Defends the cosmological argument for the existence of God against Hume's criticisms. Hume objects that since a cause is before its effect, an eternal succession has no cause; but that would rule of by fiat the possibility of God's creating the world from eternity. Hume argues that once a cause is given for each of a collection of objects, there is not need to posit a cause of the whole collection; but that is to assume the universe to be a (...) heap of things arbitrarily grouped rather than a whole arbitrarily divided. (shrink)

In this volume, the world's foremost Scotus scholars collaborate to present the latest research on his work.

According to the cosmological argument, there must be a self-existent being, because, if every being were a dependent being, we would lack an explanation of the fact that there are any dependent beings at all, rather than nothing. This argument faces an important, but little-noticed objection: If self-existent beings may exist, why may not also self-explanatory facts also exist? And if self-explanatory facts may exist, why may not the fact that there are any dependent beings be a self-explanatory fact? And (...) if that fact is self-explanatory, why make recourse to self-existent beings? This line of questioning is surprisingly hard to answer, but I find resources for an answer in Bertrand Russell's logical atomism. (shrink)

The Clarke/Rowe version of the Cosmological Argument is sound only if the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is true, but many philosophers, including Rowe, think that there is not adequate evidence for the principle of sufficient reason. I argue that there may be indirect evidence for PSR on the grounds that if we do not accept it, we lose our best justification for an important principle of metaethics, namely, the Principle of Universalizability. To show this, I argue that all the (...) other justifications of the Principle of Universalizability on offer, including Richard Hare's, are inadequate. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of theistic arguments mainly focus on their first (existence) stage, which argues for the existence of something having some very general, if suggestive, feature. I shall instead consider only the second (identification) stage of one such argument, the cosmologic al argument from contingency. Taking for granted the existence of an absolutely necessary being, I develop an extended line of argument that supports the..

The necessary task for philosophy is the development of a metaphysical ontology, i.e., a philosophical theory of everything. The urgency of this task is apparentin, for example, the weakness of proofs for the existence of God. When such “proofs” are not rooted in a comprehensive metaphysical ontology, the principlesapplied, as well as the “God” whose existence has supposedly been proven, are unintelligible. Thus, the explication of Being, from within an adequately articulated framework, should be the central focus of philosophy. The (...) basic conceptual structures required for this task are the three fundamental modalities: necessity, possibility, and contingency. With these tools, we can refute the thesis that everything is contingent and nothing is necessary or absolute. The all-is-contingent thesis has as an implication the assumption of the possibility of absolute nothingness. But this concept both is itself contradictory and has an impossible consequence. Finally, the relation between the absolute dimension of being and persons like us (contingent beings) can be understood by conceiving of the absolute dimension as a personal absolute. From here, we can attempt to interpret the history of the free acts of the personal absolute by studying the history of revealed religions. (shrink)

Bayesian conceptions of evidence have been invoked in recent arguments regarding the existence of God, the hypothesis of multiple physical universes, and the Doomsday Argument. Philosophers writing on these topics often claim that, given a Bayesian account of evidence, our existence or something entailed by our existence (perhaps in conjunction with some background knowledge or assumption) may serve as evidence for each of us. In this paper, I argue that this widespread view is mistaken. The mere fact of one's existence (...) qua conscious creature cannot serve as evidence on the standard Bayesian conception of evidence because knowledge of one's existence is a necessary part of the background knowledge relative to which all epistemic probabilities are defined. It follows that some formulations of the fine-tuning argument (for theism or a multiverse), the argument from consciousness (for theism) and a rejoinder to the Doomsday argument are mistaken. (shrink)

In Laws book X Plato tries to give us conclusive evidence that there are at least two gods (one good and the other bad). The reasoning depends crucially on the idea of ‘self moving motion.’ In this paper I try to show that the ‘evidence’ is not persuasive. (Nevertheless, the idea of ‘self – moving motion is interesting.).

J. Howard Sobel devotes seventy pages of his wide-ranging analysis of theistic arguments to a critique of the cosmological argument. Although the focus of that critique falls on the Leibnizian argument, he also offers in passing some criticisms of the kalam cosmological argument. Sobel does not challenge the causal premiss insofar as "begins to exist" means "has a first time of its existence." Rather he disputes the arguments and evidence for the fact of the universe's beginning. I show that Sobel's (...) rebuttals of the philosophical arguments against the infinitude of the past are in various ways misconceived or fallacious and that his response to the empirical evidence for the beginning of the universe involves a gratuitous and radical revision of contemporary astrophysical cosmogony. (shrink)

John Taylor complains that the "Kalam" cosmological argument gives the appearance of being a swift and simple demonstration of the existence of a Creator of the universe, whereas in fact a convincing argument involving the premiss that the universe began to exist is very difficult to achieve. But Taylor's proffered defeaters of the premisses of the philosophical arguments for the beginning of the universe are themselves typically undercut due to Taylor's inadvertence to alternatives open to the defender of the "Kalam" (...) arguments. With respect to empirical confirmation of the universe's beginning Taylor is forced into an anti-realist position on the Big Bang theory, but without sufficient warrant for singling out the theory as non-realistic. Therefore, despite the virtue of simplicity of form, the "Kalam" cosmological argument has not been defeated by Taylor's all too swift refutation. (shrink)

Graham Oppy’s attempt to show that the critiques of the kalam cosmological argument offered by Griinbaum, Davies, and Hawking are successful is predicated upon a misunderstanding of the nature of defeaters in rational belief. Neither Grunbaum nor Oppy succeed in showing an incoherence in the Christian doctrine of creation. Oppy’s attempts to rehabilitate Davies’s critique founders on spurious counter-examples and unsubstantiated claims. Oppy’s defense of Hawking’s critique fails to allay suspicions about the reality of imaginary time and finally results in (...) the denial of tense and temporal becoming. (shrink)

This paper examines the Kalam Cosmological Argument, as expounded by ,William Lane Craig, insofar as it pertains to the premise that it is metaphysically impossible for an infinite set of real entities to exist. Craig contends that this premise is justified because the application of the Cantorian theory to the real world generates counterintuitive absurdities. This paper shows that Craig’s contention fails because it is possible to apply Cantorian theory to the real world without thereby generating counterintuitive absurdities, provided one (...) avoids positing that an infinite set of real entities is technically a set within the meaning of such theory. Accordingly, this paper proposes an alternative version of the application of Cantorian theory to the real world thereby replacing the standard version of such application so thoroughly criticized by Craig. (shrink)

The first premise of the Kalam cosmological argument has come under fire in the last few years. The premise states that the universe had a beginning, and one of two prominent arguments for it turns on the claim that an actual infinite collection of entities cannot exist. After stating the Kalam cosmological argument and the two approaches to defending its first premise, I respond to two objections against the notion that an actual infinite collection is impossible: a Platonistic objection from (...) abstract objects and a set-theoretic objection from an ambiguity in the definition of ‘=’ and ‘. (shrink)

The kalam[1] cosmological argument has two parts. The first part attempts to show that there is a First Cause of the universe. It can be conveniently summarized as follows.

In "Reply To Smith: On The Finitude Of The Past" [1], Professor William Craig writes: I reiterate that Smith has yet to deal with my strongest arguments in favour of the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite, those based on inverse operations performed with transfinite numbers. [2] I think that this claim is mistaken; for: (i) there is no problem about allowing the inverse operations in question--subtraction, division, extracting roots, etc.--into transfinite ordinal arithmetic[3]; and (ii) there is no (...) problem about the exclusion of these operations from transfinite cardinal arithmetic. I shall take up these points in turn. (shrink)

I hold that the considerations adduced in kalam cosmological arguments do not embody reasons for reflective atheists and agnostics to embrace the conclusion of those arguments, viz. that the universe had a cause of its existence. I do not claim to be able to show that reflective theists could not reasonably believe that those arguments are sound; indeed, I am prepared to concede that it is epistemically possible that the arguments procede validly from true premises. However, I am prepared to (...) make the same concession about the following argument: Either 2+2=5 or God exists; 2+2?5; therefore God exists . But nobody could think that this argument deserves to be called a proof of its conclusion (even if it is sound). Of course, this latter argument is obviously circular: (almost) no one who was not antecedently persuaded of the truth of the conclusion would (have reason to) believe the first premise. But this fact does not entail that admittedly non circular arguments, such as the kalam cosmological arguments, cannot fail to be equally dialectically ineffective. And, indeed, that is the view which I wish to defend: there is not the slightest reason to think that kalam cosmological arguments should be dialectically effective against reasonable and reflective opponents. (shrink)

Craig (1981) presents and defends several different kalam cosmological arguments. The core of each of these arguments is the following ur argument.

This paper begins with a fairly careful and detailed discussion of the conditions under which someone who presents an argument ought to be prepared to concede that the argument is unsuccessful. The conclusions reached in this discussion are then applied to William Lane Craig’s defense of what he calls “the kalam cosmological argument.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chief contention of the paper is that Craig ought to be prepared to concede that “the kalam cosmological argument” is not a successful argument. The (...) paper pays particular attention to Craig’s recent criticisms of Adolf Grünbaum’s contention that “the kalam cosmological argument” presupposes “the normalcy of nothingness”; and it also addresses some methodological issues raised by Craig’s response to my previous criticisms of his replies to critiques of “the kalam cosmological argument” provided by Grünbaum, Hawking, and Davies. (shrink)

Kalam cosmological arguments have recently been the subject of criticisms, at least inter alia, by physicists---Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking---and philosophers of science---Adolf Grunbaum. In a series of recent articles, William Craig has attempted to show that these criticisms are “superficial, iII-conceived, and based on misunderstanding.” I argue that, while some of the discussion of Davies and Hawking is not philosophically sophisticated, the points raised by Davies, Hawking and Grunbaum do suffice to undermine the dialectical efficacy of kalam cosmological arguments.

Part of the kalam cosmological argument draws upon the claim that an actual infinite cannot exist. Classical theists also maintain both that some individuals will earn eternal life and that God infallibly foreknows the future. The claim that these latter two theses do not require that an actual infinite exists because God possesses an intuitive, rather than propositional intellect, is examined and rejected. Although the future is potential, rather than actual, classical theism requires that the future be, in a sense, (...) actually infinite. (shrink)

There is an intriguing recent effort to develop a valid cosmological argument on the basis of quite minimal assumptions.1 Indeed, the basis of the new cosmological argument is so slight that it is likely to make even a conscientious theist suspicious – to say nothing of our vigilant atheists. In Section 1 we present the background assumptions and central premises of the new cosmological argument. We are sympathetic to the conclusion that there necessarily exists an intelligent and powerful creator of (...) the actual universe, but we show in Section 2 that the new cosmological argument cannot establish this claim. Specifically, we show by reductio ad absurdum that the new argument is unsound, and that every plausibly modified version of the argument is also unsound.2 We close our discussion with a diagnosis of what went wrong in the new cosmological argument. Our conclusion is that this intriguing new argument promises considerably more than it can show. (shrink)

Recently, I was reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, and read selections from Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Kant's own teacher, Martin Knutzen. It was dope - real philosophical comfort food - and inspired this piece, written in the style of one of their textbooks.

In this paper I argue that Daniel A. Dombrowski's defence of a version of Anselm's ontological argument fails.

Close attention to levels of organization leads one to doubt the random character of the regulations of the cosmos as a whole. Scientific knowledge seems able, after all, to bring into focus the enigma of the individual histories that have shaped the world. Religious consciousness of a personal destiny should be analogically linked to the destiny of the universe in which it is rooted.

According to some cosmologists, the big bang cosmogony and even the (now largely defunct) steady-state theory pose a scientifically insoluble problem of matter-energy creation. But I argue that the genuine problem of the origin of matter-energy or of the universe has been fallaciously transmuted into the pseudo-problem of creation by an external cause. A fortiori, it emerges that the initial "true" and "false" vacuum states of quantum cosmology do not vindicate biblical divine creation ex nihilo at all.

Graham Oppy has argued that possible explanation entails explanation in order to object to Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss’s new cosmological argument that it does not improve upon familiar cosmological arguments. Gale and Pruss as well as Pruss individually have granted Oppy’s inference from possible explanation to explanation and argue that this inference provides a reason to believe that the strong principle of sufficient reason is true. In this article, I shall undermine Oppy’s objection to the new cosmological argument by (...) arguing that it is logically possible that some truths are merely possibly explained. (shrink)

Review of Michael Heller, Ultimate Explanations of the Cosmos, Springer, 2009.

The paper is inspired by the arguments raised recently by Grunbaum criticizing the current approaches of many cosmologists to the problem of spacetime singularity, matter creation and the origin of the universe. While agreeing with him that the currently favored cosmological ideas do not indicate the biblical notion of divine creation ex nihilo, I present my viewpoint on the same issues, which differs considerably from Grunbaum's. First I show that the symmetry principle which leads to the conservation law of energy (...) is violated when the time axis is terminated at t = 0. Next I discuss why this epoch (t = 0) is more a mathematical artifact whose supposed significance may disappear when one goes beyond the classical relativistic cosmology. This is illustrated by the example of quantum cosmology. (shrink)

The argument from design stands as one of the most intuitively compelling arguments for the existence of a divine Creator. Yet, for many scientists and philosophers, Hume's critique and Darwin's theory of natural selection have definitely undermined the idea that we can draw any analogy from design in artifacts to design in nature. Here, we examine empirical studies from developmental and experimental psychology to investigate the cognitive basis of the design argument. From this it becomes clear that humans spontaneously discern (...) purpose in nature. When constructed theologically and philosophically correctly, the design argument is not presented as conclusive evidence for God's existence but rather as an abductive, probabilistic argument. We examine the cognitive basis of probabilistic judgments in relationship to natural theology. Placing emphasis on how people assess improbable events, we clarify the intuitive appeal of Paley's watch analogy. We conclude that the reason why some scientists find the design argument compelling and others do not lies not in any intrinsic differences in assessing design in nature but rather in the prior probability they place on complexity being produced by chance events or by a Creator. This difference provides atheists and theists with a rational basis for disagreement. (shrink)

This paper first outlines the main ideas of British natural theology, and shows the perennial value some of them have kept. It then outlines ways of searching for connections between God and nature, seeking traces of intelligence, first in the context of the setting of the modern ontology of the laws of nature, and then in the context of the design argument. It contrasts the positions of Hume and Paley. A presentation of recent "intelligent design" proposals is then offered, from (...) the perspective of their continuing that tradition of argumentation. They are contrasted with a Millian acount of their leaving the problem of evil unanswered. Behe's concept of irreducible complexity is presented in greater details, followed by Dembski's attempt to turn it into a logically valid mode of inference. Objections stemming from philosophers of science are lastly considered. The nature of life's strategies is in the end found to escape both attempts to have it on one's side. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to highlight that for Peirce the reality of God makes sense of the whole scientific enterprise. The belief in God is a natural product of abduction, of the "rational instinct" or educated guess of the scientist or the layman, and also the abduction of God may be understood as a "proof" of pragmatism. Moreover, I want to suggest that for Peirce scientific activity is a genuine religious enterprise, perhaps even the religious activity par excellence, (...) and that to divorce religion from science is antithetical to both the scientific spirit and the real Peirce. Understanding the real Peirce requires to deal with his religious concerns, which are increasingly recognized as being perhaps as philosophically important as his scientific concerns. Since a key notion in this project is the idea of "il lume naturale" that Peirce borrowed from Galileo, I want also to pay attention to that expression which during years I have been following through Peirce's papers and books. -/- In order to try to explain some of this, my paper is arranged into four brief sections after this already long introduction: 1) God and scientific inquiry; 2) The belief in God as a product of abduction; 3) Galileo and Peirce: Il lume naturale; and by way of conclusion 4) Some remarks on the religious framework of Peirce's approach. (shrink)

This paper is an evaluation of C. S. Peirce’s late essay “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (1908), based on the two logical values that he calls “productiveness” and “security.” After reviewing the unique logical form of “abduction” and noting that it is a formal fallacy—and so enjoys less “security” than deduction or induction—I turn to the extraordinary case of abduction that is found in “A Neglected Argument.” I argue that the productiveness of the Neglected Argument is found (...) in its ability to instigate practical results. The security of the Neglected Argument, on the other hand, is rooted in an activity Peirce calls “musement,” a kind of rational intuition. Moreover, I suggest that Peirce’s notion of “musement,” which has remained something of a mystery in Peirce studies, arose from hisearly reading of Friedrich von Schiller’s aesthetics. (shrink)

In a recent article, Graham Oppy offers a lucid and intriguing examination of William Paley's design argument. Oppy sets two goals for his article. First, he sets out to challenge the "almost universal assumption" that Paley's argument is inductive by revealing it actually to be a deductive argument. Second, he attempts to expose Paley's argument as manifestly poor when interpreted in this way. I will argue that Oppy is unsuccessful in accomplishing his first goal, leaving his second goal quite irrelevant. (...) Contrary to Oppy's interpretation, Paley's argument is best interpreted as an inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

The design argument is one of three main arguments for the existence of God; the others are the ontological argument and the cosmological argument. Unlike the ontological argument, the design argument and the cosmological argument are a posteriori. And whereas the cosmological argument can focus on any present event to get the ball rolling (arguing that it must trace back to a first cause, namely God), design theorists are usually more selective.

I DEFEND IN DETAIL AN EXPOSITION OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN IN "PHILOSOPHY" 1968 AGAINST A. OLDING’S RECENT ATTACK IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES. I JUSTIFY THE DUALISM UNDERLYING THE ORIGINAL EXPOSITION. I FIND OLDING GUILTY OF TWO INTERESTING FALLACIES OF INDUCTIVE LOGIC - THE SUPERSIMILARITY FALLACY (POSTULATING IN AN ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY SIMILARITIES OF CAUSES IN RESPECTS IN WHICH DIFFERENCES OF EFFECTS SUGGEST DIFFERENCES OF CAUSES) AND THE COMPLETIST FALLACY (CLAIMING THAT AN EXPLANATION OF E BY C IS IMPERFECT UNLESS THE (...) EXISTENCE OF C AND HOW C CAUSES E CAN ALSO BE EXPLAINED). (shrink)

ARGUMENTS FROM DESIGN TO THE EXISTENCE OF GOD MAY TAKE AS THEIR PREMISS EITHER THE EXISTENCE OF REGULARITIES OF COPRESENCE OR THE EXISTENCE OF REGULARITIES OF SUCCESSION. THERE ARE NO VALID FORMAL OBJECTIONS TO A CAREFULLY ARTICULATED ARGUMENT OF THE LATTER TYPE. AGAINST SUCH AN ARGUMENT NONE OF THE OBJECTIONS IN HUME’S "DIALOGUES" HAVE ANY WORTH. THE ARGUMENT MAY HOWEVER GIVE ONLY A SMALL DEGREE OF SUPPORT TO ITS CONCLUSION.

Divine law theories of metaethics claim that moral rightness is grounded in God’s commands, wishes and so forth. Expressivist theories, by contrast, claim that to call something morally right is to express our own attitudes, not to report on God’s. Ostensibly, such views are incompatible. However, we shall argue that a rapprochement is possible and beneficial to both sides. Expressivists need to explain the difference between reporting and expressing an attitude, and to address the Frege-Geach problem. Divine law theorists need (...) to get past the Euthyphro dilemma, and to avoid moral externalism. This paper shows how a combined theory helps us to achieve this. (shrink)

The moralistic term ‘wickedness’ has fallen on hard times. Part of the problem is that the term and its cognates are ambiguous and some uses of the term are clearly harmless or rather mild terms of disapprobation: a harsh winter might be described as a “wicked season”; informally, a particularly talented musician might be said to have performed a “wicked solo” or described as being “wicked awesome!” and so forth. However, ‘wicked’ is also associated with synonyms like ‘ungodly’ and ‘blasphemous’ (...) and ‘impious’ —terminology that perhaps belongs to an outdated or parochial moral vernacular. Still, some of our best moral philosophers—no less than Stanley Benn, Joel Feinberg and Ronald Milo—have found the subject interesting and relevant enough to distinguish varieties of wickedness. One reason to reconsider the concept of wickedness is because they have. Another reason to reconsider the concept of wickedness is because further reflection on it might reveal something about the concept of evil. More specifically, reconsidering wickedness might reveal something about what evil people are like. Or so I shall argue. Indeed, one standard primary definition of the term equates wickedness with being “evil or morally wrong.” Essentially, I shall argue that the term, appropriately understood, is perfectly adequate—that the conception of wickedness that emerges from Milo and Feinberg and especially Benn illuminates what it is to be an evil person. (shrink)

According to the free-will defence, the exercise of free will by creatures is of such value that God is willing to allow the existence of evil which comes from the misuse of free will. A well-known objection holds that the exercise of free will is compatible with determinism and thus, if God exists, God could have predetermined exactly how the will would be exercised; God could even have predetermined that free will would be exercised sinlessly. Thus, it is held, the (...) free-will defence cannot be used as a partial account of why God should have allowed evil to exist. I investigate this objection using Kripke's apparatus for treating modalities and natural kinds to explore the nature of the incompatibilism required by the free-will defence. I show why the objection fails even if the standard arguments for compatibilism are acceptable. This is because the modality involved in the incompatibilism needed by the free-will defence differs from the modality involved in the compatibilism that is supported by standard compatibilist arguments. Finally, an argument is sketched for a variety of incompatibilism of the kind needed by the free-will defence. (shrink)

Increasingly, feminist theorists, such as Alison Martin and Ellen T. Armour, are attending to the numerous religious allusions within texts by Luce Irigaray. Engaging with this scholarship, this paper focuses on the problematic of evil that is elaborated within Irigarayan texts. Mobilizing the work of Catherine Malabou, the paper argues that Malabou's methodology of reading, which she identifies as "plastic," illuminates the logic at work within Irigaray's deployment of sacred stories.

A convincing defense of a divine command theory of the nature of obligation must address our darkest fear about God's commands--the fear that God may command something evil. Certainly some of the things that God has been thought to require have been evil. Rivers of blood have been shed in obedience to supposed divine commands. Can we accept a divine command theory without assuming a potential obligation to perform such horrible deeds?

Moral arguments were the type of theistic argument most characteristic of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More recently they have become one of philosophy's abandoned farms. The fields are still fertile, but they have not been cultivated systematically since the latest methods came in. The rambling Victorian farmhouse has not been kept up as well as similar structures, and people have not been stripping the sentimental gingerbread off the porches to reveal the clean lines of argument. This paper is (...) intended to contribute to the remedy of this neglect. It will deal with quite a number of arguments, because I think we can understand them better if we place them in relation to each other. This will not leave time to be as subtle, historically or philosophically, as I would like to be, but I hope I will be able to prove something more than my own taste for Victoriana. (shrink)

This little piece is a satire on Kant's moral argument for the existence of God, using Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion as a jumping-off point. It is written from the first-person perspective of a garden fairy at Kew Gardens.