The Principle of Sufficient Reason says everything has an explanation. However, what do we need for something to count as a sufficient explanation? If someone says we need some factor that is both prior to something and logically sufficient for it, this seems like too strong a principle, and there are reasons for thinking such a principle is false – that it does not describe the actual world, especially when considering indeterminism. Also, no theist should accept a PSR of such strength, for several reasons. First, libertarian freedom would be incompatible with it, insofar as a libertarian free choice means nothing determined it. Second, theists should maintain that certain things – particularly, God – can be explained without reference to anything extrinsic, but internally (I thus take it that not all explanations are causes, even if all causes are cited as explanatory).
When I think of the Principle of Fufficient Reason (PSR), then, I think of it more as the Principle of Adequate Reason (PAR). Something like: Everything has an adequate explanation for its existence and whatever attributes it has, either through some external cause or via the principles of its own essence.
The idea of an adequate explanation makes conceptual space for choice to be explanatory, particularly when the reasons for some choice are not decisively stronger than reasons for some other choice. This, in conjunction with the traditional idea that our will is simply an active power to make efficacious any finite non-determinative (non-decisive) reason or motive for action, then it seems we can definitely say something has an explanation even if the explanans did not entail the explanandum. After all, such reasons for action can nevertheless be adequate even if non-decisive, and thus cited as explanatory even if non-necessitating.
The upshot of the PAR is that it helps to explain contingency and avoid brute facts. With PAR everything can ultimately bottom out by way of explanation in the autonomous fact that is the necessary being (God) that freely chose to create, who in doing so favored a set of reasons that were not practically coercive or decisive since (highly plausibly) there were some strong reasons for God not to create, particularly the risk of significant evil in bringing about other naturally fallible wills.
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Worldview Obstacle Course Racing (WOCR)
One way to think about worldview comparison is along the lines of an obstacle course race. (A worldview is simply a “Big Picture” theory of everything. Philosophers engaged in worldview comparison are ultimately trying to determine which worldview makes the most sense of experience — that is, how well do they explain “ large-scale” features of reality.)