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Course 14 · Lesson 3.4

Objections: the brute fact reply and the fallacy of composition

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 14 outline

Module 1: Arguments, Existence and Necessity

  1. What natural theology attempts and what it does not
  2. Necessary and contingent existence
  3. How to read and test an argument for God
  4. Philosophy of religion today: a map of the field

Module 2: The Ontological Argument

  1. Anselm and the argument of the Proslogion
  2. Gaunilo and the perfect island objection
  3. Kant: existence is not a real predicate
  4. What the ontological argument would show if it worked

Module 3: Cosmological Arguments

  1. Aquinas: the first three ways
  2. Infinite regress: what is the problem?
  3. Leibniz, the principle of sufficient reason and the argument from contingency
  4. Objections: the brute fact reply and the fallacy of composition

Module 4: The Kalam Cosmological Argument

  1. The kalam tradition: Philoponus, al-Ghazali and Bonaventure
  2. The modern argument: whatever begins to exist has a cause
  3. Did the universe begin? Philosophy and cosmology
  4. Objections and replies, and what follows about the cause

Module 5: Teleological and Fine-Tuning Arguments

  1. From Aquinas’s fifth way to Paley’s watch
  2. Hume and the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
  3. Darwin and the change in the design argument
  4. The fine-tuning argument: what is claimed and what is debated
  5. The multiverse and other replies

Module 6: The Moral Argument and Divine Hiddenness

  1. The moral argument: Kant, Lewis and contemporary forms
  2. The Euthyphro question and moral realism without God
  3. Evolution and moral knowledge
  4. The argument from divine hiddenness and Christian replies

Module 7: Contemporary Modal Arguments and Evaluation

  1. Possible worlds and modal logic in plain language
  2. Plantinga’s modal ontological argument
  3. Assessing the modal argument: what it needs and what it shows
  4. Weighing the arguments together, and what none of them prove

All courses

Program / Course 14: Arguments for the Existence of God / Lesson 3.4

What you will learn

  • State the brute fact reply and the best response to it.
  • Explain the fallacy of composition and why it is said to threaten the argument from contingency.
  • Describe Hume’s and Kant’s objections to cosmological arguments.
  • Say what each objection leaves standing.

The big idea

Cosmological arguments face four main objections. The brute fact reply says the universe may simply exist without explanation. The fallacy of composition objection says that what is true of each part need not be true of the whole. Hume doubted that the causal principle can be applied to the universe, and Kant argued that the cosmological argument secretly depends on the ontological argument. Each objection has a reply, and each reply has critics. The honest result is a live dispute.

Key terms

Brute fact
A fact with no explanation at all.
Fallacy of composition
The mistake of inferring that a whole has a property because each of its parts has it.
Fallacy of division
The opposite mistake: inferring that each part has a property because the whole has it.
Causal principle
The claim that whatever begins to exist, or whatever is contingent, has a cause.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Hume’s book, published in 1779 after his death, which contains a famous criticism of cosmological arguments.
Universe as a whole
In these arguments, the total collection of contingent things, including all matter, energy, space and time.

Background

The objections in this lesson have been around for centuries, but they took their modern form in Hume and Kant, and in the twentieth century in Bertrand Russell and others. Defenders of the arguments have responded in detail, so a fair student sees the objection and then the answer.

A broader point first. These objections do not prove that the universe has no explanation. They argue that the arguments do not show that it has one. This difference is easy to lose, and it matters for any fair verdict.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The brute fact reply

The reply says the universe, or its basic laws and matter, is simply there with no explanation. When Copleston asked Russell in their 1948 radio debate why anything exists, Russell answered that the universe is just there, and that is all. The reply denies the principle of sufficient reason for the whole.

Defenders answer that this is a refusal to explain, not an explanation. They add that the universe seems to be a contingent thing, since it might have been otherwise, and that a contingent thing without explanation is arbitrary in a way that a necessary one is not. Critics reply that the demand for explanation must stop somewhere, and a brute universe is as good a stopping place as a necessary God.

Step 2: The fallacy of composition

Russell said, in the same debate, that to argue from the fact that every human has a mother to the claim that the human race has a mother is to commit a fallacy of composition. The property of each part need not be a property of the whole. Applied to the argument: each contingent thing may need a cause, but the collection of them may not.

Defenders reply that Leibniz’s argument is not of this form. It does not infer that the whole needs a cause because each part does. It argues that the whole is itself a contingent fact that needs an explanation, for its own reason. The two speakers in the 1948 debate often seemed to use the key terms differently, which is a lesson in itself.

Step 3: Hume’s objection

Hume argued in the Dialogues that if each part of the universe is explained by earlier causes, nothing more is needed to explain the whole. He also held that the causal principle can only be applied where there is experience of causes and effects, and there is no experience of universes being made. A further point is that whatever can be conceived as existing can also be conceived not existing, so no being exists necessarily.

Defenders reply that the causal principle is not just a habit from experience but a basic principle of reason, and that the move from the parts to the whole is exactly what the argument is meant to question.

Step 4: Kant’s objection

Kant argued that the cosmological argument, after reaching a necessary being, has to show that the necessary being is the most perfect being. He thought it could only do this by using the ontological argument, which he had already rejected. So the cosmological argument rests on a failed foundation.

Defenders reply that the necessary being can be identified as God by other means, as Aquinas does: by showing that a being without dependence cannot be limited, cannot change and must be the source of all goodness. Whether these steps succeed is debated.

Step 5: What stands, and what falls?

Taken together, the objections show that cosmological arguments depend on contested premises: a strong principle of explanation, a distinction between the parts and the whole, and a route from a first cause to God. A reader who accepts the PSR in its strong form will find the brute fact reply unsatisfying. A reader who doubts it will find the reply natural. Neither can be called unreasonable.

  1. Is the universe’s existence a fact that calls for explanation?
  2. Why might each member of a series be explained while the series is not?
  3. What is the difference between a part and a collection?
  4. Does Russell’s reply seem honest to you, or evasive?
  5. Is a necessary God a better stopping point than a brute universe?
  6. Why would Kant say the cosmological argument depends on the ontological?

Examples

The mother of the human race

Every human has a mother. Does the human race have a mother? Russell used the example to show that what holds for each member need not hold for the collection. Defenders point out that the human race is a different sort of thing from the universe as a contingent whole.

A heap of bricks

Each brick is small, but the heap is not small. Each piece of paper is light, but a library is not light. These everyday cases show that the fallacy of composition is a real error, which is why the objection is taken seriously.

A counterexample for the critic

Every page in a book is printed on paper, and so is the whole book. Here what is true of each part is true of the whole. Defenders use cases like this to show that composition is not always a fallacy, and the question is whether the argument is of a safe kind.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Copleston, a Jesuit priest and historian of philosophy, represented the Catholic defense in the 1948 debate. Thomists argue that the argument from contingency does not commit the fallacy of composition, because it asks what grounds the existence of every contingent thing and not what the sum of them is like.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology treats the question differently, holding that the creation is a gift and that its existence is a matter for wonder. The tradition does not usually try to answer the brute fact reply but to show it as inadequate to the experience of the world as gift.

Protestant

Protestant philosophers who defend the argument include William Lane Craig, who defends the kalam form discussed in Module 4. Reformed thinkers such as Plantinga hold that belief in God does not depend on these arguments, so the objections do not threaten belief itself.

Scholarly views

Contemporary philosophers have refined both sides. William Rowe formulated careful versions of the argument and the objection. Many hold that the fallacy of composition objection fails against careful forms of the argument but that the brute fact reply remains a serious position.

Skeptical views

Skeptics such as Russell and Oppy hold that it is reasonable to stop at the universe. They say that the idea of a necessary being has not been made clear, and that if one brute fact is allowed, the simplest should prefer the simplest, which is the physical world.

Why it matters

These objections are the ones a thoughtful skeptic will raise first, and the answers are the ones a thoughtful believer should know. Studying them avoids the common error of treating an objection as a refutation or an answer as a proof.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The fallacy of composition refutes the argument.

Correction: It would, if the argument were of that form. Defenders deny it is. The argument asks about the existence of the whole as a contingent fact, not whether the whole shares a property of its parts.

Misunderstanding: Brute facts are unscientific.

Correction: Science often treats basic laws as brute. The question is whether the universe as a whole may be treated the same way, which is a philosophical question.

Misunderstanding: Hume proved that causes cannot be applied to the universe.

Correction: He argued that there is no experience to support the application. Whether that is a decisive point is disputed.

Misunderstanding: Kant’s objection applies to all cosmological arguments.

Correction: It applies to arguments that must show the necessary being is the most perfect. Defenders hold that other arguments identify God by other means.

Knowledge check

What is the brute fact reply?

It is the claim that the universe, or some basic feature of it, exists with no explanation. It denies that the whole needs a reason. Russell said that the universe is just there. Defenders reply that this refuses to explain something that seems to call for explanation, since the universe is contingent.

What is the fallacy of composition, and how is it applied here?

It is the mistake of reasoning that a whole has a property because each of its parts has it. The objection says that each contingent thing may need a cause while the whole does not. Defenders reply that the argument is about the whole as a contingent fact, so it does not infer from parts to whole.

What was Kant’s objection to the cosmological argument?

Kant argued that after reaching a necessary being, the argument must show that this being is the most perfect, and the only way is by the ontological argument, which fails. So the cosmological argument depends on a bad foundation. Defenders say a necessary being can be identified as God by other reasoning.

What did Hume add to the discussion?

Hume argued that explaining each part of a series explains the whole, and that the causal principle is known only from experience, which is lacking for universes. He also held that anything conceivable as existing is conceivable as not existing, so necessary existence is empty. Defenders say these claims assume what is in dispute.

Think it through

  1. Does a brute fact feel acceptable at the level of the universe?
  2. Which objection do you find hardest to answer?
  3. How might a believer respond to Russell without claiming a proof?
  4. What do these objections change about the confidence a believer should have?

Independent assignment

Objection and reply

In your own notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Choose two of the four objections in this lesson. For each, write the objection in a short paragraph that a critic would accept, then the best reply in a paragraph that a defender would accept. End with a paragraph on which objection seems strongest, and what it leaves standing. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study