A Counter to the Best Argument against God

Note: This is an article that was originally written back in 2021,  here is the full PDF 

There are a few clarifications that we should highlight: 

1. This is a critical examination of Oppys book "The best argument against God" and the method he employs there. However, Oppy has updated the way he argues against theism in more recent publications that would be immune to some of our criticisms and would also be more stable against our cumulative counter-argument. So this is not a critique of the way Oppy employs his methodology now (more will be written about Oppys updated methodology later in this blog, but not this article) 

2. Some of our own methodology has been updated and we do not think this is the best method for establishing God's existence, but it is certainly ones that Theist are free to employ at least when it comes to cumulative cases

By: Kyle Alander & Tim Howard

Introduction

The work of Graham Oppy has been important to the philosophy of religion. He is greatly respected in the philosophy of religion and has written a great deal of material criticizing theistic arguments. His book "Arguing about God's" is considered by many to be an important critique of the project of natural theology; in his critique of theistic and atheist arguments he expresses that he does not think any of the arguments for or against God to be successful. He believes that none of the arguments are powerful enough to change the minds of reasonable philosophers in the debates on the question of the existence of God. Utilizing his unique views on the purpose of argumentation, he takes a different approach to the God debate in his book "The Best Argument against God". He presents what he calls a "cumulative argument" that attempts to show that Naturalism is the better theory when compared to Theism. He does this by using theoretical virtues and then compares the hypothesis of Theism and Naturalism and attempting to show that when all theoretical virtues are applied, things will tip in favor of Naturalism against Theism. 

In this article the authors will be providing a theistic response to the cumulative argument. Keep in mind we are not professional philosophers however we consider ourselves credible laymen who highly respect Oppy but disagree with his ultimate conclusion. It is our hope we can provide some of our reasons for disputing his ultimate conclusion here. We will agree with Oppy's main conclusion in "Arguing about God's" that no single line of argumentation based on syllogisms for or against God is successful. Because of this we share Oppy’s view that a "cumulative argument" approach which judges theism and naturalism as global explanatory theories is the better route to go. Our goal will be the following: (1) providing an overview of the theoretical virtues (2) present Oppy's cumulative argument for Naturalism in its strongest form (3) provide different lines of criticisms to his cumulative argument to show it's unsuccessful (4) present our "counter-cumulative argument" which shall tip things in favor of Theism against Naturalism. We want to get feedback from philosophers so hopefully we help contribute to the conversation

Overview of theoretical virtues

    We will be employing the same virtues as Oppy does. Here are the main ones:

Simplicity: All else being equal we should prefer the simple theory. Accept the theory which postulates the fewest number of unnecessary assumptions or less complex primitive entities, principles and features, that is that the theory should not be ad hoc

Goodness of fit: prefer the theory that fits best with the data; the best fit may involve some kind of trade-off between simplicity and a direct fit. 

Explanatory power/breath: We should prefer the theory which explains more while avoiding problems. This means we prefer the theory that leaves less unexplained (less brutiness) as well as unify the wider domain of futures. This includes the theory that invokes fewer primitive entities, features and principles and can explain data better than alternatives

Predictability: We should prefer the theory that makes the most accurate predictions of future data. That is the theory that has the most potential to explain and predict what we see in the world

These virtues are not very controversial on the face of it however what should be noted is how some of the virtues can be broken up.

Varieties of simplicity

Occam's Razor - Do not multiply entities beyond necessity 

Occam's Laser - Do not multiply fundamental entities beyond necessity 

Qualitative Simplicity- Least amount of ontological kind of entities/commitments (Ex. What we directly experience) *Categorical Simplicity*

Quantitative Simplicity- Least amount of entities regardless of kind (Ex. The particles, fields we see) 

Varieties of explanatory power

Intrinsic explanatory power: (a) logical tightness; (b) scope of the theory - the ability to unify otherwise separate phenomena; and (c) probability of the theory or model with respect to some well-defined measure.

This type of explanatory power may have to do with how well a hypothesis works with respect to it unifying facts that would on another hypothesis lack unification. A hypothesis with unification then has more intrinsic explanatory power than one without unification. 

Extrinsic explanatory power: It is able to provide a full picture of what happens and has in principle ways of explaining phenomena.

It's interesting to note that any hypothesis can have extrinsic explanatory power. For example one could postulate that all of the evidence for evolution was planted by hyperdimensional aliens and thus it "explains" all evidence for evolution. However what makes this hypothesis lack explanatory power is that it has no intrinsic explanatory power. A theory's intrinsic explanatory power is what really matters. Another way of thinking of intrinsic explanatory power has to do with the simplicity of the explanatory fundamental commitments of any theory. That is if we start off with a very simple fundamental commitment then how much intrinsic explanatory power does this simple commitment have? One can use this to compare the nature of the foundation of reality when it comes to theism vs naturalism as each theory has an ultimate explanation that bottoms things out. This type of simplicity is about the simplicity of an ultimate explanation as well as what type of intrinsic explanatory power a simple ultimate explanation can bring. This is another consideration in theoretical virtues and it is related to unification and explanatory power. So now that we have provided an overview we shall now turn to Oppys cumulative argument. 

Oppy's cumulative argument for Naturalism

In “The Best Argument against God” Graham Oppy goes over many lines of data that theists have traditionally used to support the existence of God. He briefly goes over each data point to argue that naturalism has equal explanatory power as theism when it comes to data points. So, he grants that Theism has explanatory power and that God provides the resources necessary to create the world. However his main line of attack against Theism is about simplicity. Oppy focuses on what exists and the *category of the natural*. Here is a way to see it:

Naturalism = {x1, x2, x3, x4, x5}

Theism = {x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, theistic God}

[Suppose x1-x5 are exhaustive ontological items that naturalists commit to (i.e. the ones that theists take to be part of creation)]

According to this account, the ontological commitments of naturalism are a proper subset of those of theism, meaning naturalism is simpler than theism. Another way to think of it would be to examine contingency and necessity. Here c(xn) means xn is contingent, and n(xn) means xn is necessary

Naturalism = {c(x1), c(x2), c(x3), c(x4), n(x5)}

Theism = {c(x1), c(x2), c(x3), c(x4), c(x5). n(theistic God)}

The set of naturalistic commitments is the list of everything the naturalist thinks exists, anything outside of which is non-existent. One objection to Oppys argument is that the naturalist must posit an additional ontological item that is not God and so they are equal in simplicity. However, given that the theistic God was not within the original naturalistic set, it would follow that the naturalist set is indeed incompatible with theism. So the naturalist need not posit some additional ontological item that is intrinsically incompatible with theism. Rather, the set of things the naturalist commits to is a proper subset of that of theism, namely all the non-God spatiotemporal things, whereas theism includes those plus God. The incompatibility seems guaranteed by the fixed commitments within the sets already outlined. We want to stress this point because some theists have misunderstood Oppy in this regard. For example, another objection used is that Occam's laser shows Theism to be more Simple than naturalism because it only posits one fundamental entity rather than a multitude of entities. There are two big problems with this response (a) the naturalist is free to accept a single fundamental natural entity (like a quantum field) that is the foundation for all existence (b) Oppys argument relies on *categorical simplicity* rather than quantitative simplicity. Here the *category of the natural* will exclude the supernatural. Since God is believed to be supernatural as opposed to natural then God does not fit in the *category* of the natural and so Naturalism is simpler by positing only one kind of category of things rather than two. According to Oppy "Theism is an extension of naturalism - Theism has all of the natural commitments that naturalism has, but adds additional supernatural commitments to it" (pg.88). On Oppy's Naturalism the foundation for all existence is already within the category of the natural and hence it is more simple than positing an extra category which is supernatural. So Oppy favors an Ontological Monism over an Ontological Dualism (where Monism posits one kind of stuff and Dualism posits two kinds of stuff). 

Given that Oppy already has provided a critique of natural theology in his book "Arguing about God's" he believes that no argument for God is successful and hence there is no evidence which can favor Theism against Naturalism. So the conclusion he draws is that Naturalism wins on grounds of Categorical Simplicity alone (once explanatory power has been taken into account). Now that we have presented his argument in its strongest form we shall now begin our line of criticisms against the argument to show that it is unsuccessful in favoring Naturalism against Theism 

Lines of Criticisms to Oppy’s Cumulative Argument for Naturalism

We will begin our criticisms of Oppy’s cumulative argument by demonstrating that his approach to naturalism’s overall simplicity in comparison to theism is misguided. Then, we will show that his proposed final explanation suffers from an irrelevant difference problem. After this, we will present a model of theism that bypasses his cumulative argument altogether. Lastly we will propose idealism as a simpler ontology than naturalism and respond to some of Oppy's arguments against idealism. 

Naturalism’s rival simplicity

In the final analysis, Oppy defends the conclusion that when we compare the two hypotheses (naturalism and theism), by the virtue of simplicity, naturalism has a theoretical advantage. Under naturalism, we only have to appeal to one category of things - the natural - and on theism, we must appeal to an extra category of things, the supernatural. Prima facie, it seems as though this line of reasoning goes through successfully, however, we will show that this reasoning is misguided. Oppy’s argument is aimed at a supernaturalist conception of theism which relies on supernatural explanations of natural reality. By framing it this way, naturalism categorically is a simpler hypothesis since it only needs to explain things in terms of natural reality. This is a controversial way to put things since the supernatural/natural distinction is quite vague and ambiguous. That said, we want to propose a clearer way to proceed that doesn’t rely on supernatural/natural vagaries. The relevant discussion has to do with the foundations of reality. By centering our focus on the foundations, we can accurately evaluate which theory is the simplest and indeed the most virtuous. Let's recall Oppy’s framing of the theories:

Naturalism: (x1, x2, x3, x4...xn)

Theism: (God, x1, x2, x3, x4...xn)

Framing it this way evidently shows that theism has more ontological items than naturalism. But, with our new approach with our focus on the foundations, we get a different picture:

Naturalism: (Initial state, x1, x2, x3, x4...xn)

Theism: (God, x1, x2, x3, x4...xn)

This is quite different. By simply reforming our approach, naturalism and theism come out equal in the number of their ontological items. This is because the only relevant difference between theism and naturalism is the nature of the foundations. In actuality, theism isn’t positing any extra entities at all. An Oppyian naturalism posits a metaphysically necessary initial physical state as the foundation while theism posits a metaphysically necessary supreme being as the foundation. We can actually achieve categorical uniformity this way and end up with both rival hypotheses with an equal number of ontological items. Now that we have achieved equal simplicity, we can move onto the problems Oppy’s foundation faces. Oppy claims that all that exists are natural facts and the only relevant difference between the initial state and everything else is that one is initial (necessary) and the rest are not (contingent). But how can this be so? If, ontologically, all facts of reality are natural then how does an initial natural fact divorce itself from all other natural facts by simply being initial? Here’s an illustration to better drive home our point: let’s say we have a sequence of five green colored blocks and that this sequence represents the totality of reality. All the blocks are uniformly alike in the fact that they are all green and are blocks. The only relevant difference between any of the blocks is their respective position in the sequence. But this doesn’t seem all that interesting to state since we’re merely describing the sequential order of the blocks. It would be odd to say that the first block in the sequence has a special property that the rest of the blocks do not have for the sole reason that it is initial. That idea faces an irrelevant difference problem since all the blocks are uniformly alike. This same problem faces Oppy’s proposed foundation. If Oppy’s foundation is a natural fact like all other natural facts and the only thing distinguishing it from the rest of the natural facts is that it is initial, then, there should be no contingency whatsoever and all natural facts should be necessary since the foundation is necessary. 

Oppy attempts to get around this by proposing objective chance. Events causally unfold from the initial state in a chancey way and therefore you get contingency. While we agree that indeterministic causation is how one would get contingent things, this faces another problem. On an Oppyian naturalism your cues must be taken from cosmology. That is, whatever the physics says about the initial state is the actual nature of ultimate reality. The problem arises when we take into account the fact that the initial would have to be some quantum state described by quantum theory. But there are several competing interpretations of quantum mechanics and not all of them are indeterministic. This means that the final quantum theory could very well be deterministic since that is a live option. If so, then this would generate a modal collapse scenario and everything becomes necessary. In the words of Oppy, “that is the worst possible view you can have''. By committing oneself to the idea that there is no distinctness between the initial state and everything it produces it causes one to accept necessitarianism, which is evidently problematic. We see this as a theoretical cost and a disadvantage for Oppy’s naturalism. 

Theism bypasses these problems since God’s creative act would be freely chosen and reason governed instead of law governed. Next, we want to improve theism’s simplicity even more by opting in for weak-panentheism. Let’s say someone still isn’t convinced that theism is equal in simplicity to naturalism and that an ontological dualism is still at play. We are proposing that a panentheistic view of God and creation is to be preferred over a dualist view. This would introduce the idea that there is no radical distinctness between God and creation which does away with the supernatural/natural distinction completely. In this way, the universe would be created from God and contained within God.

Lastly, we want to go even further and modify our substance ontology. We propose that there is only one fundamental substance and that is the mental. This is what is known as idealism or mentalism, but in the context of this paper, we will be referring to it as idealism. Under the variation of idealism we are advocating for, all is mind and everything exists within universal consciousness. In this view, God is the fundamental mind of reality and everything exists within God’s mind. Call this panentheistic-idealism. We can actually achieve greater simplicity than naturalism on this view since we don’t have to bear the commitments of physicalism, or in Oppy’s case, embrace an identity-theory of mind. In the final analysis, using Oppy’s ockham's razor approach to categorical simplicity, a panentheistic-idealist model of God not only equals naturalism’s simplicity but actually has an advantage over it by adopting substance-monism with a less problematic view of consciousness.   

Defending Idealism

This last line of criticism could not be complete without a mention of Oppys essay titled "Against idealism". Indeed Oppy is well aware of the idealist ontology and argues on similar grounds regarding the Simplicity of Naturalism. Oppy when making the comparative review makes different lines of arguments against idealism which will briefly be touched upon. First Oppy is mistaken when he implies that idealists are committed to a "supernatural" mind that is behind the universe. Once again on Ontological Monism everything - including God - is the same Ontological category. So Naturalism cannot win against idealism on grounds of categorical Simplicity. Additionally suppose the naturalist is committed to the simplest version of the view. All that exists is spacetime, properties, and sets, and from this one can build all of the other objects that make up the observable universe of "minded organisms, sofas, sculptures, cars . . . ". That gives three kinds of basic entities. The idealist, however, needs only one kind of basic entity, an experiencing mind (or some experiencing minds). Given the existence of experiencing minds, the idealist can account for the total structure of reality in much simpler commitments than the naturalists can. 

Second, Oppy claims that naturalist is committed to the ideology needed to characterize the universe with its denseness and nothing else and on the other hand the idealist is committed to the ideology needed to characterize universe and to the ideology needed to characterize supernatural minds, minds for minded organisms and contents of minds (Idealism: New Essays in metaphysics 58). Furthermore the naturalist is committed to one kind of causation which is natural causation however according to idealists there are two types of causation the natural causation within the universe and the type of causation that underwrites transfer of information between minds in the purely temporal domain in which minds are located. 

Our response: We believe this type of argument is misguided. Consider the following comparison: You experience physical objects but these objects have properties. You experience mental phenomena like color, sounds, textures, forms, feelings, etc. What you experience is properties, not physical objects directly. If you remove the properties, there is nothing left to describe an object. Think of an apple. You can describe it as red, round, hard, shiny, and tasty. However, if you remove all of these in principle sensible properties, what are you left with to describe the object? You lack a material substance to account for the apple. Instead, you experience it purely in terms of in principle sensible properties. When you remove these in principle sensible properties then nothing is left. So contrary to Oppy's comparison it is actually the naturalist who is "adding" stuff to what we already experience. What the idealist uses to characterize the universe are in principle sensible properties (colors, shapes, sounds, smells, textures forms etc.) and nothing else. What the naturalist uses to characterize the universe are the same in principle sensible properties but also attributes an additional material substance to these properties. Furthermore, the idealist is also only committed to one causation which is mental causation. The naturalist and idealist both accept there is an objective causal reality however the idealist simply does not acknowledge that this world is ontologically distinct from consciousness itself. Indeed by idealists looking upon the world that is outside their own personal mentation it is fully compatible with natural causation. And the "location" of minds could be further explained by us being disassociated psyches of universal consciousness. This would happen through the same underlying natural processes of nature since life is the extrinsic appearance of disassociated psyches. The idea is we are all localized dissociative alters of universal consciousness. The philosopher Bernardo Kastrup has used this idea to explain private minds giving idealism explanatory power. 

Oppys third line of argument has to do with the laws and principles invoked. On one hand naturalism is committed to just those principles and laws that are required for the universe and on the other hand idealism committed to those principles and laws that are required for the universe as well as the laws and principles that are required for minds. 

Our response: We believe that idealism is equal in simplicity in regards to the laws of nature. Under Naturalism the laws of nature are seen as irreducible causal powers somehow built into the fabric of the cosmos (this cosmos is ontologically beyond consciousness). Under idealism such irreducible causal powers are posited to somehow be built into universal consciousness itself. However they are the same patterns that Naturalism entails as inherent to Consciousness as physical laws are allegedly inherited to the fabric of space-time. So idealism poses no extra difficulty than Naturalism does in this regard. On idealism the laws of nature are governing universal consciousness just as any physical laws on Naturalism are governing the cosmos. Minds and Natural reality are not distinct rather they are both the same kind and run by the same underlying laws. On idealism the foundation for reality is mind and reality itself would be inherently mental. So Naturalism is no better off than idealism when it comes to natural laws

Finally, Oppy argues that God's creative intentions are new theoretical commitments however God's intentions on idealism do not introduce any new commitments that naturalism wouldn't have, rather, it simply relocates the commitment to God's intentions. God's intentions would then be where causal reality unfolds from through what we call "natural processes". 

A lot more could be said on each of the arguments presented. In the essay Oppy does make good points regarding the trade off between simplicity and explanatory power. Furthermore Oppy points out limitations of the argument regarding point-by-point comparisons since one can sketch a view of idealism that is superior to all forms of naturalism. In certain conversations Oppy equates idealism to occasionalism. In our idealism God does not cause every experience to happen through some occasionalist causation. Rather the creative world is autonomous in God's mind which will itself be responsible for the laws and regularities of the world. Created substances can be efficient causes of events in an idealist universe. An idealist universe would be a sort of dream where God is the dreamer and we are the dream characters who are experiencing the world. This would allow it where God's mental contents are autonomous and so God doesn't directly cause each experience to happen but rather there can be causal links and these are the “natural processes” that go on. What we call the "universe" would then just be God's public mental canvas where "material" forms and objects are able to causally interact in an ordered and rational way.

In conclusion, Oppy's cumulative argument against theism is unsuccessful when faced with a panentheistic-idealist model of God. In the final analysis, Oppy’s naturalism is not a simpler hypothesis than our preferred hypothesis of theism and faces several issues regarding irrelevant differences, contingency, and modal collapse scenarios. 

Theistic Counter-Cumulative Argument

    Now that we have presented our response to oppys cumulative argument we shall now be presenting our own counter-cumulative argument that will tip things in favor of theism against naturalism. 

Our cumulative argument will be using principles that will help to discover the nature of the foundation for reality. Our goal will be to derive what we call Ultimate metaphysical bedrock. Ultimate Metaphysical bedrock- When we have applied all explanatory and brutiness-reducing principles so there is no deeper explanation, we have reached the ultimate bedrock (the ultimate foundation or root for reality). 

These principles will be laid out and once we put them in place we shall show that Theism has more overall simplicity and explanatory power when it comes to explaining and unifying facts about the world. The main goal of our cumulative argument is to show the following: when we compare the simplicity of the explanatory fundamental commitments between theism and naturalism then theism is the winner. This type of simplicity is about the simplicity of an ultimate explanation as well as what type of intrinsic explanatory power a simple ultimate explanation can bring. However we shall first present what type of Theism we wish to employ 

Our preferred theism is a Panentheistic Idealism. This Theism is Monistic in nature and hence it bypasses Oppy's cumulative argument. We will not be defending the Supernaturalist Theism that Oppy critiques because we agree with Oppy that two categories of things (Ontological Dualism) is going to be a theoretical cost. Thus we argue that our type of Theism is better than both Oppy's Naturalism as well as Supernaturalist Theism. We do not wish to critique Supernaturalist Theism in this essay. We believe that Oppy's cumulative argument at least poses an important challenge to Supernaturalist Theism in terms of Categorical Simplicity. But we do not wish to defend or attack the view. Our main target will be to argue against Metaphysical Naturalism and for our preferred Panentheistic Idealism

First since Panentheistic Idealism is equal in terms of Categorical Simplicity then we should focus our attention to the explanatory principles. The first of these explanatory principles would be the PSR (principle of sufficient reason). Graham Oppy already agrees with this principle as do most contemporary naturalists. However we wish to employ another principle which is a natural extension of the PSR which we call the PSU (principle of simple unification). The principle states the following: 

Principle of Simple Unification (PSU)- For any set of entities and/or facts whether contingent or necessary that exist, there is a simple unifying root that unifies the set of contingent and/or necessary entities/facts. 

This principle will be critical to our cumulative argument. What this implies is that within any hypothesis about the nature of the world we should prefer the theory which has unification against a theory that lacks unification. What we need is a hypothesis that unifies the following facts: (a) Logic; (b) Mathematics; (c) Consciousness; (d) Morality; (e) Teleology (fine-tuning); (f) Religious Experiences; (g) Beauty; (h) Awareness-Expanding Adventures; (i) Narrative Structure. (Note:*(h) & (i) are about explaining the different types of evil & suffering*) 

There could be more facts added such as (j) global causal structure; (k) biological design; (l) Scripture & Authority however we are only focused on the main data points laid out. The reason for bringing all these to the table is that naturalists do have explanations for each of these. For example we can say that (a),(b),(d),(e) are all necessary. So then the reason that the universe is fine-tuned is because the universe is necessary and the foundational laws have to be a certain way. The reason that objective morality exists is because some things are necessarily good & bad in all possible worlds. The reason that mathematics is applicable to our universe is simply because it is necessary. Oppy uses his specific theory of modality to give necessities to all of these items (or some of them). One could also say these are just brute facts and no deeper explanation is required. 

This seems all nice and good until we get to this problem: Each necessity exists in isolation. The better and more simple explanation is ALL these necessities came from the same root. They are all united under something which has no arbitrary limits or unnecessary complexity. Anything with unnecessary complexity or limits is something that cannot be the root as it's not something which can unite all brute and necessary facts. In fact if we are to take a metaphysical naturalistic theory and then we simply add in a simple root to provide an explanation for the unification of these facts and why they all exist in the same world then it would make Naturalism better. 

This is where we can come to a comparison of Theism and Naturalism

Theism: Perfection as foundation for reality

Naturalism: Imperfection as foundation for reality 

Here something that is perfect we can call "purely positive". It would be what God is in his fundamental nature. Something that is perfect is something with no limit to its value & has the resources to produce a world like ours. Also on our brand of Theism we would agree with naturalists on everything being the same ontological category. So Theism is not adding new stuff. On Theism perfection is the foundation for reality. Now Naturalism which posits an imperfect foundation to reality requires multiple sources to ground different things. An imperfect foundation has to have a different sources to ground matter, mind, morals, reason and value. In fact one could say that an imperfect foundation may be only able to account for one of these things. So it may be able to explain the existence of matter but not able to explain the existence of morals, value or reason and so it has to have different sources for those things. A perfect foundation by contrast grounds all these things with only one source which is perfection. More features of reality are explained by a perfect simple root while imperfection lacks this explanatory power at its own simple root. 

This would be the first implication of the PSU. However an additional explanatory principle we can put forth would be this: 

Principle of Simple Containment (PSC)- For any simple unifying root that unifies a set of contingent and/or necessary entities/facts, the unifying root is itself a simple containment of those entities/facts that make them unified. 

This is where I can get a little more complicated but bear with us. First this principle would be a natural extension of the PSU. This is because if we are dealing with necessities or brute facts then we cannot say that they are derivative. Rather we are taking necessities and brute facts to relocate them in a simple root. The unifying root has an intrinsic nature that would unify brute facts and necessities. Thus it provides the deepest explanation for why brute facts and necessities should all exist in the same world. A unifying root has a brutiness reducing nature which gives it more intrinsic explanatory power.  

Finally the last principle would be this: Principle of Sufficient Resources (PSR2)- For any simple containment of those entities/facts that makes them unified, the simple containment or unifying root must have sufficient resources to produce or explain any world which includes the set of entities/facts in it

The PSU, PSC & PSR2 all point to a purely positive and perfect foundation. 

From Unification to Theism

A naturalistic foundation such as an initial state would not contain the laws of mathematics. They would be located somewhere else. But where would they be? They couldn't be in the initial state. There is nothing about the initial state that would predict all the data points earlier. If we consider objective morality or the laws of logic then what contains them? It would seem that unifying the necessities into a necessary unifying root would provide the explanatory power needed

For example if we consider the hypothesis of theism then here are some implications:

1. Purely positive entity is the simple container of any fundamental (a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i) 

2. Purely positive entity has the resources to produce a world that includes (a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i)  

3. Purely positive entity is the unifying root and container for (a) Logic; (b) Mathematics; (c) Consciousness; (d) Morality; (e) Teleology (fine-tuning); (f) Religious Experiences; (g) Beauty; (h) Awareness-Expanding Adventures; (i) Narrative Structure

4. A purely positive being would be the only fundamental commitment of a theory. Furthermore it has explanatory power by it unifying necessary truths given the nature of a perfect entity. Thus theism would have unification

With all this we see that Theism has more intrinsic explanatory power. Naturalism would have more unexplained necessary truths. There would be truths about the world that are just there without a simple foundational root. A perfect foundation however provides the root necessary to ground all necessary truths. A perfect foundation is the unifying root & container for all facts and so since a perfect foundation has the least amount of unexplained necessary truths then it is a simpler hypothesis. On the perfect foundation, more of the necessary truths can be explained by the simple root . A perfect entity has intrinsic explanatory power by unifying otherwise separated phenomena. The mental, material, moral, mathematical and valuable aspects of our world all emerge from the unifying root. They all flow from the perfection of the foundation. From here perfection predicts the perfect way of being which is the foundation of all moral principles. From perfection flows perfect knowledge which is the foundation of all principles of reason and mathematics. Moreover a perfect mind has reason to create a material world suitable for other minds. The perfection of the foundation then successfully predicts every dimension of our world. 

With this in mind we can thus make the following analysis in regards to explanatory principles: 

 Principles of Simplicity

Occam's Razor - Do not multiply entities beyond necessity 

Occam's Laser - Do not multiply fundamental entities beyond necessity 

Qualitative Simplicity- Least amount of ontological kind of entities/commitments (Ex. What we directly experience) *Categorical Simplicity*

Quantitative Simplicity- Least amount of entities regardless of kind (Ex. The particles, fields we see) 

Unification Explanatory Principles

Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)- All contingent facts must have an explanation

Principle of Simple Unification (PSU)- For any set of entities and/or facts whether contingent or necessary that exist, there is a simple unifying root that unifies the set of contingent and/or necessary entities/facts. 

Principle of Simple Containment (PSC)- For any simple unifying root that unifies a set of contingent and/or necessary entities/facts, the unifying root is itself a simple containment of those entities/facts that make them unified. 

Principle of Sufficient Resources (PSR2)- For any simple containment of those entities/facts that makes them unified, the simple containment or unifying root must have sufficient resources to produce or explain any world which includes the set of entities/facts in it

Intrinsic explanatory power: (a) logical tightness; (b) scope of the theory - the ability to unify otherwise separate phenomena; and (c) probability of the theory or model with respect to some well-defined measure;

Brutiness-Reducing Principles 

Principle of no fundamental arbitrary limits- Do not multiply fundamental unexplained/arbitrary limits at fundamental entities 

Principle of irrelevant differences- If there is no relevant difference in regards to the degree or quantity of something that the simple containment or unifying root can produce in respect to its fundamental powers then we have no good reason to think it's fundamental powers are limited

Principle of reduced explanatory brutiness- In any competing explanations of phenomena one should prefer the explanation which has partial or no bruteness over an explanation of full brutiness

Ultimate metaphysically simple unified bedrock

Applying Occam's Razor & Laser

(i) Fundamental entity is purely positive 

Applying Qualitative/categorical simplicity (ii) Ontological category is a world of pure experience (metaphysical idealism) 

Applying Unification explanatory principles 

(iii) Purely positive entity is the unifying root and container for (a) Logic; (b) Mathematics; (c) Consciousness; (d) Morality; (e) Teleology (fine-tuning); (f) Religious Experiences; (g) Beauty; (h) Awareness-Expanding Adventures; (i) Narrative Structure *(h) & (i) are about explaining the different types of evil & suffering* 

(iv) Purely positive entity is the simple container of any fundamental (a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i) 

(v) Purely positive entity has the resources to produce a world that includes (a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i) 

(vi) Purely positive entity has intrinsic explanatory power by unifying otherwise separated phenomena. 

Applying Brutiness-Reducing principles 

(vii) Purely positive entity has no fundamental arbitrary limits and so it has sufficient resources

(viii) Purely positive entity has a relevant difference in regards to it lacking imperfections and fundamental limits

(ix) Purely positive entity has either partial or no brutiness in explaining facts about the world

Conclusion: The ultimate metaphysical bedrock of reality is a purely positive entity (perfect God) and this God will create a world of pure experience (when all explanatory principles are applied)

Answering final objections & comparing a naturalistic foundation to God

One last objection that can be brought against this argument is that a perfect foundation (perfect God) is more complex because it is a mind. Consider that a mental foundation would have more intentions so then every choice that God makes would be an additional commitment and be a brute contingency. However also consider that a naturalistic foundation would need to have indeterminacy to avoid necessitarianism. If this is the case then each universe would have its own probabilities. On naturalism the indeterminacy of the probabilities would be brute as there is no explanation for why the probabilities are a certain way. The universe's selection pressures would remain unexplained on naturalism. A perfect foundation, however, would explain these selection pressures in terms of the respective value the universes possess. So, the choice to create universe A, B or C would be in terms of the intentions the perfect foundation has. A perfect foundation will always do what is good and what is better. To this extent, if universe C has greater value than universe A and B, then the perfect foundation will actualize universe C on the basis of it being greater in value because it is better to do so. So instead of having brute contingencies at the probabilities the brutiness is greatly reduced since the choice to create one universe over another is in terms of value. This would explain why the probabilities are the way they are and not just why one universe is created over others. It would establish why any universe with a certain probability would even have those probabilities in the first place rather than them being fully brute. The probabilities are explained in terms of the nature of God. 

Consider that you have a meat eater and this meat eater preferes steak seasoned. If we lay out steaks for them to choose from then we can approximate the probabilities given the nature of the meat eater what they would choose to eat. The meats that are less seasoned would have less probabilities. In a similar way we can explain the probabilities and indeterminacy of the different universes in terms of God's nature and approximate what type of world God would create. For example a universe that only exists for a few seconds would be less valuable than a universe that includes things like life and a structured cosmos. This would explain why other possible universes that God could have created are less probable than the one we are in now. A theory which explains why the probabilities are as they are has superior explanatory power to a theory that simply takes for granted why the probabilities are as they are. Let's look at the following comparison 

Theism: God's nature is what explains the different probabilities

Naturalism: The different probabilities are brute

You can't explain the instantiation of particular entities like life or an ordered universe on the basis of lawlike impersonal forces because this would reduce those laws to being fully brute. If the naturalist is only interested in the structural relations that exist, the structural theories that best explain all of our data then the set of laws these theories appeal too would all be brute facts. However a perfect foundation that is mind-like would explain a lot more because the laws themselves are explained given the nature of God. Furthermore if we are appealing to structural theories then both theist and naturalist can just reduce the laws to powers so the naturalist and theist are equal in the laws being particular powers. But the theist has a simpler explanation given there is no limit to God's powers however on naturalism one would need to specify a cutoff to the powers of some naturalistic foundation. 

Grand unified theories & ultimate explanation

We can think of Theism as an modified Naturalism to increase unification. First is that everything is the same kind of thing so we retain Categorical Simplicity. Unification is when older theories will be subsumed into the newer ones. Take these for example: Classical physics is subsumed into quantum physics, Neo-Darwinism is subsumed into the extended evolutionary synthesis, Geocentrism is subsumed into heliocentrism, and one day quantum mechanics and general relativity will be subsumed into a theory of quantum gravity. The pattern is that the newer theories have more unification since they can intrinsically explain more than older theories. This is how science progresses throughout the ages. What we are saying is that the same holds true for metaphysical theories. Naturalism is subsumed into Theism. Panentheistic Idealism would be a unified Naturalism.

On Naturalism what you have are necessary truths such as the laws of nature or objective morality. Naturalists may argue that Theism is "adding" unwarranted entities but the same can be said of any new theory. Science progresses when relocating commitments into larger and more unified frameworks through logical or physical consequences. We don't say for example that quantum physics is "adding" unwarranted entities. Rather we are relocating the commitments of classical physics into a quantum physics framework to explain more. The commitments of classical physics are all consequences of the commitments of quantum physics. Similarly on a Theistic framework we are beginning with a very small set of fundamental truths (in this case a perfect God). From this perfect being you will explain and unify all necessities and these necessities will have necessary consequences that link them together. Necessities would be consequences of other necessities and so on. The linking structure of the necessities would be unified by the perfect God. The fundamental commitment (Perfect God) makes intelligible the other necessary things as it simplifies & unifies everything into a very simple ultimate explanation. However in Naturalism it does not have a perfect being to ground necessities but rather the necessities are (just there) without explanation. Naturalism has a larger number of fundamental theoretical commitments in its framework. The naturalist has to posit an abundance of different necessities. Every time that naturalists posit necessities to explain phenomena or try to provide any alternative to Theism when it comes to some set of data they are adding more fundamental theoretical commitments into their framework which is a theoretical cost. This increases the complexity of Naturalisms ultimate explanation and thus it is less simple than Theism. The conclusion from this is that the Theistic framework has more intrinsic explanatory power by unifying the necessities of Naturalism into the more fundamental commitment (in this case a perfect God) and this fundamental commitment is the simplest ultimate explanation. 

Summary of the cumulative Argument

A lot more could be said on the cumulative argument but we feel that it can be considered an argument that is a work in progress. We do not think the current formalization of the argument is its best and final form. More work needs to be done on the principles we laid out. However we are presenting this argument as a proposal to help the dialectic. The fundamental commitment of Theism would be a purely positive being with no fundamental arbitrary limits. What we mean by "fundamental" is about God's ultimate nature. When we examine God's ultimate nature it has an intrinsic unifying aspect to it that provides resources to explain our world. Explain things like mind, matter, reason, mathematics, value and all the other facts of the world. Furthermore even if some of these are brute facts the very idea that they are unified means that there is less overall brutiness involved in the ultimate explanation.  

There are two hypotheses about the world. The first is Panentheistic Idealism where God is the same category as the natural but there is only one fundamental commitment in the hypothesis. The second is Naturalism where everything can be explained by necessities or brute facts so it may require multiple fundamental commitments. On Panentheistic Idealism we have only one fundamental entity that is the container & unifying root for all aspects of reality. Thus Panentheistic Idealism (1) has equal categorical simplicity as Naturalism but also (2) has a single fundamental commitment which can explain facts about the world on its own. This type of Theism does not need to posit separated explanations for different facts about the world nor does it require we imply theism requires “extra ontological stuff”. Rather the one and only fundamental commitment of theism can unify all facts. Everything is explained by the one fundamental commitment and so we have the most simple ultimate explanation. Naturalism on the other hand has multiple fundamental commitments when it comes to its explanatory power because it's ultimate explanation has more explanatory fundamental commitments than Theism

The final assessment is that Theism and Naturalism have the same number of commitments when it comes to both quantitative and categorical simplicity. However naturalism has more explanatory fundamental commitments than Theism when it comes to the ultimate & final explanation. Naturalisms explanatory fundamental commitments are relocated to God's unifying nature so Theism isn't adding new commitments. In other words Theism fuses Naturalisms multiplicity of fundamental commitments to only one fundamental commitment on the ultimate & final explanation. Understanding God’s nature is done through methodological unification and understanding what unifies the facts of the world. So deriving God’s nature requires first reducing all major categories of phenomena into their respective universal commitments and then establishing an ontological priority between them using the same method. This makes God the most simple ontological state with the broadest explanatory power as God would be what unifies these commitments into a simple unified ultimate explanation. Given this view of God's nature our brand of Theism wins against Naturalism on grounds of theoretical virtues like intrinsic explanatory power as well as overall simplicity. Theism gets both categorical simplicity & uniformity while also having the simplest ultimate explanation. Thus we can conclude: when we compare the simplicity of the explanatory fundamental commitments between theism and naturalism then theism is the winner on it's categorical simplicity, categorical uniformity and it having the simplest unified ultimate explanation.