Shadee Elmasry – Quranic Contingency Argument Use This to Prove God

syllogism It works like this it says A is B, the universe is

contingent all B is C, every contingent thing depends on a

necessary being to make it the way that it is therefore, ASC

therefore, the universe depends on unnecessary being to make it the

way that it is. So then you take each syllogism, each statement in

the solution and we could you call a premise. And here on the right

hand side, you can label it as being inferential or non

inferential. Inferential means that it's something that needs

another argument. Non inferential means it's known without argument

literally. So, this year then, you can unpack it. And I have another

I have another syllogism that unpacks it. And the conclusion of

this other syllogism is this is the syllogism. And this is this is

what so what you asked like, this is what the syllogism would would

look like. So so the way the way that this works is we use it uses

terms and uses technical terms. So I can I can, what I prefer to do

is let me let me not, I'll come back to this in a second. Let's

not use technical terms for a moment. Let's try and understand

this first, at an intuitive level, because first we grasp at an

intuitive level, and then we learn the technical terms and structure

so that we can defend it. At an intuitive level, the idea behind

the contingency argument is that everything in the universe is

dependent. contingency means dependency. So what does it mean

it's dependent, it means that it needs something else to make it

how it is. And we see this

intuitively. So I look at the sun, I say why is it shining? The fact

that I say sun, why are you shining? means that I can see that

it needs something to make it shine. I look at the wind and it's

blowing. I say wind, why are you blowing? The fact that I asked

this question means that I see it needs something to make it glow.

So the entire scientific enterprise, it assumes that

everything in the universe needs an explanation and things.

Yeah, sorry to interrupt. But I just wanted to clarify, before

cutting you off there.

We don't need to really prove that. Number one. It's self

explanatory, self observable, but also the worldview that we're

talking to scientists, the scientific worldview that we're

talking to scientism also admits that, yes. Okay. That's exactly.

And that's actually so So somebody says that what if somebody denies

this? And then the most effective way to kind of combat it is to say

that, well, you can't really do science without it. And since

everybody believes in science,

we both sides agreed to the concept universe is in need of

things, everything in the in the world that we see is in need of

something else. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. That's the first step. Now,

the second step is we want to, we want to show that the thing that

it's in need of cannot be in need of anything else. And that's what

we call a necessary being.

So and this is where we differ with the materialist with the

scientific materialist. We differ with them, because they say that

there's that other dependent things in the universe can make

things in the universe the way that they are. So they say that

it's medicine

makes the cure, fire causes the burning. That's what they say. We

say no, we dispute that. We say that, no, we agree that there was

dependent but the dependency of things can only be explained by

something that's independent. So there now this argument is made in

many different forms. And I chose the one that was actually I take

it from Mr. Sabri in his biography he uses, he uses this

demonstration, he thinks it's this clearest one. He says that,

imagine a long line of leaning people. He says that if you have

one person, and that person is leaning on someone else, now what

you have a situation where this person who's leaning is dependent,

and he's being held up by someone else. Now let's lean this other

person back to lean this other person back to somebody else

holding them up. And now what's the important thing to observe

here is that this person is that the thing in the middle now isn't

doing anything. Because if the person at the end goes, they all

fall down.

And this illustrates a principle and the principle is that if a

depends on B

and B depends on c, then you b isn't doing anything. Yeah, a

really just depends on c. Correct. So that means that if you explain

something in the universe with something else in the universe

that's also dependent, then that thing in the universe doesn't

really explain it, it's the thing that it depends on that that is

explaining it. And if everything in the universe is dependent, then

nothing in the UI, then you don't have anything to explain what's

happening. And so what you need is you will need something that

doesn't need anything. And it's that thing that's making

everything the way that it is. Yep. Okay. So

in this example of dependency, if they're all connected in a circle,

okay, so we didn't get we I, we submit to the line of leaning

people, the line of leaning people has to have a wall or a person,

leaning them supporting them. What if, though they're in a circle?

Yeah, so circularity. Yeah. So, circularity is, in the physical

example of circularity.

In that physical example of circularity, the people who are

leaning are not really completely dependent on the thing behind

them, because they're actually supporting the person ahead of

them. So if you actually work out the the laws of physics and the

way that they work, there's a each person in the line is doing

something to the person in front of him, and then being held by the

person behind him. So it's not a situation where things are kind

of, are really completely dependent on something else. So

the so that's, that's, and so this analogy of the long line of

meaning people, it is an analogy, it's not something we're not

saying, actually, that the things the contingent things in the

universe are all depending on each are lined up. And God is at the

end, what we're really saying is that God is holding everything

else up immediately. This is a proof by contradiction, it saying

that if contingent things were the only thing, then there would be

nothing to hold them up. So the situation that best describes the

situation that scientists materials are dealing with is the

long line of leading people, but you can use other analogies too.

So one of one of my one of my students, he said, he said that,

you know, the way that what helps him is to instead of having a line

of people to have somebody standing on the shoulders of

somebody else, and that person standing on the shoulders of

somebody else. And then you keep on doing that, instead, there's no

ground, what happens, they're all falling. Now you can't get in a

circle.

It doesn't it doesn't help you. So and you have other analogies too.

But there's this general idea, there's it's an intuition that if

a depends on B, B depends on c b isn't doing anything a depends on

c, if you get that, then you can get the conclusion, what have some

atheists said in response to this.

So atheists have yet to respond to this. But there are some

responses, I'll come to them. But this form of the argument is not

made in the mainstream. There is a contingency argument that Thomas

Aquinas made like that's made, but they're not. They're not the same

because nobody comes to the radical conclusion that the

Muslims do, which is that the universe completely depends on

God, completely and utterly. But the objections that they normally

make are, they can, they can only make one of two objections.

Because if you put everything into a syllogism, if you put everything

into a syllogism, and that's that's this is why syllogisms are

important. If you put into a syllogism, what is a syllogism? It

says that if you accept the first premise, you see one and you

accept the second premise QC two, you have to accept the conclusion.

If you if you agree, ASB, if you agree BSC, you have to agree that

a is the ASC. And if you don't agree that AC, you're only allowed

to do that, if you disagree with one of the two premises. So what

we want you to do in this way is you can find the debate and that

debate now happens on your terms. You're not so now I've confined

the beach. Now, in order for an atheist to disagree he has to

disagree with the first premise, or he has to disagree with the

second premise. So the first premise, the universe is

contingent, the only thing he can say the universe is not

contingent. And we already talked about how to kind of respond to

that to say that Well, science presumes contingency that there's

other ways to but the second thing here, there is the most common

objection is the the most common objection to the second thing is

something called the fallacy of composition. Okay, so the fallacy

of composition whatever.

done here is I've actually cataloged all of the possible

objections and their answers. So you can object here, or you can

object with the fallacy of composition. So the fallacy of

composition, it says that, that, okay, this thing in the universe

is contingent, and this thing in the universe is contingent, the

individual things in the universe are contingent, but the universe

as a whole, is not contingent. Because for you to go from the

contingency of the part, to the contingency of the whole,

committed logical fallacy, you cannot assume that just because

the parts are contingent, that the hole is contingent,

and, and they give an example. And they'll say that the bricks in a

wall are all small. Does that mean that the entire wall is small,

though it doesn't, to say that because the bricks are small, the

wall that is composed of those bricks, commits the fallacy of

composition. So this is a this is a an objection that they will that

they will raise. And so the answer to that objection, is to say is

you can answer in a number of different ways.

The first way is to say that, actually, you don't need to say

the entire universe is contingent, just as long as one thing is

contingent, it means a necessary being. So you just kind of

sidestep the whole thing. Another way, is to say this is the most

comprehensive way, it's to say that this gets a little bit

technical, but, you know, it's a hopefully, like, it's okay. But

it's to say that the fallacy of composition is an informal

fallacy. An informal fallacy means it's a fallacy that's not related

to the abstract form of the argument as BBFC, ASC. That's the

form and informal fallacy has to do with the subject matter. So

there are cases where

inferring extrapolating the property of the part to the whole

is fallacious, such as when you extrapolate the smallest of the

brick to the smallest of the wall, that's fallacious. But there's

other cases where it's not fallacious. The bricks in the wall

are red, therefore, the whole wall is red correct? The bricks in the

wall are heavy, therefore, the whole wall is heavy, correct. The

bricks in the wall are hard, therefore, the whole world is

hard, correct. So, the question is that if we say the things in the

universe are contingent, therefore, the whole universe is

contingent, is it like saying the bricks in the wall are small

therefore, the whole wall is small fallacy or is it like saying the

bricks in the wall are hard? Therefore, the whole wall wall is

hard? Correct? Like the latter, and I will clearly correct and one

would also be able to say that every hole is contingent, because

by saying hole, you were inferring the existence of parts, therefore,

it is dependent upon parts. You can see that so a whole can never

be separated from its parts and can never have a different essence

than its parts. Yes, then, by nature, a whole must be dependent.

Right the entire object must be dependent because just by

definition, it is consistent of smaller objects, therefore

dependent upon them.