Secularism Revisited – The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

When I finished up my last post on secularism and the Berlin wall, I came across an article at Evolution News & Science Today that takes on an atheist scientist Sean Carroll, who asserts that the universe is a “brute fact,” a concept I discussed in that post. If you are interested in learning just how weak naturalism/materialism (atheism) is, as I argued, you might want to become familiar with the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).

The author, Michael Egnor, shreds the scientist, making him look like the fool he is, biblically speaking. In it he explains the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), which simply defined says that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground. The atheist (naturalist/materialist) being committed to his worldview would agree that while everything created by human beings obviously has a reason for its existence, the universe and the world we inhabit doesn’t. It’s just a “brute fact,” no explanation required. That’s a tough sell to rational human beings because the complexity of the natural world through the science that has helped us discover it, doesn’t look like an accident or product of chance. Engor, obviously a very bright man, lays out the argument for the existence of God that supports PSR based on what is known as the Rationalist proof:

1. There is an explanation for everything that exists, in the sense that nothing exists without reason sufficient to make it what it is. This PSR means that things don’t happen for no reason at all. This is not to say that we understand every reason for everything; it merely means that such reasons exist, even if they are beyond our comprehension.
2. The PSR is necessary for ordinary life, and for science. If the PSR were not true, then we could not confidently understand cause and effect in everyday life, and scientists would have to posit “it happened for no reason” for every event studied by science.
3. There are contingent things in the universe. That is, there are some things that are caused by other things.
4. Some of these causes are chains of causation that are ordered per se. That is, some of these causal chains require the simultaneous existence of causes for the final effect to hold.
5. These causes in a per se causal chain may be either first causes or intermediate (instrumental) causes. Intermediate causes derive their causal power from prior causes, and thus have no independent causal power.
6. An infinite causal chain ordered per se is impossible, because if it is infinite then every cause is an intermediate (instrumental) cause, and thus all causes lack independent causal power.
7. In a causal chain ordered per se, there must be a First Cause, which is not Itself caused and which has necessary existence.
8. This First Cause is the Sufficient Reason for existence of the universe.
9. This is what all men call God.

The logic is foolproof, no pun intended, and yet another reason why there is no need to feel insecure about our faith, or our children’s faith, living in a hostile secular culture.