Among the traditional Thomistic understanding of the principle of sufficient reason’s best defenses is this passage from Bro. Benignus Gerrity’s Nature, Knowledge, and God (1947), pp. 400-401: "But is the principle objectively valid? Is it a principle primarily of being, and a principle of thought only because thought is about being? The answer is found through the intellect's reflection upon itself and its act. The intellect, reflecting upon its own nature, sees that it is an appetite and a power for conforming itself to being; and reflecting upon its acts and the relation to these acts to being, it sees that, when it judges with certitude that something is, it does so by reason of compulsion of being itself. The intellect cannot think anything without a reason; whatever it thinks with certitude, it thinks by compulsion of the principle of sufficient reason. When it withholds judgment, it does so because it has no sufficient reason for an assertion. But thought - true thought - is being in the intellect. The intellect is actual as thought only by virtue of some being in it conforming it to what is; whatever the intellect knows as certainly and necessarily known, it knows as the self-assertion of a being in it. This being which compels the intellect to judge does so as a sufficient reason of judgment. Nothing, therefore, is more certainly known than the principle of sufficient reason, because this is the principle of thought itself, without which there can be no thought. But by the same token the intellect knows that the principle of sufficient reason is a principle of being because it is being, asserting itself in thought, which compels thought to conform to this principle."

I was just made aware that I had not responded to this comment...so I will address your comment point by point in typical fashion. You are under no obligation to respond, this is only to get my perspective on record.

First, you fail to take the failure of PSR sufficiently seriously.

I take it seriously, believe me, and I see no reason its rejection leads to all the consequences you claim. In fact, I'm positively confident they don't and have plenty of arguments why.

If not every thing or being has a sufficient reason, then the bad news is that we cannot ever, ever be certain when a reason is “missing.”

So? You can never know regardless and this does nothing to hinder things that do have explanations. You will also never know when you've hit an epistemic brute fact with certainty.

But, if it is really possible for something to exist (or for physical phenomena to appear) without any reason for it, the enumerated items I cited before are real physical possibilities:

“(1) something begins to be from absolutely nothing, (2) something ceases to be at any time for no reason at all, (3) properties of things can appear and disappear for no reason at all, (4) something performs operations, while having no particular nature related to them and no special conditions to elicit them.”

And you have no way whatever of ever knowing when there is simply no reason for what happens.

This would mean that you simply cannot conduct any scientific observations, since you could never know whether reality is giving real reasons for them or not – meaning that you cannot even make any judgments about the thing observed (especially note 3 and 4).

There are so many issues here I have trouble where to begin. What we have are a good understand of the laws of physics that operate in the universe. The laws of physics tell us what to expect in the universe. And they say things don't pop into existence in the universe or disappear or change properties radically. So we do have an expectation and a reason why these things won't occur. Now the laws of physics aren't necessary, they just are the way they are as far as we know. And that means there is nothing in principle impossible by something popping into existence with no explanation in principle, we just don't live in that world. But what this all means is that everything in the universe as far as we can tell has an explanation. The universe as a whole need not have an explanation. It is possible that there can be just one brute fact and all other things have explanations. If that were the case, your scenario would never happen. Whether we'll know any fact has an explanation is impossible to know with certainty. You cannot prove with absolute certainty everything will have an explanation, and you can never know with certainty you'll hit an epistemic brute fact. So from the point of view of intelligibility, nothing is compromised.

I agree that they do, but it all would be objectively meaningless if you took seriously your alleged destruction of the PSR. It works, but that is simply because the PSR is true, not because we happen to find explanations that don’t really need to be there all the time.

Not at all. You are 100% incorrect when you imply to assert that absent the PSR nothing would have an explanation. That is simply a false claim. And my argument is not completely based on pragmatism. And science itself doesn't start with the assumption everything has an explanation, and doesn't lose power if that is false, because as we agree, science doesn't explain everything. Hence, science begins on assumptions it cannot in principle explain. If those assumes had no explanation in principle, it would not hinder the scientific enterprise one bit.

There is no denial of the PSR, since God is his own sufficient reason for all that he is and does. The fact that there is one and only one God does not make him a brute fact, since unlike a brute fact, he is his own sufficient reason and his sufficient reason is his nature as the Infinite Being.

There is a denial of the rationalist version of the PSR which says literally everything has a reason, and you never of course are upfront about which version of the PSR you are using. The scholastic version of the PSR doesn't say everything has a reason. It claims every ontological fact has a reason, but still there is no reason why a god with a specific non-necessary will exists. "God is his own sufficient reason for all that he is and does" answers absolutely nothing. It doesn't give me the reason why a god with a specific non-necessary will exists, and it doesn't tell me whether that reason is necessary or contingent. Although, since it isn't necessary it must be contingent. I simply don't think you've taken this dilemma seriously enough.

As I have said repeatedly, there simply has never been an alternative God that was possible, since only one God exists and this is he, free choice and all.

As I have said repeatedly, a being/thing that cannot have done or been otherwise, and has no logically necessary reason why it is the way it is, has no free will. Why did god "freely" choose this universe and not a different one? If you cannot give a reason that satisfies the PSR, you have no business saying the atheist's universe as a brute fact is impossible.

But the problem is you are inserting God back into time. His free choice contains “simultaneously” the knowledge of its alternatives. The problem is that even the word, “simultaneously,” makes God sound like he is in time, when he is not.

I'm saying if there are no alternative possibilities, if god could not have done otherwise, there is no free will. This is libertarian free will. Of course you can just redefine "free will" to not include alternative possibilities but then we're just in a game of semantics. I see no reason to accept such a definition of free will. Also, an eternal universe that could not have been otherwise can be just as suppositionally necessary as any god you claim.

I do not deny logic, but would just like to point out that God, as the ultimate source of all being, is himself the foundation of logic – not its creature.

That's just your opinion. There's no reason for me to accept your god exists, is the ground of all being, or is the foundation of logic. It's just nothing but empty assertions.

PS.

The reason God is an uncaused contingent being is that He is Pure Act without any passive potency (which This Person in the past has confused with active potency even thought Ed Feser has explained the difference between active and passive potency in God).

Thus God is His own reason thought he cannot coherently be his own cause.

Every first year Thomist knows this but ignorant fanatics still confuse it with Descartes and Liebniz philosophy which we wholly reject.

further proof This Person has not been paying attention for months

>Dennis, in the past you've said, "God is his own sufficient reason for all that he is and does". What is the sufficient reason why a god with an eternal non-necessary will exists?

I thought This Person said he understood AT Metaphysics? This question is one a Freshmen asks and I would have no problem with you answering it Doc B but I think you already have numerous time but This Person just ignores you and likely sees his insincere question as a pretense to repeat AGAIN one of his non-starter objections.

This reminds me of how he told you that you don't know what you are talking about in regards to AT Physics but then mid debate asked you to fully explain to him the difference between a formal vs an efficient cause...

Amazing........

BTW the answer to his question is in your very post BUT he hasn't learned even the basics at this point. He is too busy re-imagining Thomism as neo-Descartes philosophy or Physics.

He is just so amusing.

Dennis, in the past you've said, "God is his own sufficient reason for all that he is and does". What is the sufficient reason why a god with an eternal non-necessary will exists?

Funny you mention Fr. O'Malley. He sometimes says Mass at St. Bernard's in Youngstown for us. Sorry you live so far away. I would have loved to see you in my class again! I pray you a long and happy life.

I certainly wouldn't expect you to remember me as it is so long ago and too many people to recall but I wanted to let you know I had such fond memories of your class along with Fr. Vincent O'Malley's. I wish I could attend your school but I live outside of Philadelphia. Stay well--I am sure your intellectual pursuits are contributing to your longevity!!

Hi Kathleen,

I wish I could tell you that I recall your name, but with thousands of students over the years that would be a stretch. I might well recognize you in person, though. Although pushing 80 myself now, I am still busy -- as you can see. Check out my web site at drbonnette.com Also, I am still teaching at 6:30 Friday nights at Mt. St. Mary's Hospital in Lewiston at a free school started by my late dear friend, Dr. Raphael Waters, whom you may also have known. Aquinas School of Philosophy's web site is aquinasphilosophy.com Our classes are open to anyone, should you still be in the area. There is contact information on the school's web site, but I am not sure it works.

So where did God come from?

All you've done is push the problem one stage further back, by proposing an "uncaused causer". Ockham's Razor is not infallible, but it suggests that invoking "God the uncaused causer" is overcomplicating matters, when it's simpler to say "the universe itself is uncaused". And the absence of any other evidence for a deity would suggest that is the more likely explanation.