I'm perplexed as to why this video has so many likes. Tim Maudlin is indeed an excellent and skilled philosopher, and his arguments and lectures usually merit serious consideration, but on *this* issue he really dropped the ball.

He starts off by saying that this question of whether absolute non-being is possible-- of why there is existence rather than non-existence-- lacks a satisfactory answer. There just *isn't* a satisfactory answer to give or receive, says Maudlin.

Then, after some prompting from Kuhn, Maudlin tells us that mathematical and moral values could not be different no matter how different the physical world were. This leads Kuhn to suggest that these are therefore "necessary" truths, and Maudlin seems to agree that they are.

This then leads Kuhn to suggest that Maudlin is, on his own view, therefore committed to a category of "necessary existence." Here Maudlin seems to get confused as to what Kuhn means. But this isn't a confusing question; the question is whether there is any actual aspect of reality that has to exist and could fail to exist, and relatedly, whether there are truths that cannot be fail to obtain. If Maudlin isn't confident one way or another, he could have just said that. There is a fact of the matter, even if we disagree on it.

If Maudlin says "no" -- if he thinks that there isn't an aspect of reality that is non-contingent/necessary -- then he would be insinuating (if not outright asserting) that the contingent physical realm just IS the totality of reality.

In that case, the question becomes whether the physical realm *has* to exist-- whether the non-existence of physical reality is possible. Here Maudlin seems confused by what we mean by "possible," but, as before, this really shouldn't be confusing. Another phrasing would be the following: Could *all* physical reality *fail* to exist? This question is coherent/intelligible, even if Maudlin isn't confident in any answer.

If Maudlin wants to say that, no, physical reality could not fail to exist, then he'd be claiming that the answer to the original question -- why is there anything at all -- is to be found within the nature of physical reality itself; i.e. that physical reality, or at least some aspect of physical reality, exists by a necessity of its own nature. This answer is intelligible, even if false. If Maudlin goes this route then he appears to be "satisfied" with it.

This is arguably implausible though. Leaving aside questions concerning the finitude of the past (which WLC dwells on), one could still argue like Leibniz or Pruss or Feser that physical reality is contingent even if its past is beginningless. See Pruss's chapter in the 2009 Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and also chapter 2 of Ed Feser's 2017 book "Five Proofs." Perhaps they're mistaken though. I won't spell it all out here.

  Going back to Maudlin's idea that moral and mathematical values are somehow "not physical" and "couldn't be different" even if physics were different, this notion seems to imply that indeed some aspect of reality *is* non-physical and non-contingent, otherwise Maudlin would just be wrong when he says that these truths wouldn't change regardless of how much physical reality were changed. Kuhn sees this, although his way of expressing it may have confused Maudlin. He hints at it by asking Maudlin whether the laws of physics *have* to exist. He wants to know whether moral and mathematical truths would "exist" in the *absence* of all physical reality, including the laws of physics. If there were NO physical reality at all -- if there were NO laws of physics, no subatomic particles at all (no quarks, no photons, etc), no strings at all, no fields at all, etc. -- would mathematical or moral truths still exist? Would *anything* still exist?

Maudlin may not be confident in any answer, but the question is intelligible and there is a fact of the matter. And if he wants to argue that *none* of the answers are viable then he needs to engage Pruss and Feser on the theistic side and perhaps someone like Vilenkin on the atheistic side.

Polytheism vs classical theism (25% done)

Following  Aquinas’s example, visualize a hand pushing a stick, and that stick in turn is pushing a big rock, which In turn is pushing a medium sized rock, which is pushing a small rock. The medium sized rock is borrowing or deriving its “power” to push from the bigger rock, which is borrowing its power to push from the stick, which is borrowing from the hand. It’s all occurring at once. Scotus calls this an "essentially ordered series," Aquinas calls it a "per se series," and Feser calls it a hierarchical regress. 

A hierarchical regress is different from a linear/temporal regress. A temporal series is an example of what Scotus calls "an accidentally ordered series" and Aquinas calls a "per accidens series," which is a series wherein later members don't depend on earlier members. In contrast, a hierarchical regress occurs right here and right now, and is one in which the members depend on a logically-prior member (explained more below). Visualize a similar hierarchical regress occurring within the totality/fabric of reality itself— one level of reality depending on a logically/explanatorily prior level, which depends on yet a prior level, etc. all at once.

 Again, this isn’t necessarily about contemporary states depending on past states; that’s not what “prior” means in a hierarchical regress. Imagine that the hand in the aforementioned example has been pushing the stick since eternity past, with the series of past events/movements having no beginning in time. In that case, we could still say that the movement of the hand is logically or explanatorily prior to the movement of the stick. Or, following Kant, imagine that a heavy ball has been resting on a cushion for eternity-- or opposite extreme, imagine the ball resting on the cushion timelessly -- in either case we could still maintain that the weight and roundness of the ball are logically/explanatorily prior to the indentation in the cushion. Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Edward Feser (eg 2008, 2017 among others), David Bentley Hart (2014), Rasmussen (2018, 2019 among others), etc. (Koons, Pruss, Kerr, etc) would argue that even an eternal universe with no beginning would still be contingent and dependent in similar ways and would still involve explanatory hierarchical regresses at any and every moment. 

Classical theism says that the hierarchical regress--or the series of explanations that derive or borrow their explanatory capacity from a logically-prior explanation-- must have a bottom level, which is the First Member or First Cause or First Explanation (regardless of whether time has a beginning). It would be the equivalent of the hand in that example of the hand pushing the stick etc. but in this case at the deepest level of reality. 

(The example of the hand pushing the stick can cause confusion if one imagines the hand approaching the stick and then picking it up, which would involve temporal changes in time. Instead, conceive of something akin to gears all moving at once. Or, in Feser's example, imagine a book resting on a coffee table which is in the floor etc wherein the explanation and the effect being explained occur together simultaneously.)

 Classical theism calls that first member of the hierarchical series of reality "God." Traditionally, classical theists argue that the First Member of the hierarchical regress of reality must be indivisible (just One), without parts (so can’t be material), fully actual without any potentiality requiring actualization a la Feser or Aristotle (which also rules out more than one since differentiation requires different members to have potentialities that the others lack), and must possess—or just be—intellect, will, etc. There are sophisticated arguments for these attributes (with rejoinders...) by the aforementioned authors with serious rigor, but most atheists (and believers alike) are simply ignorant of the literature. I won't detail their arguments in this post but strongly encourage reading their academic work. Again, an infinite past would be irrelevant. Imagine an infinite series of mirrors each reflecting the image of a face. Each mirror is deriving its image from a explanatorily-prior mirror, but an infinite number of mirrors still could not account for the image of the face, which must exist outside of the series. 

POLYTHEISM AND GOD OF THE GAPS

In contrast to classical theism, the gods of polytheism would be more like the stick, or the large/medium sized rocks, or the mirrors; they (the gods of polytheism) occur later in the explanatory series. Arguments for/against classical theism are mostly different from arguments for/against the gods of polytheism. So e.g. the arguments for classical theism based on the principle of sufficient reason/PSR (I prefer "ubiquity of intelligibility"), the contingency of physical reality, the reality of the actualization of potential in Aquinas and Feser, mathematical realism and the problem of universals, etc. would not be arguments for polytheism. And, similarly, arguments *against* polytheism based on science (eg we no longer invoke Zeus to explain lightning) are *not* arguments against classical theism. Relatedly, debunking "god of the gaps" arguments (I.e. debunking arguments that use “God” to plug up holes in our current scientific understanding) is not the same as debunking classical theism, because the latter is a philosophical/metaphysical concept about what (if anything) grounds the very possibility of the existence of the domain studied by science. Worthy non-believing/Atheistic philosophers include Graham Oppy, Jl Mackie, Alex Malpass, William Rowe, and others. Worthy believing philosophers were mentioned earlier. Below is a list of publications from both sides of the debate that ought to be read by anyone interested in natural theology.

CosmicSkeptic vs kalam cosmological argument

Alex O'Connor is a brilliant young man known on YoutTube as CosmicSkeptic. His channel is devoted to worthwhile intellectual discussions of various philosophical topics, but most notably natural theology and the ethics of meat-eating.

In 2017 Alex posted a critique of William Lane Craig's kalam cosmological argument (which Craig defends here and here among other places). Unfortunately, as Alex now realizes, his initial critique made several huge mistakes which he discusses in a recent video in which he critiques himself! While I appreciate his honesty and intelligence (as well as his kindness), and while his "debunking" of his own video is very good overall, I found a few issues that I wanted to address here.

First, around the 14:40 mark Alex mostly accurately summarizes the key argument for the personhood of the cause, but he’s still using the wrong terminology; Alex asks how a finite universe can come from an infinite cause and wonders, if the infinite cause is sufficient, then why isn’t the effect likewise infinite.

But when applied to the universe, “finite” and “infinite” are mathematical concepts, but “infinite” is NOT mathematical when applied to the cause, so there’s some unintentional equivocating going on here. WLC puts it like this: if the cause of the universe is timeless and permanent, then, if it’s also sufficient, why isn’t the effect likewise timeless/permanent? It’s all about a temporal origin from a timeless and sufficient cause. WLC asks us to imagine an beginning-less past wherein the temperature has always been below freezing. In this case, it’s silly to think that water would begin to freeze. Any water that was around would have been frozen from eternity past. WLC, following earlier Islamic and Christian philosophers, argues that the only way out of this dilemma is to suggest that the timeless cause in itself isn’t sufficient; its free decision to create is sufficient. Similarly, WLC, asks us to imagine (for sake of clarity and not literalness) a man sitting down timelessly and willing to stand up. The choice to stand makes the beginning of time.

Alex nevertheless manages to communicate the basic gist of the arguments, but his use of “infinite” here is a bit sloppy because he’s applying it to both the universe (where it’s mathematical) and the cause of the universe (where’s it’s qualitative rather than quantitative). 

(These points are discussed in references below, including the cited 2015 lecture and the Blackwell Companion)

Second, although Alex's original video claims that Aquinas argues for a beginning of the universe, and although the new video is supposed to critique the original, Alex still hasn’t explicitly acknowledged that Aquinas did not argue for a beginning of any universe. Thomistic scholars like Edward Feser have repeatedly clarified this point (e.g. here), to no avail. Alex does say that he misstated Aquinas but doesn't explain how. Aquinas believed in a temporal beginning on religious grounds, but he did not argue for it. Rather, he differentiates between a linear/temporal beginning of the universe (what he calls an accidentally ordered series) on the one hand, and then on the other hand a hierarchical (or essentially ordered) series that occurs here and now. Aquinas grants the possibility of a beginning-less accidentally ordered series for the sake of argument but then uses philosophical arguments against an infinite hierarchical series. Finally,  around 22:45 Alex claims that WLC does not regard the big bang as indicative of an absolute beginning but instead argues for such a beginning via philosophical arguments. This is partly mistaken. It’s true that WLC’s primary arguments for the finitude of the past are philosophical rather than scientific-- e.g. alleged absurdities ensuing from actual infinities and the impossibility of traversing infinity via successive addition, with the latter requiring WLC's defense of the A-theory of time (here, here, and here). But WLC also does argue that contemporary cosmology strongly points to an absolute beginning even if there’s a multiverse or cyclic model. See his chapter on the kalam (coauthored with a physicist) in the 2009 Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, or his 2014 debate with Carroll (where both men failed IMO-- see a review by Barnes, Wall, and Cram here), or his 2015 lecture at University of Birmingham in England, etc. PS. For the record, I am not convinced by WLC's arguments for the kalam.