Why is there something rather than Nothing? Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument

-John Dunfee

Why does the Universe Exist?
Why Do we exist?
Do we exist contingently or necessarily?
What is the explanation of our existence?
Is God the explanation for the existence of the Universe?
 
These questions are addressed in Leibniz’s cosmological Argument which is an argument that shows that God would have to be the explanation of the Universe. We can put Leibniz’s argument into five premises which shows that God is the best explanation of the Universe.
 
Premise 1: Everything that exists has an explanation of Its existence.
Premise 2: If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
Premise 3: The Universe Exists
Premise 4: The Universe has an explanation of its existence.
Premise 5: Therefore, the explanation of the universes existence is God.
 
Everything that exists has explanation of its existence because otherwise science wouldn’t be possible because science look’s to explain why and how things exist. It looks to explain things and discover why reality is the way it is. If you deny premise one then you deny the scientific process, but I think most people agree with this premise.
 
There can be two kinds of explanations for the existence of something. Whether in the necessity of its own nature or contingent(necessary) upon something else. When someone poses the question “Well if everything has an explanation for its existence, then what is God’s explanation?”
 
God’s explanation would be in the necessity of his own nature since God by definition is unchanging, timeless, space less, immaterial, etc. God isn’t contingent upon something else and it’s not special pleading since atheists typically have said that as the universe is necessary. This is where premise two comes in where we show that the explanation of the universe must be grounded in a necessary being like God.
 
Premise two shows that the universe does have an explanation of its existence and that explanation would be God.  We now know that the Universe is not eternal for the scientific reasoning and philosophical reasoning as well. For example, the second of law of thermodynamics would have taken place in the universe already causing the Heat Death of everything since the universe is a closed system. If the universe were eternal, we would always been in this state. A quick philosophical argument is that we can’t actually have an infinite number of things because we get contradictory outcomes like infinity plus infinity.
 
The Universe couldn’t exist necessarily because it could been different if we had different types of subatomic particles making contingent upon the lowest from of particles and these particles are contingent upon something else because they could have been different too. Everything that makes up the universe could fail to exist, so it would come down to if matter has always existed or not. The universe is the collection of certain particles arranged in a certain way, so it begs the question of couldn’t these particles been different and arranged differently. The elementary particles could have not existed making the universe contingent upon that, so the universe isn’t contingent upon the necessity of its nature.
 
The explanation would have to be an unembodied mind beyond time, space, matter, and uncaused which is what we mean by God. It can’t be an abstract object like the number 1 because 1 can't cause anything it just describes the amount of something.  A transcendent mind is the best explanation of the universe because it is not contingent upon matter, time, and space for it’s existence like the universe is contingent upon. Matter, time, and space would be contingent upon God because these things change over time showing that they are not eternal. Premise two I think is true based on our philosophical reasoning.
 
What about Premise 3: The universe exists. I don’t think anyone denies this premise because for you to deny it you must be in the universe to be able to come to a conclusion that the universe doesn’t exist.
 
Premise 4 is the universe has an explanation of its existence. We covered this in premise four by showing the universe isn’t eternal, so it’s contingent upon God. If you want to say, then the universe doesn’t need an explanation hen you would commit the taxicab fallacy and special pleading. It commits the taxi cab fallacy because you choose to stop at the universe which is your desired place to stop with the law of causality. What we mean by the universe anyway is everything that is made up of matter, time, and space. It doesn’t avoid an explanation at all. It also would commit special pleading because your choosing one thing that doesn’t need explanation while everything else does. The universe still needs an explanation for its exist and it can’t be in the necessity of its own nature.
 
The explanation of the universe would have to be God because all the premises follow logically. Everything has an explanation of its existence. The universes explanation would have to be God. The universe exists because to deny that would be ludicrous. The universe has an explanation of its existence. The explanation would have to be God. God is a necessary being would transcend time, space, matter, and would be uncaused. This argument is a logically airtight argument for the existence for God and is a sound argument that logical follows from the premises.
-John Dunfee
 
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