Against the first cause: "the universe is just there"

Bertrand Russell 1872 · 1970Clarify thought with logic, doubt dogmas.

What it claims

Neither the first cause nor contingency proves the existence of God. That does not prove he does not exist: reason does not decide, we do not know whether he exists.

Why

What holds for each thing need not hold for the whole: every man has a mother, but humanity does not.

In short

"Against the first cause: "the universe is just there"" is an argument by Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian, 1927 · Debate with Copleston, BBC, 1948) on the question "Does God exist?" (answer: agnosticism). Its claim: Neither the first cause nor contingency proves the existence of God. That does not prove he does not exist: reason does not decide, we do not know whether he exists. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 5 objections, 5 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Why I Am Not a Christian, 1927 · Debate with Copleston, BBC, 1948

Valid with an implicit premise

Russell attacks the proof he considers the only one still serious: the first cause. He does so twice. In 1927, against its simple version ("everything has a cause, so there is a first cause"). In 1948, on the radio, against its learned version, Leibniz's, defended by the Jesuit Frederick Copleston: contingent things require a reason, so a necessary being exists. The debate is exceptional because both sides speak: each of Copleston's objections and each of Russell's answers is quoted. Russell does not conclude that God does not exist, but that these proofs prove nothing: he calls himself an agnostic in this very debate.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where all the other premises are true and yet we know that the whole has a reason, by a third route: for instance if, as Copleston holds, a series of contingent causes, even an infinite one, simply cannot suffice to explain anything.

Valid with P4, which Russell does not state: he assumes there are only two ways to defend "the whole has a reason", and rules them out one after the other. In fairness on P1 and P2: they target the popular version. Aquinas and Leibniz never said that "everything" has a cause, only what changes or what is contingent; Copleston points this out at once (objection 1). So the real debate is about P5 and P6: does the world need an explanation? Russell adds two further attacks: for him the phrase "necessary being" has no meaning (only a proposition can be necessary, not a thing), and physicists already admit uncaused events, quantum transitions in atoms.

Analogy. Every student in the class has a date of birth. The class itself has no date of birth in the same sense: asking "when was the class born?" may have no answer. Copleston would reply: add up chocolates and you get chocolates, not a sheep; an infinity of things that do not explain themselves explains itself no better.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Father Copleston (1948 debate) 1948 · attacks premise 1

Nobody says that everything has a cause. Only contingent beings have one. God is not an arbitrary exception: he is his own sufficient reason, without being the cause of himself.

Russell replies

Russell

Russell rejects the vocabulary itself: he does not admit the idea of a necessary being, and sees no meaning in calling other beings "contingent". For him these words only have a meaning within a logic he rejects.

The debate goes on (our summary) Copleston answers that "a being that cannot not exist" has a definite meaning for him, and that declaring meaningless whatever does not fit a particular logic is laying down a dogma, not proving it.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Copleston distinguishes what is contingent from what is its own reason; Russell judges that these words only have a meaning within a logic he rejects. The core disagreement: does "necessary being" have a meaning? Some defenders answer that a "factual" necessity is enough (see Aquinas's argument).

Father Copleston (1948 debate) 1948 · attacks premise 5

The mother example does not apply. I do not say: each thing has a cause, so the series has a cause of the same kind. I say: even if infinite, the series of natural causes does not explain the series. So it has a cause beyond it.

Russell replies

Russell

That is always assuming that not only every particular thing in the world, but the world as a whole, must have a cause. Russell sees no ground for that assumption, and says he will listen if one is given.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Copleston argues that the series does not explain itself; Russell sees no ground to assume that the whole has a cause. Rowe (1975) argues that parts explaining one another do not explain the series (see Leibniz's argument). Core disagreement on the principle of sufficient reason.

Father Copleston (1948 debate) 1948 · attacks premise 4

Here is the ground asked for. Either the series of events has a cause, or it has none. If it has none, it is sufficient to itself, and so necessary. But it cannot be: it is nothing more than its members, and each of them is contingent. So it has a cause, outside the series. This is not the mother mistake: one is not giving the whole a property of the parts, one is showing that the whole cannot explain itself.

Russell replies

Russell

Russell answers that he can conceive what Copleston deems inconceivable: things without a cause. Physicists, he says, already assert that individual quantum transitions in atoms have no cause.

The debate goes on (our summary) Copleston answers that this may be only a temporary inference of physics, which speaks of the limits of our measurements more than of nature itself. And an uncaused event within the world does not show that the whole world can exist without a reason.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Russell cites quantum transitions as examples of uncaused events; Copleston answers that this may be only a provisional conclusion of physics, and that an uncaused event within the world does not show that the whole world can exist without a reason. An open debate.

Father Copleston (1948 debate) 1948 · attacks premise 6

Science itself assumes that nature is ordered and intelligible: the physicist looks for causes as the detective looks for the murderer. The metaphysician who looks for the reason of the whole is as justified as he is.

Russell replies

Russell

Looking for causes does not assume there are causes everywhere. One can look for gold without assuming there is gold everywhere: if one finds it, well and good; if not, bad luck.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Copleston sees the scientific search for causes as a presupposition of intelligibility; Russell answers that looking for causes does not assume there are causes everywhere. Core disagreement on what science presupposes.

Father Copleston (closing summary of the debate) 1948 · attacks premise 6

Saying that the world is "simply there, without explanation" is not a result of logic. It is a philosophy, which would itself need proof. Russell blames believers for assuming what they want to prove, but he does the same in the other direction.

Russell replies

Russell

In his own summary, Russell gives no new proof: he maintains his position. One can sometimes explain one thing as the effect of another, but that is merely referring one thing to another thing. In Copleston's sense, nothing has an explanation, and calling things "contingent" has no meaning, since there is nothing else they could be.

The debate goes on (our summary) Copleston would say this restates the thesis rather than proves it: "nothing has an explanation" remains a philosophy that needs proof, exactly like "everything has an explanation".

Where the debate stands (our summary)Each accuses the other of assuming what he wants to prove: "everything has an explanation" for Copleston, "the world is a brute fact" for Russell. The debate stops there in 1948; Pruss (2006) defends the principle of sufficient reason (see Leibniz's argument). A point of core disagreement, open.

What today's voices say

Defend it

Ricky GervaisSays 'God has always been around' does not answer where everything comes from, though he understands why people say it.

In the same family · Cosmological