God Explains the Most: Existence

Preparing for my debate with Peter Millican, part 2 of 11

This is part 2 in my series on the explanatory power of theism, which I introduce here.

In this article, I will consider how theism (i.e., that fundamental reality is supreme) can help explain why anything exists at all. I’ll start by describing a puzzle about existence. Then I’ll show how I think theism can help us solve that puzzle in a way that non-theistic theories cannot.

The Puzzle of Existence

The puzzle resolves around seeing how any reality could exist at all. To appreciate this puzzle, suppose you encountered a shiny blue ball in a forest. You’ve never seen this ball before. You wonder how it got there.

One theory is that the blue ball has no explanation at all. It just exists there, and nothing produced it or rolled it there.

However, the no-explanation theory is not very satisfying. First, it runs contrary to our experiences of things having an explanation of their existence in terms of prior states of reality. For example, trees grow up from seeds, cars are assembled in factories, thoughts form in your mind, and so on. Second, by reason, it may seem that mere differences in shape or size make no difference; it is no easier for a ball the size of a house to exist inexplicably than for a ball the size of a shoe. Indeed, it may seem that the very existence of a thing calls for an explanation: why does a thing exist rather than not?

So if we think the blue ball in the forest would have some explanation, we can support this thought in terms of a universal principle of explanation that applies to any reality (of any size, category, or composition):

Principle of Universal Explanation (PE): every reality depends on some source to explain its existence.

This principle successfully predicts all our experiences with cause and effect.

However, PE, cannot be true, for PE cannot apply to our total reality. The problem is that, by definition, there is nothing beyond the total reality that could produce or explain its existence. Total reality includes all reality, and therefore no reality exists outside all reality. For this reason, it follows that, unlike the blue ball in the forest, the total reality has no outside cause or explanation of its existence.

Thus, logic reveals the following principle:

Principle of No Explanation (PN): reality in total has no source to explain its existence.

But this principle of no explanation contradicts the principle of universal explanation.

We can formulate the problem here in terms of an argument for the existence of nothing:

1. If anything exists, then the total reality has some outside explanation (PE).

2. There is no outside explanation of the total reality (PN).

3. Therefore, nothing exists.

Of course, the conclusion is absurd. Something exists. You exist, for example. So something must give.

My answer to this argument is that the first premise is false. The problem is not with reason (or even with applying reason to the total reality). The problem is with the extrapolation from our experiences. PE is too strong. Not every reality must depend on some outside cause or explanation. The total of our reality is an exception.

This analysis reinforces the puzzle of existence. The puzzle is to understand how an unexplained total reality is possible: how can any reality—of any size, shape, age, or constituents—exist without some outside cause or explanation? This is a question for all truth seekers.

For further discussion of this puzzle and why I think it resists a range of proposed solutions, see my recent article, “God and Fundamentality.”

How Theism Explains Existence

I believe theism provides a deep explanation of existence. Here is why. According to the supreme being hypothesis, fundamental reality has a supreme nature, which precludes arbitrary limits or boundaries. This nature, in virtue of being supreme, entails maximally robust existence—i.e., it has no limit to its range of possible existence. Thus, a supreme fundamental reality would exist across all possible worlds and not depend for its existence on anything prior. It would be the ultimate, foundational source of all else. This result solves the puzzle of existence: we can see why reality has no outside explanation if it includes a foundational layer that has no outside explanation in virtue of the kind of thing it is.

Moreover, theism helps us identify a relevant difference between explained things and the unexplained foundation of reality. Theism says that fundamental reality is fundamental in virtue of having a supreme nature. That’s what makes it different from a blue sphere that would call for some further explanation.

It is not enough to merely say that fundamental reality is some eternal stuff (or an eternal chain of events). What remains is a question about what kind of stuff could be eternal. Could a turtle be eternal? If so, it would be a special turtle, unlike all other turtles we know. If fundamental reality is eternal, then it has a nature that sets it apart from non-eternal things. A supreme nature is a special nature that explains why fundamental reality is eternal (if it is).

Finally, a supreme foundation would lack arbitrary limits and boundaries that would themselves call for an explanation. Consider again the blue ball. How do you know a blue ball in a forest isn’t itself the fundamental source of reality? After all, you didn’t see its origin. Maybe the blue ball is eternal and uncaused. Presumably not. Its particular properties—color, shape, size—call for a deeper explanation. Why is it blue? What does it have that shape? Mere differences in shape and size do not display a relevant difference with respect to the call for a deeper explanation. If it has any shape or size, we can wonder why it has that shape or that size. Why that shape? Why that size? If we want a theory of fundamental reality that displays a relevant difference, that theory will not posit arbitrary differences, like differences in shape and size. It will instead specify some non-arbitrary difference, which is precisely what a supreme nature supplies.

For these reasons, a supreme reality would explain how there could be a self-existent, fundamental reality. Thus, we can solve the puzzle of existence in terms of a supreme foundation: something exists because there is a foundational reality that, in virtue of its supreme nature, cannot not exist.

Why Atheism Doesn’t Explain Existence

I have three points to make here, briefly. First, atheism by itself doesn’t do anything to solve the puzzle of existence. Atheism entails that fundamental reality is not supreme, or that there is no fundamental reality. But these entailments don’t tell us how fundamental reality would be different from things like a blue sphere that depend on a further explanation, and thus atheism doesn’t reveal how our reality could exist independently of some further explanation. So atheism doesn’t explain how anything could exist at all.

Second, if we seek to pick up explanatory power by filling in our non-theistic theory, then we add complexity to the theory, which diminishes its prior probability. For example, suppose instead of deriving the existence of a fundamental reality from the concept of a supreme nature, we simply posit a fundamental reality. To explain its fundamentality, we add that this fundamental reality is relevantly different from things like blue spheres. In particular, we say that the fundamental reality has a self-existent nature. This account borrows from the theistic hypothesis, but in order for it to be an alternative to theism, we must add that fundamental reality lacks a supreme nature. The combination of attributes—(i) being fundamental, (ii) being relevantly different from explained things, and (iii) lacking a supreme nature—is an unnecessarily complex combination. The unnecessary complexity detracts from its prior probability, like how the complexity of an invisible flying spaghetti monster detracts from its probability.

Third, all non-theistic theories (no matter how complex) face the additional problem of arbitrary unexplained limits. This problem arises from the premise that fundamental reality lacks a supreme nature. From this premise, it follows that fundamental reality has some surpassable (non-maximal) limits—or edges in its nature, such as a limit in size, causal power, or intrinsic value. By definition, something that has no such edges in its nature would be maximal in whatever basic qualities it has. But if something lacks a supreme nature (per atheism), then it would have some essential edges, such as in its capacity or intrinsic value.

These edges (arbitrary limits) call for a deeper explanation for the same reasons a blue ball in a forest calls for a deeper explanation. The twin lights of reason and experience reveal that differences between edges are irrelevant to explain a difference with respect to being fundamental. For if having a limited size of 10 meters depends on a prior explanation, then so does the limited size of 11 meters. This difference plainly does not display a relevant difference.

When I think about various limits and differences between them, it is evident that I see no relevant difference between limits and boundaries. All are in the same boat: all equally call for a more fundamental explanation. (Here, despite the calls for caution at this altitude, I find a feeling of certainty arise within me.)

But if fundamental reality is itself fundamentally limited in some respect (e.g., in power or intrinsic value), then there is some limit that cannot logically have a further explanation. For any further explanation would then be more fundamental than the most fundamental reality—a contradiction. Thus, the theory that reality lacks a supreme foundation implies the existence of arbitrary, unexplained limits—an implication that runs contrary to the track records of reason and experience.

(Advanced note: even if it is merely logically possible for there to be an explanation of limited, non-supreme things, we still face a problem: the only logically possible explanation of non-supreme things must—to avoid circularity—be in terms of a supreme foundation.)

Another way to think about this is that reason and experience invite us to explain things as far as we can. We can explain all limits uniformly if fundamental reality is not fundamentally limited. But if instead fundamental reality is fundamentally limited (e.g., by lacking a supreme nature), then we block the explanation chain shorter than necessary.

So, not only does an arbitrarily limited reality not explain existence, but it appears to multiply mysteries beyond necessity and even possibility.

For more about the argument from arbitrary limits, including replies to various objections, see “An Argument for a Supreme Foundation.” For a recent interview discussion of this argument, see “Reason and God” at

Samuel Devis

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Summary

Existence is puzzling: why does anything exist? It seems an explanation is called for, yet any explanation of existence in terms of something that exists is circular. To avoid this circle, we need an explanation of how a reality could exist without any outside explanation.

That’s where God comes in. God has a nature that entails its maximal, foundational existence, which in turn entails an explanation of existence. Here is the full explanation: there is something rather than nothing because there cannot not be nothing, because fundamental reality cannot not be, because fundamental reality has a supreme nature, which entails its existence across all possible worlds. Thus, if God exists, then we have a deep explanation of existence—and a solution to the puzzle of existence.

If instead we subtract the supreme nature from our theory of reality, this subtraction does nothing on its own to explain existence, but only compounds the mystery of why an arbitrary reality would exist at all.