Category: God
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An Ontological Disproof of God
Nothing could count as God that did not have the property of aseity, or in plain Anglo-Saxon, from-itself-ness. The concept of God is the concept of something that by its very nature cannot be dependent on anything else for its nature or existence, and this holds whether or not anything in reality instantiates the concept.…
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Necessary Being: A Note on a Post by James Barham
In the context of a reply to a "nasty attack on [Alvin] Plantinga by Jerry Coyne that cannot go unanswered," James Barham explains why he is an atheist: The other reason I balk [at accepting a theism like that of Plantinga's] is that I can’t help suspecting there is a category mistake involved in talking…
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Plantinga Versus Dawkins: Organized Complexity
This is the third in a series on Plantinga's new book. Here is the first, and here is the second. These posts are collected under the rubric Science and Religion besides being classified under other heads. This third post will examine just one argument of Dawkins' and Plantinga's response to it, pp. 26-28. Here is Plantinga…
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On Infinitely Regressive Explanations of the Universe’s Existence
We’ve never chatted. I’m Tom Belt, a friend of Alan Rhoda. I believe you know Alan. Yes, in fact I was thinking about him just the other day in connection with his espousal of presentism. I’ve always appreciated being challenged when I drop by your blog. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to help me understand…
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Two Kinds of Critical Caution
One person fears loss of contact with reality and is willing to take doxastic risks and believe beyond what he can claim strictly to know. The other, standing firm on the autonomy of human reason, refuses to accept anything that cannot be justified from within his own subjectivity. He fears error, and finds the first…
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Does Classical Theism Require Haecceitism?
Haecceitism is the doctrine that there are haecceities. But what is an haecceity? Suppose we take on board for the space of this post the assumptions that (i) properties are abstract objects, that (ii) they can exist unexemplified, and that (iii) they are necessary beings. We may then define the subclass of haecceity properties as…
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Idolatry and Iconoclasm: A Weilian Meditation
In one of its senses, superstition involves attributing to an object powers it cannot possess. But the same thing is involved in idolatry. Someone who makes an idol of money, for example, attributes to it a power it cannot possess such as the power to confer happiness on those who have it. So we need…
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How Could an Impassible God be Offended or Know Any Contingent Fact?
Earlier (here and here) I asked how an all-good God could sentence a human agent to sempiternal punishment, punishment that has a beginning but no end. If the punishment must fit the crime, and the crimes of finite agents are themselves finite, then it would seem that no one, no matter what his crimes, would…
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Theomonism
Richard E. Hennessey coins the useful term 'theomonism' to describe the onto-theological position of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. "Theomonism is the conjoint thesis that (1) there is but one and only one being, and thus the 'monism,' and (2) God is that being, and thus the 'theo.'" So there is exactly one being, and that being…
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James Rachels’ Argument from Moral Autonomy Against the Existence of God*
A guest post by Peter Lupu. Minor edits and a comment (in blue) by BV. In an intriguing paper “God and Moral Autonomy”, James Rachels offers what he calls “The Moral Autonomy Argument” against the existence of God. The argument is based on a certain analysis of the concept of worship and its alleged incompatibility…
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Why I am a Quasi-Atheist*
A guest post by Peter Lupu with some comments in blue by Bill Vallicella. [This essay is dedicated to the memory of Ann Freitag, my significant other, who passed away on April 17, 2010, 11:30am. She gave me two priceless gifts: Herself and a deep understanding that the love of life is not a mere…
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How Does a Direct Reference Theorist Deny the Existence of God?
First of all, how does an atheist deny the existence of God? Well, he might just assertively utter 1. God does not exist. But suppose our atheist is also a direct reference theorist, one who holds that the reference of a name is not routed through sense or mediated by a Russellian definite description that gives the sense…
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Gale on Baptizing God
Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge UP, 1991), p. 11 : First, because God is a supernatural being, he seem to defy being indexically pinned down or baptized. There are no lapels to be grabbed hold of by a use of 'this.' Some would contend that we can ostensively…
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A Searle-y Objection to the Causal Theory of Names
Yesterday I argued that whether 'God' and equivalents as used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to the same being depends on one's philosophy of language. In particular, I suggested that only on a causal theory of names could one maintain that their respective references are to the same entity. The causal theory of names,…
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The God of Christianity and the God of Islam: Same God?
One morning an irate C-Span viewer called in to say that he prayed to the living God, not to the mythical being, Allah, to whom Muslims pray. The C-Span guest made a standard response, which is correct as far as it goes, namely, that Allah is Arabic for God, just as Gott is German for God.…