One of the most influential analytic philosophers of the late twentieth century, William P. Alston is a leading light in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of language. In this volume, twelve leading philosophers critically discuss the central topics of his work in these areas, including perception, epistemic circularity, justification, the problem of religious diversity, and truth.

Construing miracles as “violations,” I argue that a law of nature must specify some kind of possibility. But we must have here a sense of possibility for which the ancient rule of logic---ab esse ad posse valet consequentia---does not hold. We already have one example associated with the concept of statute law, a law which specifies what is legally possible but which is not destroyed by a violation. If laws of nature are construed as specifying some analogous sense of what (...) is naturally possible, then they need not be invalidated by a (rare) violation, and Humean miracles remain a genuine possibility. (shrink)

Hick professes now to be a “poly-something” and a “mono-something.” Most of my response is directed to these claims. I suggest that (contrary to my earlier assumption) Hick does not take any of the gods of the actual religions to be real. They are much more like fictional characters than like Kantian phenomena. He is “poly” about these insubstantia.I argue that Hick is not “mono” about anything at all of religious significance. In particular, he is not a mono-Realist.I conclude by (...) arguing that Hick has no satisfactory support for the sort of ineffability which he attributes to the Real. (shrink)

I examine Hume’s proposal about rationally considering testimonial evidence for miracles. He proposes that we compare the probability of the miracle (independently of the testimony) with the probability that the testimony is false, rejecting whichever has the lower probability. However, this superficially plausible proposal is massively ignored in our treatment of testimonial evidence in nonreligious contexts. I argue that it should be ignored, because in many cases, including the resurrection of Jesus, neither we nor Hume have any experience which is (...) at all relevant to assigning a prior probability to the alleged event. (shrink)

I argue against an "invariant regularity" account of natural law, and in favor of some necessitarian view. I explore some consequences--e.g., an event might exemplify a law relative to some property and violate a law relative to another property (and so might be both natural and nonnatural) and an event might exemplify a law relative to some property and violate a (different) law relative to the same property (i.e., the operative laws of nature are nomologically inconsistent). I argue that these (...) are genuine possibilities and that we have no strong empirical data against them. (shrink)

Is the nonexistence of God conceivable? By St. Anselm.--Five proofs of God's existence, by St. Thomas Aquinas.--Comments on St. Thomas' Five ways, by F. C. Copleston.--Two proofs of God's existence, by A. E. Taylor.--God's existence as a postulate of morality, by I. Kant.--The existence of God, by J. J. C. Smart.--The problem of evil, by D. Hume.--The experience of God, by J. Baille.--Instinct, experience, and theistic belief, by C. S. Pierce.--The ethics of belief, by W. K. Clifford.--The will to believe, (...) by W. James.--Faith as passionate commitment, by S. Kierkegaard.--God as projection, by L. A. Feuerbach.--Bibliographical essay (p. 205-208). (shrink)

This chapter discusses the miraculous largely in the context of Western philosophy of religion and therefore largely in the context of a concern with Christianity. The main elements of the discussion are: A definition of the miraculous, basically a modified version of David Hume’s notion of a divinely caused violation of a law of nature; a brief discussion of the main functions which religious thought seems to assign to miracles. I divide these roles into two categories. One involves some epistemic (...) effect, such as providing someone with a basis or justification for belief. The other involves some other, non-epistemic, effect, such as providing physical healing,spiritual salvation, etc. A further discussion of epistemic concerns, mostly about the role of miracles as evidence for some belief, and the converse role of evidenceas justifying a belief in miracles; a further discussion of testimonial evidence in particular, and of how such evidence properly bears on judgments of probability. (shrink)

Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven,” This looks like a noetic miracle which happened in (or to) Peter. Must all Christians have a comparable miracle in themselves, or does the Bible enable us to apprehend, in some “natural” way, the revelations made to prophets and apostles long ago?I suggest that we need not have a single answer to this question, and that the “mix” of revelation and (...) reason, natural and supernatural noetic elements, may be different in various believers. (shrink)

In this paper I examine one line of argument against the claim that (some) suicide may be morally legitimate. This argument appeals to a putative moral principle that it is never licit to assault an innocent human life. I consider some related arguments in St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and I explore two possible senses of “innocent.” I argue that in one sense the putative moral principle is very implausible, and in neither sense is it true that all suicides assault (...) an innocent life. So this line of argument fails to establish the desired universal prohibition of suicide. (shrink)

In this paper I examine various aspects of the proposal that scarce lifesaving medical resources should (morally) be allocated by some random procedure. I argue that a fundamental assumption of this approach is that there are no morally relevant differences among the candidates for such services, and I challenge this general claim. I also argue that there are a great many lotteries among which we must choose if we are to use a lottery at all, and that we should choose (...) among them on valuational grounds. (shrink)

I argue that the problem of evil, As a problem with theological significance, Cannot be specified in terms simply of truth and logic. For a problem specified in this way can be seen to be either trivial or necessarily insoluble before any of the substantive issues are decided. I then argue that it should be construed as a special sort of rhetorical problem, One posed by beliefs about the compatibility of other beliefs. On the basis of the logic and truth (...) values involved I distinguish two sub-Classes of such problems, And discuss appropriate methods of resolving them. (shrink)