Is God a Better Explanation for Existence?
Here is how BK over at Cadre Comments argues that God is a better "brute fact" than the universe: He wrote:
"we agree that something exists as a brute fact. However, our universe is largely believed by scientists (secular and Christian) to have come into existence ex nihilo, [so] the answers that the Christian provides for God (who is timeless, eternal and uncreated) do not apply to the universe. In other words, your "brute fact" of existence needs some explaining that God, being eternal and uncreated, does not need.Here is a brief response:
Now this is indeed an odd argument. Whenever it comes to unexplainable brute facts we reach an impasse. The fact is that wherever the buck stops we have pretty much the same problems, and you should know this. For both of us something exists as a "brute fact." You cannot deny this. Since this is the case, agnosticism is the default intellectual position. When leaving the default position one must have reasons for struggling up the ladder to a full blown Christianity, past pantheism, deism, Judaism and Islam (since you believe more things than they do like a triune God, incarnation, atonement and resurrection). Me? It's just easier to move in the direction agnosticism already pushes me toward, atheism.
You claim the upper hand by definition, but that's all you're doing. You define God in such a way that the definition solves problems that the alternative theory doesn't. But just by defining such a Being as one who necessarily exists in all possible worlds doesn't mean such a being actually exists. There isn't much by way of evidence that he does. We have every reason to think this universe exists. Ockham's razor tells us the simplest explanation is the better one. We do not need your "brute fact" since such a God needs an explanation despite your definition.
Besides, your definition has a different set of problems. How is it possible for a being to eternally exist as three "persons" (who always agree) without a body (and yet act in a material world) in a timeless existence (and yet create time); how is it possible for this being to be called a "person;" how is it possible for this being to think (thinking involves weighing alternatives), make choices, take risks, or even freely choose who he is and what his values are? There are additional problems, but you get the point.
You say the universe needs an explanation. I say your explanation has insurmountable problems on its own terms. You say you have an explanation that needs no further explanation. I say such an explanation doesn't explain such a Being as God, plus it has the problem of how it's possible for such a being to always and forever exist, without ever learning anything, as the source of all complex information found in the details of the makeup of this universe.