Q&A: The Contingency Argument
The Contingency Argument
Question
Good evening.
Have you written somewhere about Leibniz's contingency argument?
I didn't understand what is unique about it (what was missing for me in the ontological or cosmophysically argument). I'm not sure I fully grasped his point.
If you've written about it, I'd be happy for a reference, and if not, I won't be rude enough to ask for it on "Light and Opinion," and I'll remain in my ignorance.
Thank you.
Answer
I don't know what exactly you mean. The argument that assumes that every contingent thing has a cause? That is nothing more than a kind of cosmological argument. There used to be a link here to a Copenhagen video (which disappeared from the site several years ago) that explains this well.
Discussion on Answer
Exactly.
Thank you very much!
*I meant the teleological argument, not the ontological one
Yes. In my opinion it's simply a certain formulation of the cosmological argument. That's what I didn't understand—why give it a platform as a new argument? To me it looked like the ontological, cosmological, or physicotheological argument, with some talk about the difference between contingent and necessary—very nice and all, but I didn't understand what's new here. I was worried I had missed the point, but if you don't know what I mean, apparently I didn't miss anything and it's just a formulation that's careful not to assume that absolutely everything must have a cause, because otherwise what is God's cause.