Copleston vs Betrand Russell on The Existence of God

Necessity

Russell: All necessary propositions are analytic- they cannot not be the case. If God is necessary, then he must be analytic – that doesn’t make sense because “a subject named can never be significantly said to exist but only a subject described.” Thus, existence is not a predicate
Copleston: The reason of existence is always external this external reason, as there cannot be an infinite regress of causes/reasons, must be a being who owes its existence to itself.
Copleston: necessary proposition = “If there is a contingent being then there is a necessary being”
Copleston: definition of a ‘necessary’ being = a being that must and cannot not exist
“I could only admit a necessary being if there were a being whose existence it is self-contradictory to deny”- Russell

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Russell: Contingency holds no meaning – why do we have to call beings contingent #what is the significance of it?
Copleston: “An infinite series of contingent beings will be … as unable to cause itself as one contingent being

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Copleston: definition of sufficient reason = an explanation adequate for the existence of some particular being. “An adequate explanation must ultimately be a total explanation, to which nothing further can be added”
Russell: Still the question arises – how does one define an adequate explanation. Who is to judge the adequacy of an explanation. It seems to be one that one cannot find.

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C: “It is only a posteriori through our experience of the world that we come to a knowledge of the existence of that being.”
C: Science is based on assumptions made from the order/ intelligibility of nature. As seen in respected professions, physicist, detectives and metaphysics there is sense in looking for the cause
R: “a physicist looks for causes, that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere"
R: The world does not need a cause #All in Hume.com
R: It is illegitimate even to ask the question of the cause of the world
R: Sees no reason in thinking that the world has a cause. He believes that it is an illogical assumption “to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever.” “For that assumption I see no ground whatever.”
R: “Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me, your argument is that therefore the human race has a mother” #different logical sphere

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