Category: God
-
Is God a being among beings or Being Itself? An Exchange with Dale Tuggy
Top o' the Stack. One morning, just as Old Sol was peeping his ancient head over the magnificent and mysterious Superstition range, I embarked on a drive down old Arizona 79, past Florence, to a hash house near Oracle Junction where I had the pleasure of another nice long three and one half hour caffeine-fueled…
-
Notes on R. C. Sproul, Does God Exist? Part II
Part I is here. Sproul thinks he can prove that the God of the Christian Bible exists from reason alone. By 'prove' he means establish with objective certainty. He begins by listing four possible explanations of reality as we encounter it. I take him to mean by 'reality' the world as given to the senses.…
-
Notes on R. C. Sproul, Does God Exist?
Trudy the Calvinist gave me a reading assignment. Herewith a first batch of comments for her and your delectation, discussion, and (presumably inevitable) disagreement. In Chapter One, "The Case for God," Sproul distinguishes between four approaches in apologetics: fideism, evidentialism, presuppositionalism, and "the classical school" (4) He comes out against the first three and nails…
-
A Design Argument from the Cognitive Reliability of Our Senses: A Proof of Classical Theism?
Substack latest. I present an argument that many will take as supporting classical theism. But I point out that, so taken, the argument is not rationally inescapable or philosophically dispositive since it may also be construed along Nagelian lines to support an inherent immanent teleology in nature. Topics include rationality, intentionality, both intrinsic and…
-
On Anselmian or ‘Perfect Being’ Theology
Tom O. writes, I was wondering if you have time to weigh in on the following problem. I take it you subscribe to perfect being theology as a constraint on our theorizing about God’s nature. For example, you write, “God is the absolute, and no absolute worth its salt is a contingent being. No absolute just…
-
How Could God be Ineffable?
The mystically inclined say that God is ineffable. The ineffable is the inexpressible, the unspeakable. Merriam-Webster: Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective effābilis, meaning "capable of being expressed." Effābilis comes from effārī, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning “to speak.” But: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in…
-
Suffering, Evil, and Galen Strawson’s ‘Proof’ of the Nonexistence of the Christian God
This just in from our old friend Malcolm Pollack: I'm writing because I went to your Substack to read your 2A post, and beneath it was a link to your post about Galen Strawson's audacious letter to the NYT — in which Professor Strawson, in a single paragraph, proves the nonexistence of the Christian God! …
-
A Design Argument From the Cognitive Reliability of Our Senses: A Proof of Classical Theism?
You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see what appear to be three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence is based on your taking the rock piles…
-
Is Mariology a Part of the Presuppositionalist ‘Package Deal’? A Question for Flood
Full disclosure: I am not a theologian. I am a philosopher of religion who, as part of his task, thinks about theologoumena which, on a broad interpretation of the term, are simply things said about God, a term which therefore includes not only official, dogmatic pronunciamenti of, say, the RCC's magisterium, but also includes conjectures,…
-
God as Uniquely Unique
Top o' the Stack Correctly used, 'unique' is three-way polyvalent. It can mean that which is one of a kind, that which is necessarily one of a kind, and that which is uniquely unique in that it transcends the kind-instance distinction.
-
Faith: Life-Enhancing Only if True?
In July of 2022 I published a post entitled Faith's Immanent Value. Here are the opening paragraphs slightly redacted: Suppose you sincerely believe in God and the soul but that your faith is in vain. You die and become nothing. Your faith was that the curtain would lift, but it falls, irrevocably. My question is…
-
Is Belief in God Rationally Required? Response to a Critic
S. L. writes, I will just tell you three quick things about myself in an effort to get your kind response to my question. 1. I am a 70-year-old "evangelical", conservative (in every way), protestant, Christian believer. I put evangelical in quotes because I don't subscribe to all ideas that fit under the rubric of…
-
Occasionalism, Omnipotence, and Matthew 23:9
"Secondary causes are mere occasional causes, occasions of the exercise of the causality of the only true productive cause, God." And call no man your father upon earth, for One is your Father, who is in Heaven. (Matthew, 23:9) Posted by: Simon Neale | Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 03:21 PM Before we can evaluate Mr. Neale's…
-
A ‘Feuerbachian’ Objection to Descartes’ First Meditation III God Argument
Descartes gives three arguments for the existence of God in his Meditations on First Philosophy. This entry discusses the first argument and commenter Elliot's objection to it. We can call it the argument from the representational content of the God-idea. In a subsequent entry I hope to set forth the argument in full dress and…
-
Soloveitchik on Proving the Existence of God
Substack latest.