jasondulle wrote: Right you are! It was Kant. I’ve made that mistake a number of times!
But why think the universe is contingent, and thus needs an explanation in some eternal explanatory ultimate? Why think it needs a further explanation? Why can’t it just be a brute fact, or even metaphysically necessary? Why can’t the ball and cushion be metaphysically necessary since they have always existed? What property does God have that makes Him metaphysically necessary, that the universe or the ball/cushion do not have?
Craig’s use of the Leibnitzian cosmological argument (in which he employs the PSR) seems to assume that the universe’s contingency is obvious since we can conceive of the universe being different, or even not existing at all. But as you and I have been discussing, the same could be said of God: we can conceive of God as having different properties or not existing at all. It seems to me, then, that for the LCA to be successful we have to find better reasons for thinking that the universe cannot be a brute fact or metaphysically necessary as atheists have been wont to claim. Only then do we have grounds to move on to the final step of the LCA in which God is introduced as the external cause of the universe—a being who is the metaphysical ultimate, who cannot not exist, but gives existence to all else.
Jason,
While it is true that we could imagine God as a contingent being it would not follow that such a being would be "God" any longer. What I believe your question really hinges upon is why God, by definition is defined with the various essential traits philosophers of religion have adopted for Him. Yet, when one talks of such essential traits as necessary what they mean is by definition such traits must encompass a being to whom we attribute maximal greatness. Now in order for one to substitute the universe for God, one must find all the traits of maximal greatness present, not merely the trait of necessity. For even if one could assume the universe to be a necessary property of this possible world, it does not follow that it could substitute for God per say.
For example, a pantheistic worldview would assume the necessity of the universe as part of the greater "Divine". However, eternality would only be one of the many traits consigned to that universe (others may include, moral aptitude, impeccability, omnitemporalty, etc.) While such traits are systematically defined they are systemically incoherent and unverified.
Unlike God, the natural universe is physically testable by the five senses. So we can determine all of its traits, including that of eternality. PSR testifies to the contingency of the universe since we can imagine not only the non-existence of the universe but it's potentially different properties (as you have rightly noted). However, one must carefully construe his reasoning when he applies the same criteria for God's nature. Let us grant for arguments sake that one could truly imagine the non-existence of God (which I do not myself concur with, especially if one holds the ontological argument for God's existence to be sound). Does it therefore follow that we could imagine a God with different properties then what He is already prescribed with? Well, I think this is far from obvious. In fact, it seems to me to be inherently false.
For the moment when ascribes properties essentially different from those of omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection, omnipresence, immutability and so forth, the being in question no longer identifies with the definition of God as we know it. For instance, were God to be construe as contingent and merely semi-omniscient, while all other ontological properties remained the same, such a being would cease to be God, in the classical sense. We might argue that such a being was God-like or half-god in essence, but not God Himself (perhaps an extraterrestrial being or angelic being) Thus, your argument seems misplaced. One cannot conceive of a contingent or essentially different being and assume such a being to be God. God, by definition is the maximally greatest conceivable Being. The moment one does conceive of a less greater being, his conception falls short of relating to God.