ABSTRACT
In a well-known essay of 17l4, the philosopher G. F. W. Leibniz raised, in effect, the following question: ‘Why is there a universe at all, rather than just nothing?’ He actually put this question somewhat differently by asking: ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ But since the ‘something’ that actually exists is indeed the universe, I have preferred to recast Leibniz’s question taking that into account. I shall refer to this Leibnizian question as ‘The Primordial Existential Question,’ and I shall use the acronym ‘PEQ’ to denote it for brevity. Let us note at the outset that PEQ rests on important presuppositions. If one or more of these presuppositions is either ill-founded or demonstrably false, then PEQ is aborted as a non-starter, because it would be posing a non-issue (pseudo-problem). And, in that case, the very existence of something, rather than nothing, does not require explanation. PEQ will indeed turn out to be a non-starter, because one of its crucial presuppositions is demonstrably ill-founded. As we shall see in due course, that presupposition is a corollary of a distinctly Christian doctrine, which originated in the second century ce. What are the most important presuppositions of PEQ? Clearly, one of them is that the notion of a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing exists is both intelligible (meaningful) and free from contradiction. Let us call such a supposed state of affairs ‘the Null Possibility,’ as the British philosopher Derek Par t does (Par t 1998: 420). And let us refer to a supposed world in which there is nothing as ‘the Null World.’ Par t gives the following version of PEQ:
why is there a Universe at all? It might have been true that nothing ever existed: no living beings, no stars, no atoms, not even space or time. When we think about this [‘Null’] possibility, it can seem astonishing that anything exists. (1998: 420)
Evidently, in this statement Par t inferred the ‘Null Possibility’ without ado, declaring: ‘It might have been true that nothing ever existed.’ But he gave no cogent justi cation for avowing this logical possibility to be genuine. He just assumed peremptorily that the nihilistic proposition ‘There is nothing,’ or ‘The Null World obtains,’ is both intelligible and free from contradiction. Instead of providing a conceptual explication of the Null Possibility, Par t has evidently offered a mere open-ended enumeration of the absence of familiar furniture from the Null World: ‘no living beings, no stars, no atoms, not even space or time.’ Thereupon, he enthrones PEQ on a pedestal: ‘No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe [i.e., some world or other]: why there is anything rather than nothing’ (ibid.). Besides presupposing that the Null Possibility is logically robust, Par t’s motivation for PEQ tacitly pivots on the supposition that, de jure, there should be nothing contingent.
