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Hick, Necessary Being, and the Cosmological Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

D. R. Duff-Forbes
D. R. Duff-Forbes*
Affiliation:
University of New England
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Extract

The concepts of necessary being, or necessary existence, and contingent being, or contingent existence, continue to occupy a central position in philosophical appraisals of Christian theism. Some philosophers have been concerned of late to emphasize a crucial ambiguity in the terms ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent', an ambiguity which threatens seriously to bedevil assessment of the claim that God's existence is necessary and not contingent. An important consequence of getting clear on this point, it is suggested, is that certain brisk attempts to demolish the concept of a necessary being may be seen at least to be premature, leaving untouched,, as they do, an apparently viable sense in which God can be said to be a, indeed the, necessary being.

This, substantially, is the position advocated by Professor J.H. Hick in recent discussions of this point. Hick maintains that it is of the greatest importance to distinguish two fundamentally different and contrasting notions of necessary being or necessary existence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , June 1972 , pp. 473 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1972

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References

1 Hick, J. “God as Necessary Being”, The journal of Philosophy, Vol. LVII, Nos. 22-23, Oct. 27-Nov. 10, 1960Google Scholar. (This is largely reproduced in Hick, J. “A Critique of the ‘Second Argument’”, in Hick, J. H. and McGill, A. C. (eds.), The Many-faced Argument (1967), pp. 341–347)Google Scholar. See also Hick, J. Philosophy of Religion (1962), pp. 22–23Google Scholar, and Hick, J. (ed.), The Existence of God (1964), pp. 80–81Google Scholar.

2 “A Critique of the ‘Second Argument’”, op. cit., pp. 341–342.

3 “God as Necessary Being”, op. cit., p. 733. Cf. “A Critique of the ‘Second Argument”, op. cit., p. 347.

4 “God as Necessary Being”, op. cit., pp. 733–734.

5 Ibid., p. 734.

6 “God as Necessary Being”, op. cit., p. 734.

7 A. Plantinga, “Necessary Being”, in Plantinga, A. (ed.), Faith and Philosophy (1964), p. 104Google Scholar.

8 Hick, however, it should be noted, alleges that it is meaningless to say that God might not have existed. (“God as Necessary Being”, op. cit., p. 733. Cf. “A Critique of the ‘Second Argument’”, op. cit., p. 347). But this, it seems to me, is plainly inconsistent with his position on the necessary existence of God. For Hick's position commits him, surely, to the view that both God's existence and God's non-existence are logically possible states of affairs. And to say this is at least to say that God's non-existence is a state of affairs that might have obtained even though it does not. Hence if God does exist, it must be allowed that he nevertheless might not have done so. This seems nothing less than a direct consequence of holding that God's existence is factually and not logically necessary. To deny that it makes sense, supposing God does exist, to say that he might not have done so is, surely, straightforwardly to confuse the supposedly distinguishable notions of necessary being. For consideration of this and other apparent difficulties in the notion of a factually necessary being, cf. Daher, A. “God and Factual Necessity”, Religious Studies, Vol. 6, No.1, March, 1970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Once again, it should be noted that Hick denies that it makes sense to say that God just happens to exist. (“God as Necessary Being”, op. cit., p. 733. Cf. “A Critique of the ‘Second Argument’”, op. cit., p. 347.) But for reasons parallel to those mentioned in the previous footnote, this seems to me mistaken. The remark that God just happens to exist is an explicit recognition of the fact that the concept of God as factually necessary, though logically contingent, includes or entails the notion of independence. And hence if God exists, no explanation why this state of affairs obtains, rather than his non-existence, can be forthcoming: this is just the way things happen to be.

10 Op. cit., pp. 22–23. Substantially the same point is made also in The Existence of God, pp. 80–81. Here, however, Hick concedes that some formulations of the Cosmological Argument are or may be open to this objection.

11 Op. cit. p. 21. This quotation is taken from Hick's discussion of the First Cause Argument, but he maintains (ibid., p. 23) that the same fundamental objection applies also to the Cosmological or Contingency Argument.

12 Op. cit., pp. 6–7.