Evaluation of the Argument from Contingency

So what to make of the Argument from Contingency? Is it persuasive? Does it prove that God (or god) exists?

Let me first lay out the arguments again. First, here's Leibniz's version:

1. Every existing thing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. The universe is an existing thing.
3. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
4. Therefore, the explanation for the existence of the universe is God.

And Aquinas':

1. There is cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself and everything must be caused by something.
2. Either the chain goes on forever or there is a first cause.
3. If there is no first cause then there will be no other causes or effects; the chain of causes can't go infinitely backward.
4. Therefore, a first cause exists (and this is God).

Without giving this much thought, these arguments seem reasonable to me. At least, I've never really thoroughly questioned them until recently. It seems rather obvious that every effect has a cause and that we could either trace those causes back through time. This could go on infinitely (that is the universe has no beginning) or to a specific first event and therefore to an uncaused cause. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to say that every thing in the universe contains within it one or more logical dependencies. That is to say that everything is made up of or depends on other things to constitute that thing or effect. A thing is either necessary (it exists because of itself) or it is dependent on something else. In the case of the universe itself, it may be that it is necessary by itself.

First, the most troubling problem with these arguments is that, as Hume points out in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (§XI), we can’t really say much about a particular cause other than what is necessary to produce the effect in question. The effect may actually be an arbitrary outcome not a necessary one. As we follow the chain of causes backward, as Aquinas would have us, we may wrongly attribute design (more on that later) to a particular outcome. When we toss dice, for example, we know what the cause is but the necessary effect (the number of pips on the top side of each die) is random, unguided and thus we only say that the dice were thrown, but we can say nothing about the individual craps player.

There is some skepticism on my part as to whether there is anything necessarily illogical about an infinite, eternal and non-contingent universe. In other words, what makes it impossible that there was no first cause? Just because our finite brains has difficulty accepting the idea of the infinite (which is only to be expected, no?), does that mean that the universe must be finite as well? But don't we encounter infinities all the time? (How many times have I screwed up a computer program because I failed to close my loops somehow, I don't really know. But then again, does that make me the First Cause of that infinite loop . . . .) It may be that there is nothing but the universe and that everything in it, including all causes and effects. Meaning, because we have only seen these causes, effects and dependencies within the universe, it may be that the universe itself is non-contingent. Having no way of apprehending the universe's contingency, we can not, with any measure of certainty, decide the matter.

Finally, on a related note, I think in some ways this argument fails because it really is a thinly disguised ontological argument. I think Kant would agree (see, if you dare, Transcendental Dialectic in Critique of Pure Reason) that in order to turn the idea of a First Cause into an actual fact the ontological argument must be invoked. What the Contingency argument may be doing is saying: "God is that thing that we conceive is holding the universe together." This doesn't prove God exists, rather it only gives us a name for that thing which, if our argument is true, started or is the necessary dependant for everything in the universe. Again, just because we have an idea (especially an a priori concept) of some being does not require us to accept its reality.

In the end, the best that can be said for these arguments is that they may prove that something exists, but that "God" is fairly impotent in today's world. The Uncaused Cause, if true, is merely the "inventor" of the universe and, as far as the argument goes, has only been idly watching the unimaginably complex chain of cause and effect since time began. Or, if Leibniz is correct, God is merely the extra-substantial necessary property of the universe, the "spiritual", super-small particle/energetic glue that binds all effects of energy and matter.