Necessary Being without PSR?
If there are dependently-contingent beings this entails at least one non-dependently-contingent being to avoid the consequence that nothing exists. However, this leaves open whether this non-dependently contingent being is either 1) a necessary being or 2) a modally contingent brute fact. Many have claimed the second option is unavailable because it violates PSR (which I agree with). However, we don’t need PSR to conclude there must be (at least one) non-dependently-contingent being. We just need a commitment not to accept any hypothesis which entails either an intrinsic contradiction or contradiction of fact, and certainly “nothing exists” is a contradiction of fact.
So, keeping PSR off the table, if only for the sake of argument, why prefer admitting a necessary being into one’s ontology rather than a modally contingent brute fact? Here are five reasons:
Necessary being perfectly predicts something exists. If there is a necessary being, then it is not surprising something exists. However, if there is simply a modally contingent brute fact, it is quite surprising something exists, especially since nothing modally contingent had to exist. Necessary being removes the mystery of why something exists by entailing that something exists, whereas a modally contingent brute fact confounds the mystery of existence since nothing either had to exist and now something – at least one thing, maybe more – exists without explanation.
Necessary being perfectly predicts continued existence. Another problem with stipulating a modally contingent brute fact is that this should cause concern about ongoing existence. If instead we opt for a necessary being, then this predicts things (at least one thing) will continue to exist, which jibes with experience and expectation. Modally contingent brute facts make no similar prediction: they should make us existentially uneasy. If something is modally contingent, it (and everything dependent upon it) could pop out of existence anytime. Moreover, if the necessary being is God who created our universe for a purpose, and if God is perfectly rational, then God isn’t going to snap the universe out of existence randomly, because that would be irrational. Thus, there is even more predictive fruit when moving from necessary being to God for making sense of continued existence.
Necessary being better predicts compatibility with other contingent being. Imagine there is just some modally contingent brute fact. Say what pops into existence uncaused is an elephant. Obviously, this would significantly limit what other realities could exist (in fact, it seems if an elephant just existed brutely as the first/fundamental reality, then nothing but that elephant and its constituents would exist; certainly no lions could exist, or Jupiter, etc.), since elephants are restricted in causal power and exclude other beings (in the same comparative domain). If something contingent can exist brutely, there is no reason to think any particular contingent thing will be the brute existent instead of any other, so it seems there are far more ways the brute existent would exclude a reality like ours – which is rich with many grounded beings – rather than ground it. There is also no reason to think brute existents would be probable (since probability calculations rely upon background considerations, which are unavailable in this context) so we cannot justifiably appeal to an infinite lottery of brute existents, either.
Necessary being better predicts other contingent being. Perhaps this is true only if the necessary being has intellect and freedom of will. But if so, this can explain how a contingent being can be produced from a necessary being, while maintaining its contingency. Even more valuable is if we stipulate this necessary being is, following Lonergan, an unrestricted act of understanding understanding itself which would necessarily see the value in creating a universe with great aesthetic diversity and especially one with rational, free beings in it, rendering the existence of a universe like ours unsurprisingly. Our universe is hugely surprising if what is at root is just a modally contingent brute fact.
Necessary being better predicts necessary truths. That some truths – logical, mathematical, ethical, etc. – seem necessary are better explained if they can (conceivably) be anchored in a necessary being. (For an account of this, see Rasmussen’s How Reason Can Lead to God.) Granted, that necessary being might have to be especially rich in what it amounts to, but so what? Better to have an existentially rich necessary being that can anchor necessary truths than to have unanchored necessary truths and unexplained contingent facts, it seems to me.