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Foundational Grounding and the Argument From
Contingency
Kenneth L. Pearce
Trinity College Dublin
September 12, 2016
Abstract The argument from contingency for the existence of God is best un- derstood as a request for an explanation of the total sequence of causes and effects in the universe (‘History’ for short). Many puzzles about how there could be such an explanation arise from the assumption that God is being introduced as one more cause prepended to the sequence of causes that (allegedly) needed explaining. In response to this difficulty, I defend three theses. First, I argue that, if the argument from contingency is to succeed, the explanation of History in terms of God must not be a causal explanation. Second, I argue that a particular hypothesis about God’s relation to History – that God is what I call the foundational ground of History – is intelligible and explanatory. Third and finally, I argue that the explanatory advantages of this hypothesis cannot be had within the confines of naturalism.
Unlike the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God (Craig 1979), the cosmological argument from contingency is not a request for a cause of the origination of the universe. Rather, it is a request for an explanation of the total sequence of causes and effects in the universe. (Call this sequence ‘History’.) Many philosophers have, however, been puzzled as to how there could be such an explanation and, especially, as to how God could serve as such an explanation, as the cosmological arguer desires. This puzzlement stems from the fact that proponents of the argument from contingency are often seen as introducing God in just the same way as the proponents of the Kalam argument do, that is, as one more ‘billiard ball’ prepended to the causal sequence studied by natural science. If this is the case, then no progress has been made. We have merely added one more cause to the sequence of causes that (allegedly) needed explaining.
∗Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion.
In response to this difficulty, I defend three theses. First, I argue that, if the argument from contingency is to succeed, the explanation of History in terms of God must not be a causal explanation. Second, I argue that a particular hypothesis about God’s relation to History – that God is what I call the foun- dational ground of History – is intelligible and explanatory. Third and finally, I argue that the explanatory advantages of this hypothesis cannot be had within the confines of naturalism.
1 God is Not the Cause of History
Leibniz presents the argument from contingency as follows:
A sufficient reason for existence cannot be found merely in any one individual thing or even in the whole aggregate and series of things. Let us imagine the book on the Elements of Geometry to have been eternal, one copy always being made from another; then it is clear that though we can give a reason for the present book based on the preceding book from which it was copied, we can never arrive at a complete reason, no matter how many books we may assume in the past, for one can always wonder why such books should have existed at all times; why there should be books at all, and why they should be written in this way. What is true of books is true also of the different states of the world... No matter how far we may have gone back to earlier states, therefore, we will never discover in them a full reason why there should be a world at all, and why it should be such as it is. Even if we should imagine the world to be eternal, therefore, the reason for it would clearly have to be sought elsewhere... For even though there be no cause for eternal things, there must yet be understood to be a reason for them... These considerations show clearly that we cannot escape an ultimate extramundane reason for things, or God, even by assuming the eternity of the world (Leibniz [1697] 1969, 486-487).
In another presentation of the argument, Leibniz asserts that this ‘extramun- dane reason’ (God) must be “a necessary being bearing the reason for its ex- istence within itself; otherwise we would not yet have a reason with which to stop” (Leibniz [1714] 1969, §8). Leibniz is here searching for an explanation of “the whole aggregate and series of things.” From the way his argument progresses, it seems that what he has in mind is a complex event, which we might call the Causal History of the Universe (‘History’ for short). This is the event composed of all the events of the form x causes y. Leibniz assumes that each state of the universe can be explained by specifying its physical causes, which are to be found in earlier states of the universe, but, he says, there must be a reason why this total series
as long as these models continue to be live options within physics) can be had within the confines of naturalism. Nor does it help to point out that God is supposed to be a necessary being, and no physical entity is necessary, for God’s alleged necessity must be either transparent or opaque. (That is, either we can see why God is necessary or we can’t.) If the argument depends on transparent necessity, then the argument from contingency can be introduced only after a successful ontological argu- ment (see Kant [1781] 1998, A606/B634-A612/B640).^4 If the argument from contingency is to stand alone, then God’s necessity must be opaque. That is, the argument should give us reason to believe that a necessary being (God) exists, although we do not (yet) understand why the existence of this being is necessary.^5 However, if this is the theist’s position, then the naturalist is free to claim that some relevant part of physical reality possesses opaque necessity.^6 If the argument from contingency is to succeed, we must take more seriously Leibniz’s statement that the argument introduces an ‘extramundane reason’ for History. By introducing God as one more ‘billiard ball’ prepended to History, causal versions of the argument make God too ‘mundane’ to explain anything the naturalist can’t. Rather than positing a particular causal structure for the universe and giving God a privileged role in that structure, the argument from contingency must instead posit God as a non-causal explanation of why reality has the causal structure it does. Only in this way can theism gain an explanatory advantage over naturalism.
2 God is the Foundational Ground of History
There can be no causal explanation of History, for History is the sum of all the causal events. Accordingly, an event of the form x’s causing History would itself be part of History and so could not, on pain of circularity, explain History. Of course, the theist is at liberty to identify another complex event, call it ‘History-’, which includes all of History except God’s causal activity (cf. Oppy 2009, 35). This, however, would be a mistake since the naturalist is equally entitled to posit a cause of History-. If the argument from contingency is to work, we must demand an explanation of History as a whole, and this means demanding a non-causal explanation. Such an explanation can be provided by positing God as the foundational ground of History. In classical philosophical theology, the term for what I am calling ‘founda- tional grounding’ is ‘primary causation.’^7 I have chosen instead to use the term ‘foundational grounding’ because I am arguing that the (so-called) primary cau- sation relation is not a causal relation (except perhaps in an analogical sense).^8
- For discussion see Forgie 1995; Vallicella 2000; Smith 2003; Proops 2014.
- See Adams 1983; Forgie 1995; Gale and Pruss 1999, 462, 470; O’Connor 2008, 70-71; 2013, §2.
- According to Joseph K. Campbell, this dilemma plays a crucial role in Hume’s criticism of the argument from contingency (Campbell 1996).
- Latin prima causa. See, e.g., Aquinas Summa Theologica, Iq19a5r2 and Iq19a6r3.
- My claim that (so-called) primary causation is not a causal relation is not an interpretive
The Greek word ‘αἰτία’ and its Latin translation ‘causa’ can refer to any answer to a ‘why’ question (Hocutt 1974). These terms are therefore much broader than ‘cause’ in contemporary English. The term ‘primary causation’ is misleading, since we ought not to assimilate the kind of ultimate explanation provided by God to ordinary causal explanation. In place of the misnomer ‘primary causation,’ I have chosen the label ‘foun- dational grounding.’ By ‘grounding’ I mean the relation, or genus of relations, that obtains between more fundamental and less fundamental entities and makes metaphysical explanations of the less fundamental entities (or the facts about them) in terms of the more fundamental entities possible.^9 Thus, for instance, physicalists about the mind are to be understood as claiming that the mental is grounded in the physical. I call God’s grounding of History foundational because the grounding rela- tions generate a metaphysical hierarchy, with the less fundamental things ‘built on’ the more fundamental things, so to speak (see, e.g., Schaffer 2009a; 2012, §4.3; Fine 2012, 44-45, 51). If God grounds History as a whole, God’s grounding must be somehow foundational in this hierarchy. The aim of this section is to defend my claim that the hypothesis God is the foundational ground of History is intelligible and is explanatory of History.
2.1 Foundational Grounding is Intelligible
In order to show that foundational grounding is intelligible, I here construct a particular model of foundational grounding. My model is meant to be consistent with classical theistic commitments. In particular, it aims to preserve traditional divine attributes as well as the following three claims: (1) contrary to pantheism, the world is numerically distinct from God; (2) contrary to panentheism, the dependence of the world on God is asymmetric (God does not depend on the world); and (3) contrary to necessitarianism or emanationism, God was free to create a different world or none at all. Additionally, my model does not posit any divine causality.^10 I will not be defending the superiority of my model over other (classical or non-classical) theistic models. My aim in presenting this model is only to show that there exists at least one theistic hypothesis capable of explaining History. My model has three stages, each involving a different grounding relation: (1) God performs an act of will. (2) This act of will constitutes History. (3) His-
claim about Aquinas or any other classical philosophical theologian (though I do think the interpretive claim is plausible). It is, rather, a claim about how the classical theist ought to understand the relation she takes to obtain between God and creation.
- I am thus using ‘grounding’ more broadly than some theorists (e.g., Audi 2012, 105). In my usage, the constitution relation between statue and clay, for instance, is a type of grounding and if parts are more fundamental than wholes then so is composition. Karen Bennett refers to the members of this genus as ‘building relations’ (Bennett 2011).
- The model is not inconsistent with divine causality; it simply does not make use of divine causality in explaining History. It will turn out that within this model God could exercise causality (in a literal and univocal sense) only by entering into History as a character in the story. On the prospects for this kind of move, see Lebens, forthcoming.
He wills should not happen” (Malebranche [1674–1675] 1997, 450; cf. Bonhoeffer 1997, 42-43). It is the fact that the fulfillment of God’s will is nothing over and above God’s willing that makes God’s will perfectly efficacious. Alexander Pruss and I have argued that perfect efficacy of will is one compo- nent of omnipotence (Pearce and Pruss 2012). (The other component is perfect freedom.) We analyze perfect efficacy of will as follows (405):
x has perfect efficacy of will if and only if (p)((x wills p) → (x intentionally brings about p))
In this definition, ‘ → ’ symbolizes the subjunctive conditional and it is stipu- lated that all of the relevant conditionals, including those that are counterpos- sibles, must be non-trivially true. A constitution relation, such as the one at issue here, can give rise to non- trivial counterpossibles of the sort required by this analysis. For comparison, consider the following counterpossible conditional:
(Michelangelo, having artistic intentions, shapes a block of marble into a round square) → (that marble constitutes a round square statue)
This conditional is true because of certain metaphysical laws which arise from the nature of the constitution relation that obtains between a statue and its material. The law is something like, whenever a shape is imposed on some ma- terial with artistic intentions, that material thereby comes to constitute a statue. This law supports subjunctive conditionals, including counterpossibles.^14 In the same way, the constitution relation between History and God’s act of will gives rise to a metaphysical law that supports subjunctive conditionals, including counterpossibles such as:
(1) (God wills that a certain particle be both charged and neutral) → (God intentionally brings it about that that particle is both charged and neutral)
and
(2) (God wills that every sentient being suffers excruciating pain during every moment of its existence) → (God intentionally brings it about that every sentient being suffers excruciating pain during every moment of its existence)
The antecedent of (1) is impossible due to God’s essential perfect rationality; the antecedent of (2) is impossible due to God’s essential moral perfection (see Pearce and Pruss 2012, 411-412). Each of these counterpossibles is, however, non-trivially true because of the constitution relation that obtains between God
- This sort of ‘covering law’ approach to (at least some) counterpossibles is defended in Pearce 2016.
and History.^15 The hypothesis that God’s act of will constitutes History is thus a help, rather than a hindrance, to a satisfying account of God’s power.^16 The final question to be addressed is the status of created beings like you and me. History, according to this model, is the narrative ground of such beings. When one dreams of Paris, one’s dream is about Paris—the actual Paris, in the world, and not a shadowy dream Paris. This may be the case even if one dreams that Paris is in England (or Narnia) and is populated only by purple mice. However, one also sometimes dreams of persons, things, or events that do not exist outside one’s dream. These items are made to exist by the dreamer’s activity of dreaming. The existence of such an object is grounded in the dream. The case is similar for fictional objects. Sherlock Holmes, for instance, exists because there are stories about him. His existence is grounded in those stories (cf. Thomasson 1999, 35–38, et passim; Kripke 2013, 72–74). According to the model I am proposing, this relation of narrative grounding also obtains between created objects and History. This need not imply that History is literally a narrative, but it does imply that History is similar to a narrative. This does not seem especially problematic, since a narrative— i.e., that which is narrated—is a (possibly fictitious) complex event. Whether regarding History as the narrative ground of created objects requires History to have other features typically possessed by narratives (for instance, having some meaning or significance, having certain themes, having literary structure) is not a question I will attempt to answer here, though I note that the view that History does have these features will likely be attractive to many theists.^17 The most important objection to this proposal is that it empties created objects of their reality and causal efficacy, making God the only true reality and the only true cause. In a dream the dreamer is the one who really exists and really (though usually involuntarily) makes the things in the dream happen. The objects in the dream do not really exist (they are only dream objects) and do not really cause anything (they only dream-cause dream-events). The classical theistic tradition has held that these results are in a sense ac- ceptable: created objects, the tradition holds, possess diminished reality as com- pared to God, and the ‘secondary causation’ exercised by created objects is a less ultimate form of ‘making it the case’ than God’s (so-called) primary causation. In fact, the use of the dream-dreamer and author-fiction relations to explain this contrast has precedent in the Jewish tradition (see Lebens 2015, forthcoming; Citron 2015). The comparison has also been employed by Thomists such as James Ross (1969, 255–258). However, considerable care must be exercised in interpreting the diminished reality thesis if one is to maintain classical theism. To hold that nothing but God strictly speaking exists would be to collapse into pantheism, and to deny causal efficacy to creatures would surely make God the
- If logical and mathematical truths do not depend on History, a different account will be needed to explain the non-trivial truth of counterpossibles involving God’s explicitly willing logical or mathematical propositions.
- In Pearce, forthcoming(a), I further defend the claim that regarding God’s will as ground- ing, rather than causing, its fulfillment is necessary for a satisfying account of omnipotence.
- I thank Sandra Visser for emphasizing this point.
So much for the existence of created objects. What of their causal efficacy? According to the model, the causal relations within History are the only genuine causal relations; there is not some more basic level of causation underlying History. There are, of course, dream causes and fictional causes and so forth, but the causal relations that make up History are the most real (i.e., most fundamental) causal relations there are. Foundational grounding is not (literally, univocally) causal, and so does not preempt creaturely causation. Nevertheless, one might worry that, on this view, causation is not a genuine ‘making it the case’ relation: God’s ultimate ‘making it the case’ preempts any creaturely activity. There are really three distinct objections in the neighbor- hood here. First, one might worry that the model leads to divine omnidetermi- nation, and this kind of omnidetermination is inconsistent with genuine activity on the part of creatures, and especially human freedom. Second, one might worry that, on this view, creatures do not genuinely depend on their causes, since it is not the created cause but rather the will of God that made the crea- tures exist. Third, one might worry that on this view created causes can no longer serve as explanations, their explanatory force having been preempted by God. To the first objection I respond that I have no particular commitment to avoiding omnidetermination since I find it far from obvious that omnidetermi- nation is inconsistent with human freedom. Nevertheless, for those philosophers who do find omnidetermination problematic, there is a way of endorsing my model while avoiding omnidetermination. The objection assumes that, when two objects are related by constitution, the features of the constituted object are fully determined by the features of the constituting object. However, this assumption would be denied by various sorts of anti-reductionists. For instance one might suppose that a human organism constitutes a human person while holding that the human person has and exercises causal powers in a way that is not determined by the human organism.^22 This approach to constitution would open up the possibility that History might be constituted by God’s act of will without being determined by God in every respect. If more than one possible history could have been constituted by the very same divine creative act (or if History could have differed in certain ways without any difference in God’s creative act), then standard theistic options for avoiding omnidetermination (simple foreknowledge, open theism, Molinism) are available.^23 In response to the second objection, which claims that the model prevents
language notion of reality, but it is the criterion that is relevant to the present objection. The relative weight of the several criteria and the location of the ‘cut-off’ employed in drawing the binary real/unreal distinction vary contextually. For further development and defense of this approach to reality, see Pearce, forthcoming(c), §1.3. The model does, of course, make created objects less fundamental than God and there is therefore a sense in which the model holds that, from God’s perspective, created objects are not real (cf. Lebens, forthcoming). However, it is more accurate to say that ordinary created objects are more real than dream objects but less real than God. Reality and fundamentality come in degrees.
- For anti-reductionist views similar (but not identical) to the one contemplated here, see Baker 2000; 2007, chs. 3-5; Merricks 2003.
- An anonymous referee worries that if this route is taken then God will no longer provide
created objects from depending on their created causes, note that, on my model, objects exhibit robust counterfactual dependence on their causes. Were it not for the causal chain leading up to the encounter of a certain sperm with a certain egg, I would not exist. Why not? Because my very being depends on (more specifically: is narratively grounded in) that causal sequence. It is, of course, a disputed matter exactly how much of an object’s causal history is essential to it, but if created objects are narratively grounded in History – which, recall, is the complete causal story of the world – then clearly they do depend counterfactually, and indeed metaphysically, on their causes. In response to the third objection, that created causes do not, on this model, explain their effects, note that even in dreams and fictions there are causes, and these causes do explain their effects. Thus it is because Tybalt is stabbed by Romeo that Tybalt dies. Of course, it is also because Shakespeare wrote the play that way that Tybalt dies. The second explanation is more fundamental than the first, but it does not preempt the explanation in terms of fictional causes. Similarly, the constitution of History by God’s act of will provides a more fundamental explanation than the causal explanation of a particular event, but it does not preempt the causal explanation.
2.2 Foundational Grounding is Explanatory
Having completed the exposition of my model of foundational grounding and defended its intelligibility, I now proceed to argue that the model is explanatory of History. I assume that there is such a thing as objective explanation and that it is a relation that obtains between true propositions or obtaining states of affairs (see Pruss 2006). Explanatoriness is a relation that obtains between a hypothesis and some data just in case if the hypothesis were true it would explain the data. Accordingly, my aim in this subsection is to argue that if the hypothesis God is the foundational ground of History were true it would explain the fact that History exists and is as it is. I presuppose that grounding is intelligible. While some philosophers dispute this (e.g., Hofweber 2009, §2; Daly 2012), it is now widely held. Most defenses of the intelligibility of grounding proceed by pointing to our ordinary explanatory practices and, in particular, to plain language uses of ‘because’. Thus Fab- rice Correia gives the following examples of explanatory claims (Correia 2008, 1022):^24
- The ham sandwich exists because the slice of ham is between the two pieces of bread;
- Sam is experiencing pain because his brain is in a physical state which is [here an appropriate description];^25
a complete explanation of History. However, many libertarians hold that an agent’s action may have a complete explanation even though the agent could have done otherwise. See Pruss 2006, ch. 7.
- Correia’s term is ‘ontological dependence,’ but all of these examples can plausibly be regarded as instances of what I call ‘grounding’.
- Brackets original.
do because tiny gnomes run around in the mechanism flipping switches. If there really were such gnomes, then this would be a correct explanation. The problem with the gnome hypothesis is not that it is un-explanatory, but simply that there are other explanations available that explain just as much of the data and better accord with our overall picture of the world. Whether (and to what degree) my model (or classical theism in general) should be regarded as ad hoc will therefore depend on how independently plau- sible one finds classical theism (and the other elements of the model), whether it turns out to be able to do other explanatory work elsewhere, whether there are other independent lines of evidence in its favor, and so forth. These issues cannot be addressed here, but these issues are relevant only to comparing competing explanations. Since (as I will soon argue) naturalism leaves the explanandum completely unexplained, these factors are not relevant to the present project. Perhaps some will think that my model is ad hoc in a more specific way that prevents it from making explanatory progress. According to this third objection, because the posits of my model themselves stand in need of explanation, the inference to the best explanation is here unjustified. This is a sensible thing to say about the gnome traffic light hypothesis: that there should be such gnomes is far more puzzling than that traffic lights should change. Hence if explanation is meant to involve the removal of puzzlement or mystery (Pruss 2006, 18, et passim), it would seem that the gnome hypothe- sis must be regarded as a failed explanation unless and until the gnomes are explained. Some might regard the existence of God as similarly puzzling or mysterious, so that overall puzzlement is not reduced by my model. In response, consider three structures explanation might have. First, there may be an infinite chain of explanations, which never terminates at all. Second, the chain of explanations may terminate in brute facts. Brute facts are facts that stand in need of explanation, but nevertheless do not have explanations. Third, the chain of explanations may terminate in what Shamik Dasgupta calls ‘autonomous facts’ – facts for which it makes no sense to ask why (Dasgupta 2014b, 575–580; 2016, 383–387). Consider the first case first. My model is consistent with the existence of an infinite chain of causal explanations, but claims that this infinite chain nevertheless itself has an explanation. The objection claims that the entity involved in that explanation (God) stands in need of further explanation. But if we are comfortable with infinite chains of explanation, this ought not to bother us. Instead, it ought to send us searching for the next link in the chain. Now consider the second case. Intuitively, some brute facts are worse than others. Many physicalists think that taking as brute the initial configuration of the physical universe, together with the laws of nature, is more satisfying than taking as brute the existence of God and God’s creative act (e.g., Oppy 2013, 55–56). Other philosophers regard the existence of God as a better candidate for a brute fact (e.g., Swinburne 1979, ch. 5; 1996, ch. 3). Although considerations of simplicity, systematicity, and so forth can be (and have been) brought to bear here, it seems likely that this debate will ultimately come to an unresolvable clash of intuitions.
The third scenario would clearly be the most intellectually satisfying, if it could be made to work without unacceptable consequences. I will focus on this case, since it has been widely held within the tradition that classical theism does allow for the truth of the Principle of Sufficient Reason—understood here as the claim that everything that stands in need of explanation is in fact explained— without unacceptable consequences. I will argue that this traditional view is correct. What sorts of facts might be autonomous? The most obvious candidates are the various sorts of definitions. Thus although the fact that the English word ‘bachelor’ means an unmarried male admits of a historical/etymological explanation, the fact that bachelors are unmarried males needs no explanation. If there are such things as Aristotelian ‘real definitions’—definitions not of words but of things—then these are likewise good candidates for autonomous facts. Real definitions would be statements of essences, and they would not require further explanation (cf. Dasgupta 2014b, 577–580; 2016, 385–390). On the model under discussion, the answer to the question, ‘why is History occurring the way it is?’ is ‘because God so willed.’ Although this may sound like a causal explanation, it is not, since God’s act of willing does not cause, but rather constitutes, History. The next question we can ask is, ‘why did God so will?’ Here, of course, we fall upon the thorny problem of the explanation of free actions, but we may assume that God’s free act of willing is explained in whatever way free acts are generally explained.^26 We may then go on to ask, why is it that God existed and was free so to will? Merely asserting that this is true necessarily does not give us a ‘reason with which to stop’, for necessary truths can and often do have explanations. A more subtle strategy is needed. According to Thomas Aquinas, “the proposition, ‘God exists,’ of itself is self- evident... [but] because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us” (Aquinas Summa Theologica, Iq2a1). The idea here is that the real definition of God is unknown to us, but a being who knew it would be in a position to demonstrate God’s existence a priori (see Forgie 1995). If this were true of God, then the fact that God exists and is free would either itself be autonomous (as part of the real definition of God), or would be explained by the autonomous fact that God’s essence is as it is. If this strategy is correct, then there is a sound modal ontological argument. To construct this argument, we stipulate that the word ‘God’ shall stand for the (unknown) real definition of God. We then assert that God’s existence is possible, and that God exists necessarily if at all. God is therefore necessary, and therefore actual. On the view described, the premises of this argument would follow directly from the divine essence, and the fact that the divine essence is as it is would be autonomous. This strategy does not, however, make the argument from contingency de-
- In my view, any version of libertarianism that holds that free actions cannot be explained succumbs to the randomness objection (the event is not an action of yours unless you appear in the right sort of way in an explanation of its occurrence), but there is not space here to defend that claim. For a discussion of various ways in which libertarians might allow that free actions can be explained, see Pruss 2006, ch. 7.
Dasgupta defends a Principle of Sufficient Reason according to which every fact that stands in need of an explanation has one. He concedes (at least for the sake of argument) that existence facts, if they are to be explained at all, must be explained in terms of other existence facts. These two claims, together with the rejection of explanatory circles and regresses, entail that not all existence facts stand in need of explanation (Dasgupta 2016, 397). Given Dasgupta’s view, discussed above, that the autonomous facts are essentialist facts (real definitions), this implies the existence of one or more beings whose essence includes existence, as was traditionally said of God. Despite this consequence, Dasgupta denies that his theory is anti-naturalistic.^28 He suggests that our best scientific theories might in fact be committed to en- tities whose essence includes existence. If there is just one such entity, then Dasgupta’s model will look quite similar to mine, simply substituting some en- tity known to science into the place of God. If, however, there is a plurality of such entities, then the structure will be somewhat different. Dasgupta suggests spacetime as a candidate for a unique essentially existing entity. On this view,
at rock bottom there is some kind of physical “space” (in the broad sense of the term) in whose nature it is to exist and instantiate some kind of structure... The view will then be that all other (substan- tive) facts—about my armchair, my mental states, my duties and obligations—are grounded in the existence and structure of that un- derlying physical space (398). Let us grant the plausible, but not uncontroversial, assumption that space- time in modern physics should be given a substantivalist interpretation, so that spacetime is a naturalistically respectable entity.^29 Granting this assumption, the first problem with Dasgupta’s approach is that, according to straightforward interpretations of General Relativity, the geometric structure of our spacetime is physically contingent. There are many global solutions to Einstein’s Field Equations, and it is part of the practice of physics to distinguish among those solutions that are and are not ‘physical’ (or, as philosophers would say, physi- cally possible).^30 Many different solutions are regarded as ‘physical,’ and these correspond to different possibilities for the global structure of spacetime. How- ever, if it is in the essence of spacetime to exist and have the structure it does, then no alternative structures are possible. Consistency with actual physics requires either that our spacetime exist only contingently (so that a different spacetime with an alternative structure might have existed) or that our space- time has its geometric structure only contingently.
- Dasgupta considers the claim that his theory has anti-naturalistic consequences as an objection that may be raised against his theory but does not explicitly endorse naturalism himself.
- For a carefully nuanced discussion of the extent to which modern physics supports sub- stantivalism, see Maudlin 1993. Dasgupta 2011 attacks standard substantivalist interpreta- tions of General Relativity and proposes a non-standard version of substantivalism.
- For accounts of some historical disputes about which solutions are physical, see Earman 1995, ch. 1; Singh 2004, 151-155.
Let us suppose, then, that spacetime exists essentially, but has its geometric structure accidentally (and so, in some sense, contingently).^31 If this is to explain History, presumably it will do so by grounding the existence of the entities (or states) within History, including the causal powers of these entities, which will then give rise to the sequence of causes and effects.^32 Although this approach may, in a certain sense, provide an explanation of History, by holding that History is constituted by certain features of spacetime, it cannot provide the kind of explanation Leibniz demanded, an explanation of “why the thing is as it is and not otherwise” (Leibniz [1714] 1969, §7). This is because, as has been observed, the global structure of spacetime is physically – and hence metaphysically – contingent. Thus the global structure of spacetime cannot follow from the essence of spacetime. Yet this global structure will, on this view, be (directly or indirectly) responsible for History having the structure it does. Furthermore, on this sort of view, the global structure of spacetime cannot, on pain of circularity, be directly or indirectly explained in terms of any of the events in History – which is to say, it cannot be explained causally. This is again inconsistent with straightforward interpretations of General Relativity, since that theory is usually understood to say that the shape of spacetime can be explained (perhaps causally) in terms of the distribution of mass-energy.^33 I argued above that an explanation should not be regarded as a failure sim- ply because the explanans requires further explanation. In this case, however, naturalism renders the explanans (the global structure of spacetime) in principle inexplicable, since the proposal under consideration rules out both essentialist explanations and causal explanations, and no other scientifically accredited sorts of explanation have been identified. Accordingly, even if this is to be regarded as a successful explanation of History, we could just run the argument from contin- gency again by demanding an explanation of the global structure of spacetime. This contrasts with the theistic model I have proposed, where contingency is introduced in a non-causal, but intelligible, way by God’s choice. On Marc Lange’s alternative proposal, the laws of nature provide non-causal explanations of certain facts. The laws, Lange says, may entail certain propo- sitions without saying that anything causes them. Lange makes no concrete proposals about what such a proposition might be in modern physics, but he suggests that Newton may have been correct in holding that his physics entailed the existence of space and time (Lange 2013, 244). The idea of interest for our purposes is that the laws of physics may somehow entail, and thereby explain, the global structure of History. This proposal, however, runs into the same difficulty as Dasgupta’s: the global causal structure is not physically necessary. Both proposals turn out to be revisionary with respect to physics. The general problem is this: current physics knows only one way of selecting
- Dasgupta allows for contingency only in a relatively weak sense, but admits that the essentialist facts are not contingent in any sense.
- A theory of this sort is developed in detail by Schaffer 2009b.
- “Matter and energy, like the sun, cause space (and spacetime) to warp and curve” (Greene 2005, 69, emphasis added).
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