Excerpted from "Theology and Sanity" by F.J. Sheed The Argument from Contingency If we consider the universe, we find that everything in it bears this mark, that it does exist but might very well not have existed. We ourselves exist, but we would not have existed if a man and a woman had not met and mated. The same mark can be found upon everything. A particular valley exists because a stream of water took that way down, perhaps because the ice melted up there. If the melting ice had not been there, there would have been no valley. And so with all the things of our experience. They exist, but they would not have existed if some other thing had not been what it was or done what it did. None of these things, therefore, is the explanation of its own existence or the source of its own existence. In other words, their existence is contingent upon something else. Each thing possesses existence, and can pass on existence; but it did not originate its existence. It is essentially a receiver of existence. Now it is impossible to conceive of a universe consisting exclusively of contingent beings, that is, of beings which are only receivers of existence and not originators. The reader who is taking his role as explorer seriously might very well stop reading at this point and let his mind make for itself the effort to conceive a condition in which nothing should exist save receivers of existence. Anyone who has taken this suggestion seriously and pondered the matter for himself before reading on, will have seen that the thing is a contradiction in terms and therefore an impossibility. If nothing exists save beings that receive their existence, how does anything exist at all? Where do they receive their existence from? In such a system made up exclusively of receivers, one being may have got it from another, and that from still another, but how did existence get into the system at all? Even if you tell yourself that this system contains an infinite number of receivers of existence, you still have not accounted for existence. Even an infinite number of beings, if no one of these is the source of its own existence, will not account for existence. Thus we are driven to see that the beings of our experience, the contingent beings, could not exist at all unless there is also a being which differs from them by possessing existence in its own right. It does not have to receive existence; it simply has existence. It is not contingent: it simply is. This is the Being that we call God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I found this argument interesting as it seems to want to elucidate the argument from corruptibility (one of the Five Ways). I wonder if by 'receiver of existence' above, we could also not say 'effect'? It would seem so; the valley receiving existence due to the ice melting above could also be said to be an effect of the ice melting. However, an 'effect' is so due to some natural law, while a 'receiver of existence' does not seem to contain this notion necessarily (and thus, one could say that a miracle receives existence, while a miracle is not an effect.) They would appear to be disimilar then, with effects being merely a species of existence reception. However, in the way he is using the term above, it would seem that all receivers of existence are contingent upon their causes, their particular causes, in fact (as oranges don't cause apples, apple trees do), and so these receivers of existence might as well be called effects. It should also be noted that to be something, a thing must first be. However, above the valley is noted as a receiver of existence. How can the valley receive anything without existing first? And if it already exists, of what note is the receiving of existence? This would seem to be something which needs clarification (it seems the point of a nothing receiving existence and becomming not only existent, not existent in some way needs explanation). Also noted is how quite possibly the most common complaint (that of a universe of infinite causes) is almost brushed over in the third paragraph. The ball was dropped here, as the argument seems to want to argue from the nature of causation (or, more properly, existence passing arising from the nature of the existent cause) and then but _hint_ at a more vital issue: that of the existence behind causation itself, the existence of 'natures', and by extension, therefore, the existence of nature proper. Instead of argueing from the passing of existence one thing to another, he would have been better served argueing from the existence of this property of existence passing (causation) simply. Lastly noted, and arising in part from the last complaint, is the swift conclusion that this efficient cause of existence must, by definition, be called God, i.e. or the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal, one true Being (I got this from a Christian web sight, so I can't say this is much of a jump to suppose this meaning for the word God above). Why must an existence giver be also omniscient, or omnibenevolent, or eternal, or even one (it may perhaps be many in combination)? Might this existence giving thing(s) be limited in what it may give existence to (thus be a property behind the laws of nature)? This needs a serious answer, one not given so long as the contingency of effects is argued from, but the contingency of the nature of things simply, is not. Any further comments? - Bo (Thomist, at large)