Q&A: What Is the Validity of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
What Is the Validity of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Question
Hello Rabbi. I had difficulty with this principle. If you ask what the reason is for the laws of nature being as they are, הרי they always existed, they had no beginning, and they could not have been otherwise. If the Rabbi accepts the axiom that the laws of nature have always existed from time immemorial, there is nothing to say about why they are as they are, because they have always been that way. And furthermore, if the Rabbi argues that they were created and could have been created differently, there are still disputes in cosmology about whether there was a beginning or not.
Answer
I explained that this is the difference between an argument from causality and an argument from sufficient reason. Even if the laws always existed, one can still ask why they are specifically like this. The question is not who created them and when, but why they are this way rather than some other way.
I have pointed out here in the past the difference between necessary existence and eternity. Something eternal can still be non-necessary, and then one may ask why it is specifically like that.