Two Naturalistic Arguments for Why There is Something (Concrete) Rather Than Nothing (Concrete)

Here is a sketch of two arguments for why there is anything (concrete) rather than nothing (concrete), which are based on, or at least inspired by, ideas found in Spinoza's Ethics and Leibniz's "On the Ultimate Origination of Things":

Spinozistic Argument: Essences are ideas. Judgements are part of the essence of ideas. Judgements assert the truth of coherent ideas, and assert the falsity of incoherent ideas. Ideas/essences are therefore active and powerful--they have the power to do things/make their referents obtain or fail to obtain. Therefore, if there is no inconsistency in the essence of an idea, its corresponding judgement will affirm its truth, and thereby bring it about/make the idea concrete. Therefore, all possible essences become concrete on their own. Therefore, the reason why there is anything concrete rather than nothing concrete is that abstract essences/ideas intrinsically actualize themselves/make themselves concrete.

Leibnizian Argument: Unactualized possibilities have a natural, innate tendency or striving to actualize themselves unless they are impeded by something external to them. Therefore, the reason why there is anything concrete rather than nothing is that some unactualized possibilities were not impeded in their innate, natural tendency to actualize themselves by things external to them.

I note that both arguments provide a rationale for Negative PSR, the latter of which we've discussed on other occasions

A Quick Objection to the Modal Ontological Argument

(From an old Facebook post of mine back in 2018)
Assume Platonism about properties, propositions, and possible worlds. Such is the natural backdrop of the modal ontological argument. Assume further that the key possibility premise of the modal ontological argument is true, viz., that there is a possible world at which maximal excellence is exemplified. Then by Axiom S5 and that premise, we get the God of classical theism -- or do we? Seems to me we don't. For the picture is that God is ontologically posterior to and dependent upon the existence and ontological structure of the platonic multiverse -- God's existence is the ontological consequence of the nature and structure of platonic space. But if that's right, then God is, in a real sense, a dependent being, in which case classical theism is false.

Resto QuiƱones's New Argument Against Perfect Being Theism

Resto QuiƱones, Jashiel. "Incompatible And Incomparable Perfections: A New Argument Against Perfect Being Theism", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming).

Abstract: Perfect being theism is the view that the perfect being exists and the property being-perfect is the property being-God. According to the strong analysis of perfection, a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies all perfections. On the other hand, the weak analysis of perfection claims that a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies the best possible combination of compatible perfections. Strong perfect being theism accepts the former analysis while weak perfect being theism accepts the latter. In this paper, I argue that there are good reasons to reject both versions of perfect being theism. On the one hand, strong perfect being theism is false if there are incompatible perfections; I argue that there are. On the other hand, if either no comparison can be made between sets of perfections, or they are equally good, then there is no best possible set of perfections. I argue for the antecedent of this conditional statement, concluding that weak perfect being theism is false. In the absence of other analyses of perfection, I conclude that we have reason to reject perfect being theism.

Happy reading!

What God Would Have Known...

 ...is the title of J.L. Schellenberg's forthcoming book, which offers a large number of novel arguments against Christian theism. I've read the manuscript, and as one would expect from Schellenberg, it's clear, tightly argued, and compelling. Required reading!

Two Naturalistic Arguments for Why There is Something (Concrete) Rather Than Nothing (Concrete)

Here is a sketch of two arguments for why there is anything (concrete) rather than nothing (concrete), which are based on, or at least inspi...