Why Is There Anything at All?

This chapter marks out a two-stage argument from contingency for a maximally great being. In the first stage, the authors support premises in a modal cosmological argument for a Necessary Foundation of contingent things. The discussion ends with an examination of objections to this idea. In the second stage, it is argued from “modal continuity” that this Necessary Foundation would be maximal with respect to its causal capacities and other basic attributes. The authors suggest that if their argument is sound, then the best explanation of why there is anything is ultimately in terms of a maximally great, necessary being. A key aspect of the chapter’s argument is that the totality of necessary concrete reality cannot have arbitrary non-maximal limits with respect to its basic, uncaused attributes.