Question

I am interested in knowing whether there is a version of Occam’s razor that deals with how many questions a certain explanation brings.

Let’s take the example of God. Many theologians consider this explanation simple. Swinburne even argues that this explanation is more likely to be a brute fact than even the universe! He is after all composed of no parts.

But this seems to falter when we bring in the notion of how many questions an explanation brings up. For one, how can a purely immaterial being exist? Two, how can this immaterial being cause physical effects in the universe, especially given the causal closure principle in physics? Third, how does he cause things from "outside" of time? Fourth, how does He know everything, when all conscious knowledge ever has been biological and requires a biological, and thus physical, mind? Five, how does He know everything given quantum indeterminism? And so on and so forth.

Note that in the case of the universe, if one posits that the universe is a brute fact, we are not bringing in any additional questions apart from the question of perhaps why something or that universe exists in the first place. Of course, in this universe, we also have many unanswered questions. But those unanswered questions will still remain unanswered with God in the picture. Thus, the totality of the number of questions of existence arguably only goes up with God.

Is there a principle like this that matters? Should it matter? I suppose one could argue against this by stating that the number of questions one wonders about is subjective, but so is the notion of "simplicity" and many other hotly debated concepts in philosophy. Overall, I wonder if there is any sense of this in the philosophical literature

Answer 1

Philosophical principles such as Occam's Razor and the principle of sufficient reason assess explanations by their simplicity and the need for a reason or cause, respectively. The invocation of God as an ultimate explanation might imply simplicity but also raises numerous complex questions that challenge its explanatory power.

Step-by-step explanation:

In Philosophy, particularly in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion, one encounters principles such as Occam's Razor with regard to explanations and their simplicity. While Occam's Razor traditionally favors explanations that make the fewest assumptions, the number of questions an explanation raises is also an important factor. For example, invoking God as an explanation for the origin of the universe might seem simple, but it may lead to more profound questions, like the nature of an immaterial being and how such a being could interact with the physical world. There is a concept in philosophy related to this that is known as the principle of sufficient reason. This principle posits that everything must have a reason or cause. In contrast to the cosmological or ontological arguments for the existence of God, an adherence to the principle of sufficient reason and a deeper analysis of additional questions raised would suggest a need for closer scrutiny of any explanation, including one involving a deity, and weigh its merits based on the totality of explanatory power and subsequent questions it might entail.