Category: God
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Lydia McGrew on the ‘Same God’ Debate
She says that it is too important to be left to philosophers. She is right that the debate is important and has practical consequences, although I don't think any of the philosophers who have 'piped up' recently (Beckwith, Tuggy, Feser, Rea, Vallicella, et al.) want to take the debate merely as a point of entry…
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Same Cause, Same Referent? More on the ‘Same God’ Problem
Tree and Scarecrow Suppose I point out a certain tree in the distance to Dale and remark upon its strange shape. I say, "That tree has a strange shape." Dale responds, "That's not a tree; that's a scarecrow!" Suppose we are looking at the same thing, a physical thing that exists in the external world…
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Do Christians and Muslims Believe in the Same God? Francis Beckwith and the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Francis Beckwith mentions the Kalam Cosmological Argument in his latest The Catholic Thing article (7 January 2106): 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence. Suppose that a Muslim and Christian come to believe that God exists on the basis…
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Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?
Francis Beckwith and Dale Tuggy, two philosophers I respect, answer in the affirmative in recent articles. While neither are obviously wrong, neither are obviously right either, and neither seem to appreciate the depth and difficulty of the question. In all fairness, though, the two articles in question were written for popular consumption. Beckwith begins with…
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Galen Strawson: It is Certain that the Christian God does not Exist!
Here, in The New York Review of Books: To the Editors: Thomas Nagel writes that “whether atheists or theists are right depends on facts about reality that neither of them can prove” [“A Philosopher Defends Religion,” Letters, NYR, November 8]. This is not quite right: it depends on what kind of theists we have to…
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The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Evil
It is important to distinguish between the problem of evil and the argument from evil. The first is the problem of reconciling the existence of God, as traditionally understood, with the existence of natural and moral evils. As J. L. Mackie points out, this "is essentially a logical problem: it sets the theist the task of clarifying and…
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Knowing God Through Experience
A mercifully short (9:17) but very good YouTube video featuring commentary by name figures in the philosophy of religion including Marilyn Adams, William Alston, William Wainwright, and William Lane Craig. Craig recounts the experience that made a theist of him. (HT: Keith Burgess-Jackson) As Marilyn Adams correctly points out at the start of the presentation,…
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God and Man
Is God an anthropomorphic projection or is man a theomorphic creation?
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God, Proof, and Desire
From a reader: . . . I’m confused by some of your epistemic terms. You reject [in the first article referenced below] the view that we can “rigorously prove” the existence of God, and several times say that theistic arguments are not rationally compelling, by which you mean that there are no arguments “that will…
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Infinite Desire and God as Being Itself
A reader from Portugal raised a question I hadn't thought of before: "Can God satisfy our infinite desire if God is a being among beings?" This question presupposes that our desire is in some sense infinite. I will explain and defend this presupposition in a moment. Now if our desire is infinite, then it is…
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A Question About God and Existence
A reader asks: You seem to hold that, if God is identical to his existence, then God is Existence itself. Why think that? Why not think instead that, if God is identical to his existence, then he is identical to his 'parcel' of existence, as it were? This is an entirely reasonable question. I will…
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In Defense of Modes of Being: Substance and Accident
The following entry, first posted on February 20, 2011, is relevant to the question whether God is a being among beings. My rejection of this claim requires that there be modes of Being. If talk of modes of Being is unintelligible, or based on an obvious mistake, then the claim that God is not a…
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Again on ‘God + World = God’
The thesis under examination as expressed by Diogenes Allen: "The world plus God is not more than God alone. God less the world is not less than God alone." Is this a defensible position? Let's consider both sides of the question. A. First, a crisp little argument against the view. Consider two possible scenarios. In…