The Argument from Arbitrary Limits for God Defended
A Reply to Sebastian Montesinos
Here I answer five objections to my Argument from Arbitrary Limits.
What is at stake? The existence of God, the safety of reality, your future, and whether my favorite argument is any good.
A Summary of the Argument
A fundamental reality does not depend on a prior explanation (by definition).
Any limits depend on a prior explanation (to explain those limits).
Therefore, a fundamental reality lacks fundamental limits.
Any imperfect reality has some fundamental limit, such as a limit in power.
Therefore, a fundamental reality is perfect.
A Few Disclaimers
First, for the sake of focus, I leave aside here the question of whether there is a fundamental reality. The conclusion of this argument is therefore conditional: if there is a fundamental reality, it would be perfect in its fundamental nature.
Second, the term “perfect” can be interpreted in various ways. A minimal interpretation understands perfection as the mere absence of fundamental limits. A more robust analysis understands perfection in terms of great-making features, such as power or knowledge, possessed to a maximal degree. I develop a more precise analysis in my chapter “The Nature of Perfection,” in Perfect Existence. Here, for the sake of focus, I will stipulate that a perfect nature implies a maximal consistent kind of power and awareness (at least).
Third, this is an outline of an argument, not a full defense. For more on this type of argument, see “An Argument for a Supreme Foundation” (which Paul Draper told me he liked!).
Objections
Arguments are often clarified through the instrument of objections. I turn now to some valuable objections offered by Sebastian Montesinos in one of the clearest-minded cases for atheism online. See “Why I’m an Atheist.” I will share my thoughts about his objections below.
Objection 1
Firstly, the positive arguments for this contention are not very forceful, since they tend to rely on our intuitions that something that is unlimited is more theoretically virtuous than something limited.
Reply
That is not the only motivation. The deeper motivation , as I see it, is that limits call for an explanation in a special way.
I am thinking of a limit as a property that admits of greater possible amounts. For example, imagine a building that is 1,000 meters tall. It is possible, without contradiction, for there to be a taller building. So if there is a 1,000-meter-tall building, we can wonder why it is that tall rather than taller or shorter. Both experience and reason suggest that a building’s height is explainable in terms of prior conditions and causes. What is true of the height of buildings appears to be true of limits more generally: for any particular limit, we can reasonably expect an explanation of why that limit obtains.
My own view is that there are no exceptions to this principle of explaining limits. But the argument from limits can also proceed more cautiously: other things being equal, we have reason to expect an explanation of limits. This reason could, in principle, be defeated. We can therefore treat the argument from limits as contributing weight to one side of the balance while acknowledging the possibility, or actuality, of reasons on the other side. An argument can provide a genuine reason without settling the entire question by itself.
Objection 2
Secondly, it seems that this problem is going to cut both ways, especially for sectarian theists. That God is triune in nature according to Christianity seems very arbitrary. Why are there three instantiations of God rather than two or four? Why is there one God instead of an infinite set of gods? Wouldn’t a polytheistic foundation have fewer limits?
Reply
Three quick responses.
First, this objection does not challenge the argument from arbitrary limits itself. It challenges only a particular theological addition to the argument. If someone thinks that a triune nature would imply an arbitrary fundamental limit, then my argument could give that person a reason to think that fundamental reality does not have a triune nature.
Second, the principle of explanation invites us to remove arbitrariness as far as we can. Someone could think that there is a deeper explanation of the triune nature, perhaps in terms of the highest kind of love, in which case the relevant feature would not be a fundamental limit. On the other hand, if someone has independent motivation for positing a fundamental limit, then that person can weigh this motivation against the force of the argument from arbitrary limits.
Here again, the possibility of an exception does not remove the reason to explain limits as far as possible, even if that reason could be balanced against considerations on the other side. The value of the argument from arbitrary limits is that it shifts the burden toward any theory that multiplies arbitrariness or limits in its account of the foundation of reality.
Third, my own view is that it would indeed be arbitrary for fundamental reality to have a triune nature without any deeper explanation. For this reason, I think that although fundamental reality may manifest itself in various ways, including through various personas, it is not essentially and fundamentally divided into distinct personas. There could instead be a fundamental self from which other selves emerge or are explained. (This leaves open whether there are other distinctions in the natural world that can be explained in terms of fundamental reality’s acts or nature.)
Objection 3
Thirdly, there seems to be a sense in which having more causal power than is necessary to produce effects is theoretically unvirtuous. The theory in which the initial state has just enough causal power to bring about the universe seems more explanatorily parsimonious than the theory that tacks on all sorts of unnecessary causal power.
Reply
I have two replies.
First, on a purely theoretical level, a theory that posits a specific amount of power is intrinsically less likely. If we say that the foundation has exactly whatever amount of power is necessary to explain this particular universe, then we are building our knowledge of this universe into the hypothesis. But that knowledge does not increase the intrinsic probability of the hypothesis itself. By contrast, the theory that fundamental power lacks limits is simpler, since it contains fewer conceptual parts, and is therefore more intrinsically likely, in my view.
Second, and more fundamentally, a precise limit on power calls for a deeper explanation. Why that limit? The argument from limits is fueled both by our experience of limits having deeper explanations and by the apparent irrelevance of the differences between particular limits. The difference between being five feet tall and being ten feet tall does not mark a difference with respect to whether we should expect a prior explanation.
The same motivations that support the general principle of explaining limits therefore support the conclusion that fundamental power lacks any particular limit. It is instead simply the greatest consistent kind of power. This, I think, is the most intrinsically likely, least arbitrary, and best empirically supported default theory.
Objection 4
It is not clear that theism is the only candidate theory for something that is unlimited. One can easily imagine some kind of initial state that lacks spatial or temporal boundaries without having any moral properties whatsoever, for instance.
Reply
The relevant question is whether something could lack all fundamental limits without being maximal.
I have argued that any imperfection would imply some non-maximal limit in intrinsic value or positive being. A related consideration is that if fundamental reality is maximal in causal power, then it would include the power to produce thoughts. In that respect, it would possess the capacities associated with mind.
According to this line of thought, a reality with no fundamental limits would not merely lack spatial or temporal boundaries. It would be, at minimum, a maximally powerful mind.
Objection 5
Fifthly, given that the initial state is necessary, it is unclear whether asking why the initial state has value X rather than value Y is a valid question. After all, the initial state had to be that way since it was necessary.
Reply
Mere necessity does not remove every call for an explanation. The problem is that a limit along a continuum of possible powers does not appear to be the sort of thing that could be necessary.
For any power to produce one tree, for example, there could be a greater power to produce more trees or to produce them more quickly. The maximal degree of power would therefore be the greatest consistent kind of power. But if fundamental reality instead has only the limited power to produce one tree, that limit invites the question: why does it have precisely that limit?
Merely labeling the limit as necessary does not address this deeper question, since the limit itself does not appear to be necessary. Moreover, limit itself invites a further explanation to avoid arbitrariness.
Conclusion
These objections raise serious and worthwhile questions about the scope of the argument, the meaning of unlimited power, and the relation between necessity and explanation. I am grateful to Sebastian Montesinos for pressing them so clearly. These objections help identify where further clarification and inquiry are needed. The deepest questions about the foundation of reality deserve exactly this kind of careful and continuing examination.
Good article! Sebastian is a friend of mine, and you may be interested to know he's working on a updated version of his piece that will go through this argument in greater detail. I'll just put in some of my two cents as I myself am skeptical of the argument.
On objection 1 you say: "That is not the only motivation. The deeper motivation , as I see it, is that limits call for an explanation in a special way."
But suppose someone didn't share the intuition that limits in particular call out for explanation in a special way (as I suspect is the case for pretty much anyone who don't already accept that arbitrary limits are a special problem). What more would you have to say? It is unclear. You suggest one thing, saying:
"there are no exceptions to this principle of explaining limits. "
But the same is true for the broader principle "All concrete things in our experience, limited or not, have explanations". Not to mention similar things can be said about much weaker local principles like "All colorful things demand explaination" or ones that seem to threaten theism like "All minded things need to be explained" or indeed "All powers require explaination". So, it remains unclear to me what undergirds the motivation for the particular principle which quantifies over all and only limited things beyond intuition. Why single out limits in particular for explanation rather than being red, or having geometric properties, or having desires? etc. It doesn't appear to me to track our explanatory practices that there is something unique about *limits*, as opposed to it just being undesirable to tack any arbitrary property or claim onto a theory or entity in a way that goes beyond what the evidence suggests, limits or not. Nor does this even entail being committed to a strong universal metaphysical principle of explanation of any kind, something I doubt is warranted from our narrow human perspective.
Moving on to objection 3, you say:
"First, on a purely theoretical level, a theory that posits a specific amount of power is intrinsically less likely."
I am unsure how this is meant to help, since maximal power is also a specific amount of power. It rules out having any limits on power.
"By contrast, the theory that fundamental power lacks limits is simpler, since it contains fewer conceptual parts, and is therefore more intrinsically likely, in my view."
This claim is a bit opaque to me. What are conceptual parts? Why does having unlimited power lack those? This also doesn't really address Sebastian's suggestion at a consideration that counts in the other direction which is that limited theories posit less unnecessary power. Indeed, theories that are more causally limited seem to be more confirmed by their predictions in a sense, since they are consistent with a narrower range of data.
Your second point goes back into the argument about limits requiring an explanation. But I would just say much of what I said before, a universal metaphysical principle that requires explanations for limited things across the board, rather than a weaker pragmatic principle restricted to objects encountered in experience, ordinary life, and science (and also which doesn't single out limits) strikes me as undermotivated.
But if we are going to play the game of comparing universal metaphysical principles of explanation one that looks equally motivated is "All non-initial items have an explanation" or "All and only limits for non-initial items have an explanation". We can then take an Oppy-style initial state view. Even if the initial state has limits, we would have a principled reason for thinking it does not have an explanation since the scope of our principle only ranges over non-initial items.
I will leave it there.
Previously you have replied to Emerson Green. Now you reply to Sebastian Montesinos. Great stuff.
Since you mention Paul Draper, I am wondering if you will reply to him. Like some of his relevant points from his book Atheism and the Problem of Evil.
For example, Draper thinks that although omni-theism may be more intrinsically plausible than a specific limited fundamental reality hypothesis, it is not obvious to him that omni-theism is more intrinsically plausible than the disjunction of all those limited hypotheses combined.
After all, if your ticket to a 100-ticket lottery had a 30% chance of winning, while the other 70 tickets had a 1% chance of winning each, then your ticket is more likely than any other individual ticket to win. However, probably, you are not going to win the lottery.