“Who Am I?” Project 3 - Divine Creation: The Philosophical Argument Pt. I
The following philosophical defense of creation ex nihilo is inspired by the ideas of Robert Spitzer, S.J., especially his book New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy. Spitzer was the very first person to teach me about metaphysics when I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University. However, I am going to try to make an argument in my own words, one that may very well depart from Spitzer’s. What follows should be understood neither as a faithful presentation of his argument, nor even as one that he would entirely endorse.
Let’s start with an exhaustive disjunction. A disjunction is an either/or argument, or an either/or/or…, argument. What makes the disjunction exhaustive is that all logical possibilities are identified. One classic form of a disjunctive argument is making that case that all but one of the choices is impossible, which then means the last option must be necessary. That is what I will try to do here.
Next, we need a definition. A conditioned reality is a reality that depends on another reality to exist. My body depends on my cells, which depend on cell parts, which depend on molecules, which depend on atoms…you get the idea. A conditioned reality is one where that which makes something what it is did not have to be. To anticipate a little bit, if something cannot exist without the powers and order that constitute it, and if those powers and order did not have to be what they are, then that something is a conditioned reality.
So, here is the exhaustive disjunction: either all, some, or none of the realities that make up everything are conditioned. This should cover everything. Now let’s get rid of the impossibilities.
Perhaps everything is conditioned, the “all” option of the disjunction. However, it is impossible for everything to be conditioned because if everything is conditioned nothing would exist. Since we know that something exists, it is impossible that everything is conditioned.
The first premise of this argument, “If everything is conditioned nothing would exist,” needs some explanation and defense. Spitzer talks about “condition trees.” Here, the idea is that if A depends on B, then B must exist in order for A to exist. If there is no B, and A depends on B, then there is no A, either. If everything is a conditioned reality, then that means B is also conditioned. That means that before A can exist the conditions that make B possible must exist. If the conditions that make B possible do not exist, then B does not exist, and that means A does not exist, either. I am guessing you can see where this is going. If everything is conditioned, then the conditions that make something possible are never actually the case. That would lead to nothing ever actually coming into existence. Since we know something exists (the second premise of the argument), then it cannot be the case that everything is conditioned. This is a straightforward use of an argument in philosophy called modus tollens. Its general form goes like this:
If p, then q.
Not q.
Therefore, not p.
Here p = everything is conditioned
q = nothing exists
Not q = something exists (the negation of nothing exits)
Not p = not everything is conditioned
Notice that one cannot avoid this argument by appealing to an infinite regress of conditioned realities. Spitzer notes that infinity x zero = zero. If nothing ever has its conditions fulfilled and so never exists, extending this chain back to infinity still yields nothing.
If it must be false that everything is conditioned, then it must be true that there is at least one unconditioned reality. But maybe there is more than one. If it is impossible that everything is conditioned, perhaps nothing is conditioned, the “none” option of the original disjunction. This would mean that nothing depends on anything else for its existence. One way to imagine this is a Lego reality where everything is made up of something like changeless Lego blocks, or bits of matter where the bits always and necessarily exist. This is sometimes called atomistic pluralism. Another way to imagine this is that there is really only one thing in reality, despite the fact that it sure looks like there is more than one thing. This is sometimes called monism.
There are lots of problems with both atomistic pluralism and monism. They share in common at least two important difficulties. First, in both realities freedom makes no sense. Changeless bits of matter are not free, otherwise they would change. A single reality cannot be free because to be free is to choose among possible alternatives, but when there is only one reality, no other alternative is possible. Second, real change is impossible in both, even if both can somehow give the appearance of change. You can rearrange Lego blocks all you want, but they never change. A single reality cannot change because all the looks or faces of that reality, what looks like change, are just parts of the whole, a whole with no beginning or end.
If either freedom or change are real, then a world with no conditioned realities is impossible. While some doubt freedom is real, most would agree that change is real. Thus, a world with no conditioned realities, that is a world composed only of unconditioned realities, is impossible. This is an argument philosophers call modus ponens (If p, then q. P, therefore, q). I will let you do the translation.
Let’s conclude by reviewing where we are. We have made the case that it is impossible that everything is conditioned because that would mean that nothing exists. It is also impossible that nothing is conditioned, because that would mean freedom and change are unreal. That means that the All and None options of our disjunction are impossible. That leaves us with good reason to think that Some things are conditioned, and we know from the impossibility of All things being conditioned that at least one thing must be unconditioned.