Illustrating the burden of proof - pay me!

[Neo-Scholastic]

I was going to reply directly to brewer's post but I think this is a good starting point.

My point was this. Burden of Proof and the PSR are both subjective terms of art. Both relate to the evidentiary burden demanded to properly evaluate the truth status of a proposition. The subjectivity of burden of proof is exemplified by the notion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The subjectivity of the PSR enters when we find ourselves confronted with what appear to be inexplicable brute facts, and start to carve out exceptions for them.

For example, some abstract formal systems track exceptionally well with observed phenomena (like certain maths and physical events) and others have no such obvious connection (astrology). For an advocate of the PSR, this difference between formal systems suggests there is something that needs to be explained. What do effective abstractions have in common that is lacking in apparently useless abstractions? Those who seem to consider the PSR as a quick route to “God did it,” the abstract formal systems that work are distinguished from those that don’t precisely because they work. As such they can be conveniently taken as brute facts. Personally, I do not find that satisfying philosophically.

I guess what I also saying is this. The subjectivity of Burden of Proof gets a lot of air-time on AF because that subjectivity to favor atheistic arguements grounded in foundationalism. In comparision, the PSR favors theism because it suggests that foundation of reality go deeper that many atheists suppose.

I think you've got the telescope the wrong way around.  While some phenomenon appear to have explanations, and the more salient the explanations may differ, that's totally unrelated to whether things necessarily must have explanations.  Additionally it's far from clear to what things the PSR should apply and why, and for which things it need not apply.  God will fall on one side or the other of that line for no objectively describable reason.  So as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing intuitively obvious about the many forms of the PSR.  That some things do in fact have explanations grants no credit toward the principle that all things need explanations.  And if you think about it, how can such things bottom out except in an infinite regress of explanations because there's always going to be a layer deeper that you can go.  Take elementary particles.  If quarks are the smallest unit of substance, the PSR seems to demand that there be a smaller unit that explains quarks or else there's a violation of the PSR.  When a philosophical principle starts dictating how the world composes itself, the principle needs to go.  I'm pretty sure reality isn't going to step aside for it.

That would be a fair critique. How does one decide what needs explaining and what doesn't? Again, not much different than saying certain claims have a high burden of proof, some very little, and some not at all. Changing the evidentiary standard in proportion to the questioner's incredulity isn't very principled IMHO.

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I’m certain that the bottom, in the eyes of the theist, is God. But I’ve yet to hear a rational justification for why the principle doesn’t apply to him/her/it.

What is the rational justification for saying anything "just is what it is"? I do not have an answer but it seems theoretically possible, and worthy of discussion, to discern between what is necessary versus what is merely possible or impossible.