David Horowitz on 'progressive' race mendacity. The man is a national treasure. Read his books. Learn something.
Contingent Existence Without Cause? Not Possible Says Garrigou-Lagrange
A reader claims that "to affirm that there are contingent beings just is to affirm that they have that whereby they are, namely, a cause." This implies that one can straightaway infer 'x has a cause' from 'x is contingent.' My reader would agree with Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange who, taking the traditional Thomist position, maintains the following Principle of Causality (PC):
. . . every contingent thing, even if it should be ab aeterno, depends on a cause which exists of itself. (Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, tr. Patrick Cummins, O. S. B., Ex Fontibus 2012, p. 62)
So even if the physical universe always existed, and therefore never came into existence, it would nonetheless require a cause of its existence simply in virtue of its being contingent. I find myself questioning both my reader and Garrigou-Lagrange. For it seems to me to be conceivable that an item be contingent but have no cause or ground of its existence. This is precisely what Garrigou-Lagrange denies: "contingent existence . . . can simply not be conceived without origin, without cause . . . ." (p. 63)
But it all depends on what we mean by 'conceivable' and 'contingent.' Here are my definitions:
D1. An individual or state of affairs x is conceivable =df x is thinkable without formal-logical contradiction.
Examples. It is conceivable that there be a mountain of gold and a tire iron that floats in (pure or near-pure) water. It is conceivable that I jump straight out of my chair, turn a somersault in the air, and then return to my chair and finish this blog post. It is inconceivable that I light a cigar and not light a cigar at exactly the same time. As for formal-logical contradiction, here is an example: Some cats are not cats. But Some bachelors are married is not a formal-logical contradiction. Why not? Because its logical form has both true and false substitution instances.
D2. An individual or state of affairs x is contingent =df x is possibly nonexistent/nonobtaining if it exists/obtains, and possibly existent/obtaining if it does not exist/obtain.
The contingent is that which has a certain modal status: it is neither necessary nor impossible. For example, me and my cigar are both contingent beings: neither is necessary and neither is impossible. My smoking the cigar now is an example of a contingent state of affairs: it is neither necessary nor impossible that I smoke a cigar now. The type of modality we are concerned with is broadly logical, not nomological.
Now is it conceivable that something exist contingently without a cause? It seems so! The nonexistence of the physical universe is thinkable without formal-logical contradiction. The physical universe is contingent: it exists, but not necessarily. Its nonexistence is possible. Do I encounter a formal-logical contradiction when I think of the universe as existing without a cause or explanation? No. An uncaused universe is nothing like a non-triangular triangle, or a round square, or a married bachelor, or an uncaused effect. Necessarily, if x is an effect, then x has a cause. It is an analytic truth that every effect has a cause. The negation of this proposition is: Some effects do not have causes. While this is not a formal-logical contradiction, it can be reduced to one by substituting synonyms for synonyms. Thus, Some caused events are not caused.
Contrary to what Garrigou-Lagrange maintains, it is conceivable that the universe exist uncaused, despite its contingency. If one could not conceive the uncaused existing of the universe, then one could not conceive of the universe's being a brute fact. And 'surely' one can conceive of the latter. That is not to say that it is possible. There is a logical gap between the conceivable and the possible. My point is merely that the 'brutality' of the universe's existence is conceivable in the sense of (D1). To put it another way, my point is that one cannot gain a a priori insight into the necessity of the universe's having a cause of its existence. And this is because the Principle of Causality, if true, is not analytically true but synthetically true.
Of course, if one defines 'contingency' in terms of 'existential dependence on a cause' then a thing's being contingent straightaway implies its being caused. But then one has packed causal dependency into the notion of contingency when contingency means only what (D2) says it means. That has all the benefits of theft over honest toil as Russell remarked in a different connection.
Garrigou-Lagrange thinks that one violates the Law of Non-Contradiction if one says of a contingent thing that it is both contingent and uncaused. He thinks this is equivalent to saying:
A thing may exist of itself and simultaneously not exist of itself. Existence of itself would belong to it, both necessarily and impossibly. Existence would be an inseparable predicate of a being which can be separated from existence. All this is absurd, unintelligible. (p. 65)
Suppose that a contingent existent is one that is caused to exist by a self-existent existent. If one then went on to say that such an existent is both contingent and uncaused, then one would embrace a logical contradiction. But this presupposes that contingency implies causal dependency.
And therein lies the rub. That the universe is contingent I grant. But how does one get from contingency in the sense defined by (D2) supra to the universe's causal dependence on a causa prima? If one simply packs dependency into contingency then one begs the question. What is contingent needn't be contingent upon anything.
What I Am Reading Now
At any given time I am reading a half-dozen or so books on a wide variety of topics. I'll mention three I am reading at the moment.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, Ignatius Press, 2004, trs. J.T. Foster and Michael J. Miller. German original first published in 1968. Outstanding. Ratzinger has a good probing philosophical head. The book is essentially a deep meditation on the Apostles' Creed. Amazingly rich. I thank my young theological friend Steven Nemes for recommending it to me.
Paul Roubiczek, Thinking Towards Religion, Nabu Public Domain Reprints, no date, but original first published by Darwen Finlayson Ltd., London, February 1957. Everything I have read by Roubiczek is worth the effort even if it is in German.
Peter Lessler, Shooter's Guide to Handgun Marksmanship, F + W Media, 2013. This book has proven to be very helpful in my quest for greater proficiency with the 1911 model .45 semi-automatic pistol. I was having some trouble with this powerful weapon. The book clearly exposed all my mistakes. The book also covers 'wheel guns,' i.e., revolvers.
The practice of political incorrectness is as important, perhaps more important, than the theory of political incorrectness. Same with religion: you must practice one to understand it. Ethics too: it is not merely theoretical, but oriented toward action; so you must try to act ethically if you would understand ethics.
‘Again’ a Racist Dog Whistle? More Leftist Scumbaggery
Some liberal-left idiot is arguing that 'again' in Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' is a racist 'dog whistle.' The suggestion is that Trump wants to bring back slavery and Jim Crow. Yet another proof that there is nothing so vile and contemptible and fundamentally stupid that some liberal won't embrace it. If you think I go too far when I refer to contemporary liberals as moral scum, it is incidents like this that are part of my justification.
Mark Steyn supplies some other 'dog whistles' for your delectation:
On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use "Chicago" as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O'Donnell pronounced "golf" a racist code word. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was "working to earn a spot on the PGA tour," O'Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word "golf" is subliminally associated with "Tiger Woods," and the word "Tiger" is not-so-subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc, etc. So by using the word "golf" you're sending a racist dog whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.
I must reiterate my principle of the Political Burden of Proof:
As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I will call the political burden of proof. The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.
Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan Turns 75 Today
25 things you might want to know know about Dylan. Excellent, except for the introductory claim that he is "rock's greatest songwriter." A better description is "America's greatest writer of popular songs." Bar none. We can discuss the criteria later, and consider counterexamples. Maybe this Saturday night. His earliest four or five albums are not in the rock genre. I'll permit quibbling about #5, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), but Bob Dylan (1962), The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) , The Time's They Are A'Changin' (1964), and Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) are better classified as folk, not that they sit all that comfortably in this niche.
These early albums are studded with lasting contributions to Americana. This is music with meaning that speaks to the mind and the heart. No Rat Pack crooner Las Vegas lounge lizard stuff here.Two lesser-known compositions both from The Times They Are a'Changin':
The Ballad of Hollis Brown Performed by Stephen Stills.
North Country Blues. Written from the point of view of a woman and so appropriately sung by the angel-throated Joan Baez.
D. A. Pennebaker on the making of Don't Look Back. I saw it in '67 when it first came out. I just had to see it, just as I had to have all of Dylan's albums, all of his sheet music, and every article and book about him. I was a Dylan fanatic. No longer a fanatic, I remain a fan.
May he die with his boots on. It ain't dark yet, but it's gettin' there.
Jeb! the Gentleman
Remember him?
Whatever you say about Donald Trump he did us all a great service by dispatching low-energy Jeb! early on. Jeb Bush and the rest of his family are decent people. His brother and father are gentlemen. No one could confuse Trump with a gentleman.
Unfortunately, in this age of post-consensus politics we need fighters not gentlemen. We need people who will use the Left's Alinskyite tactics against them. Civility is for the civil, not for destructive leftists who will employ any means to their end of a "fundamental transformation of America." For 'fundamental transformation' read: destruction.
It's a war, and no war is civil, especially not a civil war. To prosecute a war you need warriors. Trump is all we have. Time to face reality, you so-called conservatives. Time to man up, come clean, and get behind the 'presumptive nominee.'
Don't write another article telling us what a sorry specimen he is. We already know that. We are a nation in decline and our choices are lousy ones. Hillary is worse, far worse.
Consider just three issues: The Supreme Court, gun rights, and the southern border. We know where Hillary stands. We also know where Trump stands. Suppose he accomplishes only one thing: he nominates conservatives for SCOTUS. (You are aware, of course, that he has gone to the trouble of compiling a list of conservative candidates. That is a good indication that he is serious.) The appointment of even one conservative would retroactively justify your support for him over the destructive and crooked Hillary.
Jonah Goldberg recently made the point that his vote doesn't matter. True. Each of our individual votes is vanishingly insignificant. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether conservatives as a group should support Trump. The answer is obvious: of course.
The alternative is to aid and abet Hillary.
Are you a conservative or a quisling?
Hillary’s Enablers on the Right
Stephen Moore lays into Michael Gerson here as I did here.
In other 'enabling' news, French concert organizers ban Eagles of Death Metal.
If you want to know how lost Europe is, how thoroughly it has abandoned freedom of speech, get this: two French music festivals have banned Eagles of Death Metal, the American rock band whose gig at the Bataclan was turned into a bloodbath by Isis last November, after the lead singer said some dodgy things about Muslims.
Dodgy? What the Spectator piece reports the lead singer as saying looks to be simply true.
Political correctness is amazingly insidious. It infects even those who are supposedly conservative and freedom-loving.
Hatred of Apostates
Another similarity between leftists and radical Muslims.
A Red-Diaper Baby I Once Knew: Anecdotes Illustrating Leftist Illusions
In graduate school I was friends for a time with a New York Jew who for the purposes of this memoir I will refer to as 'Saul Peckstein.' A red diaper baby, he was brought up on Communism the way I was brought up on Roman Catholicism. Invited up to his room one day, I was taken aback by three huge posters on his wall, of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.
There is a distinctive quality of personal warmth that many Jews display, the quality conveyed when we say of so-and-so that he or she is a mensch. It is a sort of humanity, hard to describe, in my experience not as prevalent among goyim. Peckstein had it. But he was nonetheless able to live comfortably under the gaze of a mass murderer and their philosophical progenitors.
One day we were walking across campus when he said to me, "Don't you think we could run this place?" He was venting the utopian dream of a classless society, a locus classicus of which is a famous passage from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (ed. C. J. Arthur, New York: International Publishers, 1970, p. 53):
. . . as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.
The silly utopianism seeps out of "each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes." Could Saul Kripke have become a diplomat or a chauffeur or an auto mechanic if he wished? Pee Wee Herman a furniture mover or Pope? Woody Allen a bronco buster? Evel Knievel a neurosurgeon? And if Marx has actually done any 'cattle rearing,' he would have soon discovered that he couldn't be successful at it if he did it once in a while when he wasn't in the mood for hunting, fishing, or writing Das Kapital.
On another occasion Peckstein asked, "After the Revolution, what will we do with all the churches?" Like so many other commies he cherished the naive expectation that 'the revolution is right around the corner' in a phrase much bandied-about in CPUSA circles. And in tandem with that naivete, the foolish notion that religion would just wither away when material wants were satisfied and social oppression eliminated, a notion that betrays the deep superficiality of the materialist vision of man and his world.
One night we ate at an expensive restaurant, Anthony's Pier Four at the Boston harbor. Peckstein paid with a bad check. After all, it was an 'exploitative' capitalist enterprise and the owners deserved to be stiffed. But he left a substantial tip in cash for the servers. As I said, he was a mensch.
A few of us graduate students had been meeting to discuss Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. One day I announced that the topic for the next meeting would be the Table of Categories. Peckstein quipped, "Is that table you can eat on?" The materialist crudity of the remark annoyed me.
And then there was the time he wondered why people thank God before a meal rather than the farmers.
We were friends for a time, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary non-intellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the tendency is for one intellectual to view an ideologically divergent other intellectual as not merely holding incorrect views but as being morally defective in so doing.
Why? Because ideas matter to the intellectual. They matter in the way doctrines and dogmas mattered to old-time religionists. If one's eternal happiness is at stake, it matters infinitely whether one 'gets it right' doctrinally. If there is no salvation outside the church, you'd better belong to the right church. It matters so much that one may feel entirely justified in forcing the heterodox to recant 'for their own good.'
The typical intellectual nowadays is a secularist who believes in nothing that transcends the human horizon. But he takes into his secularism that old-time fervor, that old-time zeal to suppress dissent and punish apostates. It is called political correctness.
And as you have heard me say more than once: P.C. comes from the C. P.
Crooked Hillary
Bought by corporate American for 21 million semolians. Here:
Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that, in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state collected $21,667,000 in “speaking fees,” not to mention the cool $5 mil she corralled as an advance for her 2014 flop book, “Hard Choices.”
Throw in the additional $26,630,000 her ex-president husband hoovered up in personal-appearance “honoraria,” and the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief that the former first couple — who, according to Hillary, were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 with some of the furniture in tow — can finally make ends meet.
Given the vacuous pablum that Hillary serves up in her speeches, you know that the emolument stands in no rational relation to their content.
Free Will Meets Neuroscience
Here is an excerpt from Alfred R. Mele, Free Will: Action Theory Meets Neuroscience
In a recent article, Libet writes: "it is only the final ‘act now’ process that produces the voluntary act. That ‘act now’ process begins in the brain about 550 msec before the act, and it begins unconsciously" (2001, p. 61).10 "There is," he says, "an unconscious gap of about 400 msec between the onset of the cerebral process and when the person becomes consciously aware of his/her decision or wish or intention to act." (Incidentally, a page later, he identifies what the agent becomes aware of as "the intention/wish/urge to act" [p. 62].) Libet adds: "If the ‘act now’ process is initiated unconsciously, then conscious free will is not doing it."
I have already explained that Libet has not shown that a decision to flex is made or an intention to flex acquired at -550 ms. But even if the intention emerges much later, that is compatible with an "act now" process having begun at -550 ms. One might say that "the ‘act now’ process" in Libet’s spontaneous subjects begins with the formation or acquisition of a proximal intention to flex, much closer to the onset of muscle motion than -550 ms, or that it begins earlier, with the beginning of a process that issues in the intention.11 We can be flexible about that (just as we can be flexible about whether the process of my baking my frozen pizza began when I turned my oven on to pre-heat it, when I opened the oven door five minutes later to put the pizza in, when I placed the pizza on the center rack, or at some other time). Suppose we say that "the ‘act now’ process" begins with the unconscious emergence of an urge to flex – or with a pretty reliable relatively proximal causal contributor to urges to flex – at about -550 ms and that the urge plays a significant role in producing a proximal intention to flex many milliseconds later. We can then agree with Libet that, given that the "process is initiated unconsciously, . . . conscious free will is not doing it" – that is, is not initiating "the ‘act now’ process." But who would have thought that conscious free will has the job of producing urges? In the philosophical literature, free will’s primary locus of operation is typically identified as deciding (or choosing); and for all Libet has shown, if his subjects decide (or choose) to flex "now," they do so consciously.
What Libet et al. want to show is that the notion that conscious willing plays a genuine role in the etiology of a behavior such as flexing a finger is illusory. Their evidence for this is that the process in the brain that initiates the action begins some 550 milliseconds before the action and is unconscious. Only 400 msecs later does the subject become aware of his wish or urge or intention or decision to act. This is supposed to show that the conscious intention is not causally efficacious and that conscious will is an illusion.
Mele rebuts this argument by showing that it trades on a confusion of decisions/intentions on the one hand and wishes and urges on the other. To want to do X is not the same as to decide to do X. Phil may want another Fat Tire Ale but decide not to drink another because he has already decimated Bill's supply and doesn't want to presume on his host. So even if the wanting to do action A begins in the brain a half a second before the doing of A, and is unconscious, it doesn't follow that the decision to do A begins in the brain a half second before the doing of A and is unconscious. Free will is displayed in decisions and choosings, not in wants and urges.
Basically, what Mele does quite skillfully in this article is show the indispensability of accurate conceptual analysis and phenomenology for the proper interpretation of empirical findings. The real illusion here is the supposition that the empirical findings of neuroscience can by themselves shed any light.
Related: Could Free Will be an Illusion?
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Tools and Middle-Sized Dry Goods
Albert King, Crosscut Saw
Peter, Paul, and Mary, If I Had a Hammer
Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails
Jr. Walker and the All Stars, Shotgun
Bobby Darin, Mack the Knife
Chance McCoy and the Appalachian String Band, Gospel Plow
Jackie DeShannon, Needles and Pins
Linda Ronstadt, Silver Threads and Golden Needles
Out of ideas, for now.
50 years ago, this May: Bob Dylan and the Manchester Free Trade Hall 'Judas' Show
An Insufficient Argument Against Sufficient Reason
Explanatory rationalism is the view that there is a satisfactory answer to every explanation-seeking why question. Equivalently, it is the view that there are no propositions that are just true, i.e., true, contingently true, but without explanation of their being true. Are there some contingent truths that lack explanation? Consider the conjunction of all contingent truths. The conjunction of all contingent truths is itself a contingent truth. Could this contingent conjunctive truth have an explanation? Jonathan Bennett thinks not:
Let P be the great proposition stating the whole contingent truth about the actual world, down to its finest detail, in respect of all times. Then the question 'Why is it the case that P?' cannot be answered in a satisfying way. Any purported answer must have the form 'P is the case because Q is the case'; but if Q is only contingently the case then it is a conjunct in P, and the offered explanation doesn't explain; and if Q is necessarily the case then the explanation, if it is cogent, implies that P is necessary also. But if P is necessary then the universe had to be exactly as it is, down to the tiniest detail — i.e., this is the only possible world. (Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, Hackett 1984, p. 115)
Bennett's point is that explanatory rationalism entails the collapse of modal distinctions. To put it another way, the principle of sufficient reason, call it PSR, according to which every truth has a sufficient reason for its being true, entails the extensional equivalence of the possible, the actual, and the necessary. These modal words would then differ at most in their sense but not in their reference. If we assume, as most of us will, the non-equivalence of the possible, the actual, and the necessary, then, by modus tollens, we will infer the falsity of explanatory rationalism/PSR.
This is relevant to the God question. If PSR is false, then cosmological arguments for the existence of God which rest on PSR will be all of them unsound.
Now let's look at Bennett's argument in detail.
The world-proposition P is a conjunction of truths all of which are contingent. So P is contingent. Now if explanatory rationalism is true, then P has an explanation of its being true. Bennett assumes that this explanation must be in terms of a proposition Q distinct from P such that Q entails P, and is thus a sufficient reason for P. Now Q is either necessary or contingent. If Q is necessary, and a proposition is explained by citing a distinct proposition that entails it, and Q explains P, then P is necessary, contrary to what we have assumed. On the other hand, if Q is contingent, then Q is a conjunct of P, and again no successful explanation has been arrived at. Therefore, either explanatory rationalism is false, or it is true only on pain of a collapse of modal distinctions. We take it for granted that said collapse would be a Bad Thing.
Preliminary Skirmishing
Bennett's is a cute little argument, a variant of which impresses the illustrious Peter van Inwagen as well, but I must report that I do not find the argument in either version compelling. Why is P true? We can say that P is true because each conjunct of P is true. We are not forced to say that P is true because of a distinct proposition Q which entails P.
I am not saying that P is true because P is true; I am saying that P is true because each conjunct of P is true, and that this adequately and non-circularly explains why P is true. Some wholes are adequately and noncircularly explained when their parts are explained. In a broad sense of 'whole' and 'part,' a conjunction of propositions is a whole the parts of which are its conjuncts. Suppose I want to explain why the conjunction Tom is broke & Tom is fat is true. It suffices to say that Tom is broke is true and that Tom is fat is true. Their being conjoined does not require a separate explanation since for any propositions their conjunction automatically exists.
Suppose three bums are hanging around the corner of Fifth and Vermouth. Why is this threesome there? The explanations of why each is there add up (automatically) to an explanation of why the three of them are there. Someone who understands why A is there, why B is there, and why C is there, does not need to understand some further fact in order to understand why the three of them are there. Similarly, it suffices to explain the truth of a conjunction to adduce the truth of its conjuncts. The conjunction is true because each conjunct is true. There is no need for an explanation of why a conjunctive proposition is true which is above and beyond the explanations of why its conjuncts are true.
Bennett falsely assumes that "Any purported answer must have the form 'P is the case because Q is the case'. . ." This ignores my suggestion that P is the case because each of its conjuncts is the case. So P does have an explanation; it is just that the explanation is not in terms of a proposition Q distinct from P which entails P.
Going Deeper
But we can and should go deeper. P is true because each of its conjuncts is true. But why are they true? Each is true because its truth-maker makes it true. A strong case can be made that there are truth-makers and that truth-makers are concrete facts or states of affairs. (See D. M. Armstrong, et al.) A fact is not a proposition, but that which makes a contingently true proposition true. My being seated, for example, makes-true 'BV is seated.' The sentence (as well as the proposition it is used to express) cannot just be true: there must be something external to the sentence that makes it true, and this something cannot be another sentence or anyone's say-so. As for Bennett's "great proposition P," we can say that its truth-maker is the concrete universe. Why is P true? Because the concrete universe makes it true. 'Makes true' as used in truth-maker theory does not mean entails even though there is a loose sense of 'makes true' according to which a true proposition makes true any proposition it entails. Entailment is a relation defined over propositions: it connects propositions to propositions. It thus remains within the sphere of propositions. Truth-making, however, connects non-propositions to propositions. Therefore, truth-making is not entailment.
We are now outside the sphere of propositions and can easily evade Bennett's clever argument. It is simply not the case that any purported answer to the question why P is the case must invoke a proposition that entails it. A genuine explanation of why a contingent proposition is true cannot ultimately remain within the sphere of propositions. In the case of P it is the existence and character of the concrete universe that explains why P is true.
Going Deeper Still
But we can and should go deeper still. Proposition P is true because the actual concrete universe U — which is not a proposition — makes it true. But what makes U exist and have the truth-making power? If propositional truth is grounded in ontic truth, the truth of things, what grounds ontic truth? Onto-theological truth?
Theists have a ready answer: the contingent concrete universe U exists because God freely created it ex nihilo. It exists because God created it; it exists contingently because God might not have created it or any concrete universe. The ultimate explanation of why P is true is that God created its truth-maker, U.
Now consider the proposition, God creates U. Call it G. Does a re-run of Bennett's argument cause trouble? G entails P. G is either necessary or contingent. If G is necessary, then so is P, and modal distinctions collapse. If G is contingent, however, it is included as a conjunct within P. Does the explanation in terms of divine free creation therefore fail?
Not at all. For it is not a proposition that explains P's being true but God's extra-propositional activity, which is not a proposition. God's extra-propositional activity makes true P including G and including the proposition, God's extra-propositional activity makes true P.
Conclusions
I conclude that Professor Bennett has given us an insufficient reason to reject the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
I apply a similar critique to Peter van Inwagen's version of the argument in my "On An Insufficient Argument Against Sufficient Reason," Ratio, vol. 10, no. 1 (April 1997), pp. 76-81.
Arguments to God a contingentia mundi that rely on PSR are not refuted by the Bennett argument.
‘Redskins’ Update
Apparently, nine out of ten American Indians are not offended by the Redskins name, thereby demonstrating that they have more sense than the typical liberal. This calls for a reposting of an entry from August 2013. Enjoy!
'Redskin' Offensive? What About 'Guinea Pig'?
Apparently, the online magazine Slate will no longer be referring to the Washington Redskins under that name lest some Indians take offense. By the way, I take offense at 'native American.' I am a native Californian, which fact makes me a native American, and I'm not now and never have been an Indian.
But what about 'guinea pig'? Surely this phrase too is a racial/ethnic slur inasmuch as it suggests that all people of Italian extraction are pigs, either literally or in their eating habits. Bill Loney takes this (meat) ball and runs with it.
And then there is 'coonskin cap.' 'Coon' is in the semantic vicinity of such words as: spade, blood, spear chucker, spook, and nigger. These are derogatory words used to refer to Eric Holder's people. In the '60s, southern racists expressed their contempt for Martin Luther King, Jr. by referring to him as Martin Luther Coon. Since a coonskin cap is a cap made of the skin of a coon, 'coonskin cap' is a code phrase used by creepy-assed crackers to signal that black folk ought to be, all of them, on the wrong end of a coon hunt.
'Coonskin cap' must therefore be struck from our vocabulary lest some black person take offense.
But then consistency demands that we get rid of 'southern racist.' The phrase suggests that all southerners are racists. And we must not cause offense to the half-dozen southerners who are not racists.
But why stop here? 'Doo wop' is so-called because many of its major exponents were wops such as Dion DiMucci who was apparently quite proud to be a wop inasmuch as he uses the term five times in succession starting at :58 of this version of 'I Wonder Why' (1958). The old greaseball still looks very good in this 2004 performance. Must be all that pasta he consumes.
'Wop' is from the sound pasta makes when thrown against a wall, something excitable greaseballs often do when tanked up on dago red. Either that, or it means With Out Papers.
I could go on — this is fun — but you get the drift, and the serious politically incorrect point of this exercise — unless you are a stupid liberal.
Trump For and Against
For: The Thinking Man's Guide to Donald Trump
Against: This is How Fascism Comes to America
You decide.