that the terminus must have particular characteristics (oneness, immateriality, eternality, etc…) which converge on it being God. This leaves the atheist with two possible ways to escape the conclusion. They may either reject that the terminus exists, or reject that the terminus resembles God.
Trying to reject the existence of the terminus puts the atheist in a very difficult position, because these arguments do not leave another option. For example, in the contingency argument, we organize everything into two binary categories: contingent, and non-contingent. You can’t use the explanandum to explain itself; that is, you can’t say that everything contingent is contingent on yet another contingent thing. So, there are only two options: a non-contingent explanation, or no explanation. Let me reiterate: there is no third option. The flying spaghetti monster, Zeus, quantum fluctuations – these things must either be non-contingent (conceding the argument) or contingent (explanandum). Let me reiterate again: there is no other option. Either there is a non-contingent being, or reality has NO explanation.
And indeed, that’s the argument atheists do make. The “brute fact” is Bertrand Russell’s argument against contingency. He at least tries to back it up by claiming a compositional fallacy that (elementarily) doesn’t actually exist in the argument (addressed here). But that is nevertheless his claim: “I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.”
But isn’t God also a brute fact? Remember, the definition of “brute fact” I’m using here is not indiscriminately referring to anything fundamental. It is referring to anything arbitrarily asserted to be fundamental. Certainly, God is fundamental, but arbitrarily asserted? Absolutely not; God does have an explanation – His own (proposed) ontology as immaterial, immutable, and eternal. If I tell you there’s an immaterial, immutable, eternal thing out there, that very description answers why it’s there – it’s immaterial, immutable, and eternal.
Contrarily, the universe (or “total contingent set”) cannot satisfy the demand for self-explanation, leaving it not unexplained, but unexplainable. A true “brute fact.” And of course, the universe can no more explain its own origin than it can explain how actualization happens, where causality comes from, where the act of existence comes from, and why reality is coherent and ordered. The “brute facts” just pile up when one rejects God. That’s an issue for the atheist, since, again, these are fundamentally baseless, arbitrary assumptions. To make a brute fact argument is not to humbly say, “I don’t know.” It’s to say, “my positive, active assumption is that there is no explanation at all for reality.” How ludicrously unscientific! How oblivious to accuse the theist of invoking magic!
Of course, all claims rely on assumption at some level; even “I think, therefore I am” depends on the assumption that logic works. But the assumptions that the theist must make are the simple assumptions we make every day: states of affairs have explanations. Effects don’t happen without causes. Something can’t come from nothing. Reality is coherent. Contrarily, the assumptions an atheist must make are absolutely absurd: states of affairs have explanations, except the entire universe, or nothing whatever has an explanation. Effects don’t happen without causes, except the first set of effects, or cause-and-effect isn’t real. Contingent reality is sustained in existence by nothing, for no reason. Reality being coherently organized and predictable is just a complete coincidence.
Now, as I said, the atheist has another option. The fallback is to grant the first step and admit the terminus, but deny that the terminus is God. There are some meaningful arguments about this – there is intense debate about whether God is simple (selfsame substance) or composed of parts, for example. But to grant that there is an unactualized actualizer, an uncaused cause, a non-contingent being, and a source of existence, coherence, and order (or any combination thereof) and then say that isn’t God is… dubious, to say the least. In Metaphysics XII, using the “motion” argument alone, Aristotle reasons to the idea that God is “thought thinking itself”; a super-intellect which literally ideates reality into existence, directing all things from and to Himself as the unchanging first and final cause. To hold even two of the major arguments to be true cannot leave one an atheist.
Conclusion
This page is not a robust, direct argument for God’s existence (that page is here, if you wish). It is, however, an explanation of the fundamentals of the arguments for God’s existence, followed by a critique of the fundamental flaw of atheism: it requires arbitrary assumption after arbitrary assumption, none of which are anything other than superstition.