Q&A: The Maimonidean Cosmological Argument
The Maimonidean Cosmological Argument
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Not long ago, the Rabbi uploaded here a video of someone who argued that since contingent beings remain in existence and do not disappear, they require something that continuously sustains their existence. One of the Rabbi’s attacks on that argument is that it treats existence as a property, but it was already established in the ontological argument that existence is not a property.
I saw that there was a thread here on the site where he responded to someone who asked him about this, and he wrote as follows:
B. There are philosophical reasons that show that existence is a property, but they require elaboration and I won’t get into that here. In any case, this is getting hung up on words. The question here is whether some characteristic or aspect of a thing follows from its essence, regardless of what we call it (a property, principle, matter, and so on). Once it does not, reason looks for a cause. When some essence may or may not be x, there is a lack of logical necessity in the connection between it and x (in our case, existence), and that is what requires causal necessity. Some matter, whatever name you give it, that attaches to a thing accidentally and is not necessarily derived from it. If such a situation did not require a cause, we would get an irrational world, at least to the same extent as with any other contingent property lacking a cause.
Does the Rabbi accept this claim? And if so, then in practice all of the Rabbi’s critiques of the arguments in the video fall away. (Aside from the claim about infinite regress and God as one and simple, etc., etc.).
Answer
Existence is not a property. I do not understand your question. Are you asking whether I answered his claim that “existence is a property and this is not the place to elaborate”? When there is an argument here, I can respond to it.
Discussion on Answer
So does the Rabbi accept this?
No. I explained this in my critique of it. I don’t have time right now to get back into the details of the arguments. Existence does not follow from the essence of a thing. That is a meaningless sentence (see the ontological argument).
That was Kant’s claim. But as some theistic philosophers in the twentieth century noted, even if we say that it makes no sense to identify a thing’s essence with its existence, there is still no reason to say that about the identity between a thing’s essence and *necessary existence*.
*If* God exists, *then* He is such that He exists necessarily, such that it is impossible that He not exist (= that He exists in all possible worlds). This is a perfectly intelligible statement, and even self-evident. Someone who thinks he does not understand it cannot use the same meaning that a standard believer uses when speaking about God.
And now the question returns to whether He exists. To hang things on essence is a vague formulation. I prefer to speak about a definition (because a non-existent thing has no essence). You are once again returning to the ontological argument.
He argues that even someone who says existence is not a property would still not be prevented from accepting this proof. So I wanted to ask whether you accept that, and think that even though existence is not a property, it is still reasonable to accept this proof.
I’ll copy the sentence that comes after what you quoted:
“In any case, this is getting hung up on words. The question here is whether some characteristic or aspect of a thing follows from its essence, regardless of what we call it (a property, principle, matter, and so on). Once it does not, reason looks for a cause. When some essence may or may not be x, there is a lack of logical necessity in the connection between it and x (in our case, existence), and that is what requires causal necessity. Some matter, whatever name you give it, that attaches to a thing accidentally and is not necessarily derived from it. If such a situation did not require a cause, we would get an irrational world, at least to the same extent as with any other contingent property lacking a cause.”