Dec 09 2024 70 mins 1
Pat Flynn joins Anthony Alberino to discuss a new version of Thomas Aquinas's cosmological Argument for God. Following on the work of philosopher Barry Miller, Pat makes the case for the existence of God without appealing to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) allowing him to bypass two of the most recurrent objections to cosmological reasoning: (a) the possibility of brute facts (i.e., that not everything needs an adequate explanation of its existence) and (b) the accusation of the composition fallacy. Pat argues that any contingent entity, upon metaphysical analysis, is either a contradictory structure and therefore an impossible existent or else points towards an extrinsic cause for the unity of its really distinct metaphysical parts (namely, its essence and its existence). This conclusion enables the inference that only an uncaused cause with no really distinct metaphysical parts can ultimately produce anything with really distinct metaphysical parts.
Link to Pat's Substack The Journal of Absolute Truth: https://journalofabsolutetruth.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Link to Pat's YouTube channel Philosophy for the People: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyforthePeople