A new argument for God's existence from non-bruteness

Abstract
I propose a new argument for God's existence. This argument doesn't aim to find a sufficient or ultimate reason for us for why this world exists. It merely departs from the premise that there must be an ultimate reason (even though we will never know it) for why this world exists. The argument then explores what characteristics such an ultimate reason need to have: it needs to be self-evident in an absolute sense (i.e., its self-evidence needs to transcend all possible worlds - even the empty one) in order for it to be truly an ultimate reason. And then my argument moves on by explaining that by virtue of the nature of self-evidence, it must be at least possibly conceivable. More specifically, something that’s self-evident in an absolute sense must be possibly conceivable as being self-evident in an absolute sense. But, as I argue as part of my argument, only a being that is itself positioned at the absolute and thus has an absolute point of view could conceive of something as being self-evident in an absolute sense. So it follows that possibly an absolute mind exists. And, without deploying S5 modal logic, it then follows that an absolute mind actually exists - so that God exists. The mere fact that there is an ultimate reason for why the world exists, thus entails that God exists. And surely the content of this ultimate reason (which is, as said, for us as humans unknowable) would then also have to entail that God exists.

The argument
In what follows I propose a new argument for the existence of God. I call it the argument from non-bruteness. The fact that there is being and that it has the fundamental structure it has cannot be merely a brute fact. There must be some ultimate explanation for why there is being and why it has the fundamental characteristics it has. Such an explanation must be a regress-of-explanation-ender. Otherwise, it is not an ultimate explanation. It must thus be self-evident in-and-of-itself. That is to say, it must be self-evident regardless of which non-empty or empty possible world is actual. Hence, it must be self-evident in an absolute sense. But it can only be self-evident in an absolute sense if it is conceived to be self-evident in an absolute sense. Now, only a conscious mind that is itself positioned at the absolute, and thus has an absolute perspective, could conceive of it as being self-evident in an absolute sense. Therefore, there must be a conscious mind that is at the absolute. And a mind located at the absolute is properly referred to as God.

Here, an absolute perspective is what’s often also referred to as an Archimedean point of view: a perspective that transcends all contingent points of view. Sometimes it’s called a God’s eye view since indeed only an absolute being properly referred to as 'God' could have such a wholly unconstraint perspective. Let me unpack a bit the last step of the argument. Suppose the content of the ultimate absolute self-evident explanation of the world is C. Now, surely, say, a human being might very well be able to grasp content C if confronted with C. That’s not the issue. And, surely, a human being might very well be able to grasp content C as being self-evident for him or her as a human being. That’s not the issue either. But to grasp C as being self-evident not merely from our human point of view, but from the absolute point of view, requires something human beings lack, namely an absolute viewpoint. Only if you stand in the shoes of an absolute being, can you experience whether or not something is self-evident from the absolute point of view. After all, for all we know something that’s self-evident from the human point of view might not be self-evident from the absolute point of view and vice versa. We can never step outside of our human condition and into the shoes of an absolute being. So we will never know whether what’s humanly self-evident is also absolutely self-evident or the other way around. Indeed, only an absolute mind having an absolute point of view could conceive of something as being self-evident in an absolute sense, which is precisely what I claim in the last step of the argument.

So, to hold that an explanation is self-evident in an absolute sense, means that it is self-evident regardless of any particular partial perspective or context. It is thus not contingent on specific conditions. You and I and other human beings are inherently limited in our perspective. Our human cognitive capacities are bound by our specific contingent cognitive faculties. So, even though we can recognize certain propositions as being self-evident to us, we cannot claim that our recognition is absolute. Our perspective is always conditional and partial.

The core step of my argument is the claim that the ultimate explanation of the world can only be self-evident in an absolute sense if it is conceived as self-evident in an absolute sense. Indeed, for something to be self-evident in an absolute sense it must be exemplified as self-evident in an absolute sense. But that requires it to be conceived as self-evident from an absolute perspective. Without such conceiving the ultimate explanation is not actualized as self-evident in an absolute sense. Since only a conscious mind that is positioned at the absolute and thus has an absolute perspective can conceive of the ultimate explanation as self-evident in an absolute sense, it follows that there is a conscious mind that is positioned at the absolute. Hence, God exists.

One may respond that the ultimate explanation of being does not have to be actualized in the understanding of a conscious mind because it would be sufficient for such an explanation to remain merely potential. Yet, even if the ultimate explanation of the world is not actualized, it must, by virtue of being an explanation, still be actualizable. That is to say, even if it is not conceived by a conscious mind, it must still be conceivable by some conscious mind. For just as a hand that cannot be connected to a body is not truly a hand, an explanation that cannot be conceived is not truly an explanation. Epistemic explanations, like semantic meanings, are fundamentally relational. There must therefore be a conscious mind that is able to conceive and thereby actualize the ultimate explanation of the world. As argued above, the ultimate explanation is self-evident in an absolute sense. Otherwise, it is not an ultimate explanation. But how can said mind grasp or comprehend something as self-evident in an absolute sense? It can only understand something as self-evident in an absolute sense if it is an absolute mind having an absolute perspective. Again, it follows that God exists.

The first premise of my argument is the non-bruteness premise. One may reject this premise, of course. That is to say, one may not accept that there must be some ultimate explanation of the world. That is why I have called my argument the argument from non-bruteness. The argument shows that to the extent that it is plausible that there is an ultimate explanation for why this world exists, it is plausible that God exists. And many do believe that there is plausibly some ultimate explanation of the world. What my argument shows is that if there is some ultimate explanation of reality, it follows that theism is true. Thus, the argument effectively rules out non-theistic ultimate explanations. Therefore, if my argument is successful, then the atheist has to maintain that there is no ultimate explanation of the world - which for many atheists may not be a desirable position to be in.

Finally, it's important to point out that I can limit myself for my argument to self-evident explanations and to the mere metaphysical possibility of there being a conscious being that conceives it as being self-evident. That is to say, I can further improve my argument. Let me explain. If an explanation is truly self-evident, then it’s reasonable to hold that it must at least be metaphysically possibly conceivable as being indeed self-evident. If it’s metaphysically impossible for that explanation to be conceived as being self-evident, it’s not genuinely self-evident. Being at least possibly conceived as being self-evident seems to be part of the very nature of self-evidence. Being self-evident refers to a reflextive stance towards its content. This line of reasoning is indeed already sufficient for my argument. For only a possible absolute being having an absolute perspective would be able to conceive of the absolute self-evident explanation of the world as being absolutely self-evident. So it follows that there exists possibly an absolute mind having an absolute perspective. There is in other words a possible world in which such an absolute being exists. Since this absolute mind is uncaused and not existentially dependent on anything else for its existence, it exists in fact in all possible worlds - including the actual world. So this absolute being exists actually. Hence it still follows that God exists.

Additional note for those who would like to understand how this argument relates to my world-for-us epistemology:

On my theory of knowledge we are doing metaphysics within the-world-for-us. So, all our claims are always already claims within the-world-for-us. The-world-in-itself is for us inescapably unknowable.

This is the first sense of saying that the absolute is unknowable. We will never be able to transcend the-world-for-us. We will never be able to grasp the-world-in-itself. We inevitably do all our projects, including metaphysics, within the-world-for-us.

Hence, a successful metaphysical argument for God’s existence leads us towards a God within the-world-for-us. That is to say, it leads us towards a God-for-us. For, again, such an argument doesn’t give us any insight in the-world-in-itself.

Normally I don’t refer to this meta-epistemic level and just engage in doing metaphysics. Now, I maintain that the claim that there must be some absolute self-evident ultimate explanation of the world is justified (and thus only justified) as a claim about or within the-world-for-us. It’s a claim internal to the-world-for-us. For it’s not justified as a claim about the-world-in-itself.

Moreover, the claim that we are not able to access this absolute self-evident ultimate explanation is also only justified as a claim about or within the-world-for-us. This is the second sense of saying that we cannot know the absolute.

The second sense refers to a characteristic within the-world-for-us, whereas the first sense refers to the interplay between the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

There are good arguments for God’s existence within the-world-for-us. So within the-world-for-us we can know that God exists. And God is within the-world-for-us of course not to be equated with the absolute self-evident ultimate explanation. Indeed, God is a being and not some absolute self-evident truth.

Hence, there’s no contradiction. The three claims below can all be coherently affirmed simultaneously.

1. We cannot know anything about the-world-in-itself (i.e., the first sense of saying that the absolute is unknowable).

2. The proposition “There is an ultimate absolute self-evident explanation of the world and we are not able to know this explanation” is justified as a claim about or within the-world-for-us (i.e., the second sense of saying that the absolute is unknowable).

3. The proposition “God exists” is justified as a claim about or within the-world-for-us.

Again, God is a conscious being in the-world-for-us that is the first cause of everything in the-world-for-us. Thus God is, of course, not equal to the ultimate absolute self-evident explanation in the-world-for-us. Conscious beings may know explanations, but are not themselves explanations.

It’s an interesting question within the-world-for-us how the ultimate absolute self-evident explanation of the world within the-world-for-us relates to God within the-world-for-us. With respect to how things are within the-world-for-us, my new argument suggests not only that God knows the ultimate absolute self-evident explanation of the world, but it also suggests that the mere fact that this explanation exists necessitates God’s existence, even without considering the specific content of the explanation. Of course, in this case, the specific content of the absolute ultimate explanation of the world also has to entail Gods existence.