Arguments for God

Invocation

does anyone know what the difference between a contingent being, and a necessary being ???

thnks in advance

Reply 1

RachelBabyfrog

A contingent being is one that can exist, but doesn't have to. A necessary one is one that has to exist.

At least, that's what I think it is :smile:

thanks !!

From my hopefully-soon-to-be-available-again-after-much-time-offline website:

Contingent
Of a proposition: not necessarily true (a statement that might have been false). Of a being: not existing necessarily; that which could have not been, or could have been different; depending upon something other for its existence.

Necessary
Of a proposition: necessarily true, ie. because its negation is impossible or involves a contradiction. Of a being: a being whose non-existence would be a contradiction (Ontological argument); a being who is required as a (causal) explanation (Cosmological argument).

ZarathustraX

Reply 4

Calvin

Or as Devid Lewis put it:

Imagine a world exactly like this on in all respects except that instead of waking up at 8 you slept in for five more minutes. This is called a possible world. It is something that could possibly have happened but didn't. There will then be possible worlds for every single event. The actual world is the world we live in, but for every even that took place there will be another possible world which is exactly the same as this one except that event didn't take place. Similarly there will be worlds which diverged from this one millions of years ago and are completely different. If you ever saw 'Sliders' on Tv, that's the idea.

A contingent being is one who exists in some possible worlds but not all. A necessary being is one who exists in every possible world. That is, it's not possible for it not to exist.
Similarly a necessary event is one that happens in every possible world, a contingent event is one that only happens in a few possible worlds.

Thus for us a contingent event can be true or false depending on whether it happens in our world, if it does it's contingently true, if it doesn't it's contingently false. But a necessary event will be either necessarily true- it happens in everypossible world- or necessarily false- it doesn't happen in any possible world.

Generally when it comes to God, the idea is that God is a necessary being; that is, his existence is not dependent on some contingent thing but must be the case, that way you avoid problems saying 'well what caused God?' because God exists necessarily and doesn't need to be caused; he exists by necessity.