I haven’t done this sort of philosophical speculation in a while, but a friend reminded me of an idea or philosophical research route I used to have centered on the concept of the Laws of Nature.
If you look at the Stanford philosophy entry there are several accounts of what constitutes a law of nature. The account which is of interest here is what is known as the “systems” account, where laws of nature are nothing more than deductive systems. To quote from them:
Deductive systems are individuated by their axioms. The logical consequences of the axioms are the theorems. Some true deductive systems will be stronger than others; some will be simpler than others. These two virtues, strength and simplicity, compete. (It is easy to make a system stronger by sacrificing simplicity: include all the truths as axioms. It is easy to make a system simple by sacrificing strength: have just the axiom that 2 + 2 = 4.) According to Lewis (1973, 73), the laws of nature belong to all the true deductive systems with a best combination of simplicity and strength. So, for example, the thought is that it is a law that all uranium spheres are less than a mile in diameter because it is, arguably, part of the best deductive systems; quantum theory is an excellent theory of our universe and might be part of the best systems, and it is plausible to think that quantum theory plus truths describing the nature of uranium would logically entail that there are no uranium spheres of that size (Loewer 1996, 112). It is doubtful that the generalization that all gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter would be part of the best systems. It could be added as an axiom to any system, but it would bring little or nothing of interest in terms of strength and adding it would sacrifice something in terms of simplicity.
I won’t go into the pros and cons of this account in detail except to note two points: One supposed strength of this account is that it keeps within Humean constrains in not postulating mysterious metaphysical entities like universals or causation, etc, and it also keeps within the limits of Humean supervenience: the doctrine that all there is in the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and then another.
However it is one core objection to this account which is of interest to us:
Some argue that this approach will have the untoward consequence that laws are inappropriately mind-dependent in virtue of the account’s appeal to the concepts of simplicity, strength and best balance, concepts whose instantiation seems to depend on cognitive abilities, interests, and purposes. The appeal to simplicity raises further questions stemming from the apparent need for a regimented language to permit reasonable comparisons of the systems (Lewis 1983, 367.)
The objection here as such seems to be that the systems view of the laws of nature makes them look like “mind-dependent” or cognitive-shaped entities. But as theists, instead of viewing this as a modus tollens, we can see this as a modus ponens instead. Since the laws of nature are mind-dependent and cognitive-shaped entities, therefore we can infer that the universe is maintained by mind-dependent or cognitive-shaped entities (or entity!).
Indeed, it seems that once more, what Hume takes with one hand, all the mysterious metaphysical entities to account for laws of nature, universals and patterns, he gives back with the other hand, in making them all fundamentally dependent upon mind-shaped realities, i.e. God.