Metaphysical necessity

In philosophy, metaphysical necessity, sometimes called broad logical necessity,[1] is one of many different kinds of necessity, which sits between logical necessity and nomological (or physical) necessity. A proposition is a said to be necessary if it could not have been the case. The concept of a metaphysically necessary being plays an important role in certain arguments for the existence of God, especially the ontological argument. Metaphysical necessity has proved a controversial concept, and criticized by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, J. L. Mackie, and Richard Swinburne, among others.

Metaphysical necessity is contrasted with other types of necessity. For example, the philosophers of religion John Hick[2] and William L. Rowe[3] distinguished the following three:

  1. factual necessity (existential necessity): a factually necessary being is not causally dependent on any other being, while any other being is causally dependent on it.
  2. causal necessity (subsumed by Hicks under the former type): a causally necessary being is such that it is logically impossible for it to be causally dependent on any other being, and it is logically impossible for any other being to be causally independent of it.
  3. logical necessity: a logically necessary being is a being whose non-existence is a logical impossibility, and which therefore exists either timeless or eternally in all possible worlds.

While many theologians (e.g. Anselm of Canterbury, René Descartes, and Gottfried Leibniz) considered God as logically or metaphysically necessary being, Richard Swinburne argued for factual necessity, and Alvin Plantinga argues that God is a causally necessary being. Because a factually or causally necessary being does not exist by logical necessity, it does not exist in all logically possible worlds.[4] Therefore, Swinburne used the term "ultimate brute fact" for the existence of God.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Brian Leftow, God and Necessity (2012). ISBN 0191654876, 9780191654879
  2. ↑ John Hick (1961): Necessary Being. - Scottish Journal of Theology, 1961: 353-369.
  3. ↑ William L. Rowe (1998): The Cosmological Argument. Fordham Univ Press, 273 pp.
  4. ↑ Ronald H. Nash (1983): The Concept of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 108
  5. ↑ Richard Swinburne (2004): The Existence of God. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 96

External links

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