Whilst God is said to be omnipresent, some religions also claim that God is specially present, or more present at/in certain locations. For example, a claim of special presence shared by Christians and Jews is that God was specially present at/in the first Temple. The chapter canvases various ways in which one can make sense of this claim whilst still affirming the omnipresence of God. This includes offering different accounts of special presence relying on derivative notions of presence, and offering (...) other views of special presence that rely upon fundamental accounts of presence. The chapter itself does not argue for one view in particular, but instead offers a map of possible options and future areas for research. (shrink)

After briefly outlining the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I explain how it relies crucially on the claim that it is not improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe. Against this premise stands the divine psychology objection: the contention that the probability that God would design a fine-tuned universe is inscrutable. I explore three strategies for meeting this objection: (i) denying that the FTA requires any claims about divine psychology in the first place, (ii) defining the motivation and intention to design (...) a fine-tuned universe into the theistic hypothesis, and (iii) providing arguments that the relevant probability is not terribly low. While I reject the first two, I conclude, in line with the third, that considerations about life's objective value establish that it is not absurdly improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe, whether one regards the FTA as an inference merely to a cosmic designer, or to theism proper. Accordingly, the divine psychology objection fails. (shrink)

Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Pragmatic theistic arguments, by contrast, conclude that you ought to believe in God. The two most famous pragmatic theistic arguments are put forth by Blaise Pascal (1662) and William James (1896). Pragmatic arguments for theism can be summarized as follows: believing in God has significant benefits, and these benefits aren’t available for the unbeliever. Thus, you should believe in, or ‘wager on’, God. This article distinguishes between various kinds of theistic wagers, including finite (...) vs. infinite wagers, premortem vs. postmortem wagers, and doxastic vs. acceptance wagers. Then, we’ll turn to the epistemic-pragmatic distinction, and discusses the nuances of James’ argument, and how views like epistemic permissivism and epistemic consequentialism provide unique “hybrid” wagers. Finally, we’ll cover outstanding objections and responses. (shrink)

The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, particularly those working (...) in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Cosmological arguments from contingency attempt to show that there is a necessarily existing god‐like being on the basis of the fact that any concrete things exist at all. Such arguments are built out of the following components: (i) a causal principle that applies to non‐necessary entities of a certain category; (ii) a reason to think that if the causal principle is true, then there would have to be a necessarily existing concrete thing; (iii) a reason to think that the necessarily (...) existing thing would be god‐like. In this essay, I discuss various ways of developing each of these components to produce an argument from contingency, and I point out classic objections and replies along the way. I also make note of some of the most recent developments in arguments from contingency and point out avenues for future research. (shrink)

Not a lot of work on theistic arguments has been devoted to drawing connections between a necessary being and theistic properties. In this paper, I identify novel paths from a necessary being to certain theistic properties: volition, infinite power, infinite knowledge, and infinite goodness. The steps in those paths are an outline for future work on what William Rowe (The Cosmological Argument, 1975, p. 6) has called “stage II” of the cosmological argument.

I give two arguments for the claim that all events which occur at the actual world and are such that they could be caused, are also such that they must actually be caused. The first argument is an improvement of a similar argument advanced by Alexander Pruss, which I show to be invalid. It uses Pruss’s Brouwer Analog for counterfactual logic, and, as a consequence, implies inconsistency with Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals. While (I suggest) this consequence may not be objectionable, (...) the argument founders on the fact that Pruss’s Brouwer Analog has a clear counterexample. I thus turn to a second, “Lewisian” argument, which requires only an affirmation of one element of Lewis’s analysis of causation and one other, fairly weak possibility claim about the nature of wholly contingent events. The final section of the paper explains how both arguments escape objections from supposed indeterminacy in quantum physics. (shrink)

David Hume was clearly a critic of religion. It is still debated, however, whether or not he was an atheist who denied the existence of God. According to some interpretations he was a theist of some kind and others claim he was an agnostic who simply suspends any belief on this issue. This essay argues that Hume’s theory of belief tells against any theistic interpretation – including the weaker, “attenuated” accounts. It then turns to the case for the view that (...) Hume’s criticisms of theism were limited to the “soft” skeptical (agnostic) aim of discrediting theist arguments, and shows that he is committed to a “harder” skeptical view that denies the theist hypothesis (in all its forms). Hume’s atheistic commitments are, the paper concludes, entirely consistent with his mitigated skeptical principles. (shrink)

In reply to certain cosmological arguments for theism, critics regularly argue that the causal principle ex nihilo nihil fit may be false. Various theistic counter-replies to this challenge have emerged. One type of strategy is to double down on ex nihilo nihil fit. Another, very different strategy of counter-reply is to grant for the sake of argument that the principle is false, while maintaining that sound cosmological arguments can be formulated even with this concession in place. Notably, one can employ (...) a weaker opening premise formulated in modal terms, proceeding for instance from the proposition that for any contingent object coming into existence it is at least possible that it have a cause. My aim here is to try out a related strategy for weakening the relevant opening premise. Granting that it is possible for a contingent object to come into existence out of nothing without a cause, I proceed from the extremely modest claim that the obtaining of exceptionless longstanding contingent regularities demands an explanation. As such, the contingent regularity that empirically accessible macro-level contingent objects do not pop into existence causelessly demands explanation. And as it turns out, that explanation will have to be in terms of an object or objects possessed of at least some of the traditional divine attributes. (shrink)

The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological arguments, noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Chapter 4 offers an entirely new approach (...) to the cosmological argument - the approach of theistic modal realism. The proper explananda of cosmological arguments on this approach is not change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. The proper explananda is the totality of metaphysical reality - all actualia and all possibilia. The result is the most compelling and least objectionable version of the cosmological argument. (shrink)

It is often said that time must have a beginning because otherwise the series of past events would have the paradoxical features of an actual infinite. In the present paper, we show that, even given a dynamic theory of time, the cardinality of an endless series of events, each of which will occur, is the same as that of a beginningless series of events, each of which has occurred. Both are denumerably infinite. So if an endless series of events is (...) possible, then the possibility of a beginningless series of past events should not be rejected merely on the ground that it would be an actual infinite. What would be required to rebut our argument is a symmetry breaker – something that motivates treating the past relevantly differently to the future. We consider several attempts to provide a symmetry breaker and show that none of them is successful. (shrink)

Most ordinary folks think that there are ordinary objects such as trees and frogs. They do not think there are extraordinary objects such as the mereological sum of trees and frogs, as the permissivist does. Nor do they deny the existence of ordinary composite objects such as tables, as the eliminativist does. In his recent book, Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary, Korman positions himself alongside ordinary folk. He deftly defends the common sense view of ordinary objects, and argues against (...) the permissivist and eliminativist. One of the ways he does this is by launching what he calls ‘arguments from counterexample’. In this paper, I focus on the dialectical effectiveness of such arguments generally. I discuss whether and how we might sometimes be justified in using arguments from counterexample and commonsense in philosophical debate, even if they appear to be (or are) question-begging. I conclude that, given some of Korman’s other commitments, there is little reason for his opponents to take his arguments from counterexample seriously. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg’s hiddenness argument for atheism assumes that God’s perpetual openness to a relationship with any finite person is consistent with their perpetual flourishing. However, I argue that if Aquinas-Stump’s account of the nature of love is true, then any finite person flourishes the most only if they attain the greatest degree of union among God and all relevant parties. Moreover, if Humean externalism is true, then any finite person might not have their greatest attainable degree of union among (...) God and all relevant parties, as soon as possible, unless God sacrifices some time in the union—not the whole union—with them. Accordingly, God’s perpetual openness might not be consistent with the future flourishing of any finite person—from which it follows that a crucial assumption of the hiddenness argument might not be true. (shrink)

The falsity of moral claims is commonly deduced from two tenets: that they presuppose the existence of objective values and that these values don’t exist. Hence, the error theory concludes, moral claims are false. In this article, I put pressure on the image of human morality that is presupposed in moving from the non-existence of objective values to the falsity of moral claims. I argue that, while, understood in a certain way, the two premises of the error theory are correct, (...) this does not render moral discourse false, because moral objectivity is disanalogous to objectivity in empirical sciences and as such need not be characterized in terms of mind-independency. Using Dewey, I illuminate the possibility of accommodating the guiding intuitions of the error theory in a first-order account of morality. (shrink)

One of the most commonly-raised objections to the design argument is the so-called “who designed the designer?” objection, which charges that any designer invoked to explain complexity in the universe will feature complexity of its own, and thus require explanation in terms of design. There are two distinct versions of this objection in the contemporary literature, with it being couched in terms of: (1) Complexity of designer: a designer exhibits complexity, which calls for explanation in terms of design; (2) Complexity (...) of ideas: a designer’s ideas exhibit complexity, which calls for explanation in terms of design. To each of these versions of the objection there corresponds various responses from proponents of design. These proponents adopt a very particular strategy when crafting their responses: they argue that the objection can be neutralised simply by appealing to one or more of God’s attributes. In this paper I argue that this strategy is inapt, and unable to yield a successful response to either version of the objection. I also argue that a more promising way of tackling the objections is to identify their own peculiar weaknesses, for once these are exposed the objections cease to be a credible threat to the design hypothesis. (shrink)

In disagreements about trivial matters, it often seems appropriate for disputing parties to adopt a ‘middle ground’ view about the disputed matter. But in disputes about more substantial controversies (e.g. in ethics, religion, or politics) this sort of doxastic conduct can seem viciously acquiescent. How should we distinguish between the two kinds of cases, and thereby account for our divergent intuitions about how we ought to respond to them? One possibility is to say that ceding ground in a trivial dispute (...) is appropriate because the disputing parties are usually epistemic peers within the relevant domain, whereas in a more substantial disagreement the disputing parties rarely, if ever, qualify as epistemic peers, and so ‘sticking to one’s guns’ is usually the appropriate doxastic response. My aim in this paper is to explain why this way of drawing the desired distinction is ultimately problematic, even if it seems promising at first blush. (shrink)

Atheology, accurately defined by Alvin Plantinga, offers reasons why god’s existence is implausible. Skeptically reasoning that theological arguments for god fail to make their case is one way of leaving supernaturalism in an implausible condition. This ‘rationalist’ atheology appeals to logical standards to point out fallacies and other sorts of inferential gaps. Beyond that methodological marker, few shared tactics characterize atheists and agnostics stalking theological targets. If unbelief be grounded on reason, let atheology start from a theological stronghold: the principle (...) of sufficient reason, a cornerstone of rationality. Seven rules, corollaries to that principle, are enough to show how theological arguments for god repeatedly contravene rationality by perpetuating mysteries, contradictions, begging of questions, pseudo-explanations, and the like. None of these complaints are new, nor has theology been unaware of them. Disorganized atheology has, so far, allowed theology to appear to answer them. Five major arguments for god are systematically analyzed and refuted using these seven rules of rationality, as a preliminary exercise illustrating this re-organized and re-focused rationalist atheology. (shrink)

We formulate a sort of "generic" cosmological argument, i.e., a cosmological argument that shares premises (e.g., "contingent, concretely existing entities have a cause") with numerous versions of the argument. We then defend each of the premises by offering pragmatic arguments for them. We show that an endorsement of each premise will lead to an increase in expected utility; so in the absence of strong evidence that the premises are false, it is rational to endorse them. Therefore, it is rational to (...) endorse the cosmological argument, and so rational to endorse theism. We then consider possible objections. (shrink)

Semen Frank (1877–1950) was one of the first and most ardent advocates of the ontological argument in the twentieth century. He proposed an original interpretation of the ontological argument based on its analogy to Descartes’ Cogito. Frank believed that it is possible to develop Cogito ergo sum into Cogito ergo est ens absolutum. In this paper, I analyze his version of the ontological argument. First, I propose a simple reconstruction of his reasoning, paying attention to its hidden premise. Second, departing (...) from the classical logical interpretations of Descartes’ argument, I show that for Frank the claim that God exists had the same logical properties as Cogito. As a result, it seems that his argument was formally correct, though based on a premise which could hardly be convincing for a non-believer. This should not be surprising, however, since Frank, as most Russian religious philosophers, was not interested in the project of philosophical theology. His main concern was rather the development of philosophy based on religious premises, which might be called “theological philosophy”. (shrink)

The Euthyphro objection is often perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the king objection to theistic meta-ethics. This paper proposes a response that hasn’t been much explored within the contemporary literature, based on the metaphysics of dispositions and natural law theory. The paper will first contend that there is a parallel between ways theists conceptualise God’s role in creating laws of nature and the ways God creates goods. Drawing upon these parallels I propose a possible response to the dilemma, where this (...) response parallels the dispositionalist response as to how God creates laws of nature. I do this by first explicating a natural law theory of goodness, then suggesting how the ontology of dispositions can be used in a novel way to account for goods, and finally by explaining how all this relates to the dilemma. I conclude the paper by posing some objections to myself and providing some replies. (shrink)

I provide an argument from consciousness for God’s existence. I first consider a version of the argument which is ultimately difficult to evaluate. I then consider a stronger argument, on which consciousness, given our worldly laws of nature, is rather substantial evidence for God’s existence. It is this latter argument the paper largely focuses on, both in setting it out and defending it from various objections.

Millican (Mind 113(451):437–476, 2004) claims to have detected ‘the one fatal flaw in Anselm’s ontological argument.’ I argue that there is more than one important flaw in the position defended in Millican (Mind 113(451):437–476, 2004). First, Millican’s reconstruction of Anselm’s argument does serious violence to the original text. Second, Millican’s generalised objection fails to diagnose any flaw in a vast range of ontological arguments. Third, there are independent reasons for thinking that Millican’s generalised objection is unpersuasive.

There has been a recent explosion of interest in the epistemology of disagreement. Much of the recent literature is concerned with a particular range of puzzle cases (discussed in the Cases section of my paper). Almost all of the papers that contribute to that recent literature make mention of questions about religious disagreement in ways that suggest that there are interesting connections between those puzzle cases and real life cases of religious disagreement. One important aim of my paper is to (...) cast doubt on that suggestion. More generally, the aim of my paper is to give a reasonably full account of the recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement, and then to give a serious discussion of some of the epistemological issues that are raised by real world religious disagreements. (shrink)

Some people -- including the present author -- have proposed and defended alternative restricted causal principles that block Robert Koons’s ’new’ cosmological argument without undermining the intuition that causation is very close to ubiquitous. In "Epistemological Foundations for the Cosmological Argument", Koons argues that any restricted causal principles that are insufficient for the purposes of his cosmological argument cause epistemological collapse into general scepticism. In this paper I argue, against Koons, that there is no reason to suppose that my favourite (...) restricted causal principle precipitates epistemological collapse into general scepticism. If we impose the ’same kinds’ of restrictions on causal epistemological principles and on principles of general causation, then we cannot be vulnerable to the kind of argument that Koons develops. (shrink)

A prominent Thomistic cosmological argument maintains that an infinite regress of causes, which exhibits a certain pattern of ontological dependence among its members, would be vicious and so must terminate in a first member. Interestingly, Jonathan Schaffer offers a similar argument in the contemporary grounding literature for the view called metaphysical foundationalism. I consider the striking similarities between both arguments and conclude that both are unsuccessful for the same reason. I argue this negative result gives us indirect reason to consider (...) metaphysical infinitism as a genuine possibility, the view that chains of ontological dependence or ground can descend indefinitely. (shrink)

Peter Millican (2004) provides a novel and elaborate objection to Anselm's ontological argument. Millican thinks that his objection is more powerful than any other because it does not dispute contentious 'deep philosophical theories' that underlie the argument. Instead, it tries to reveal the 'fatal flaw' of the argument by considering its 'shallow logical details'. Millican's objection is based on his interpretation of the argument, according to which Anselm relies on what I call the 'principle of the superiority of existence' (PSE). (...) I argue that (i) the textual evidence Millican cites does not provide a convincing case that Anselm relies on PSE and that, moreover, (ii) Anselm does not even need PSE for the ontological argument. I introduce a plausible interpretation of the ontological argument that is not vulnerable to Millican's objection and conclude that even if the ontological argument fails, it does not fail in the way Millican thinks it does. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch an argument for the view that we cannot know (or have good reasons to believe) that God exists. Some call this view “strong agnosticism” but I prefer the term “skeptheism” in order to clearly distinguish between two distinct epistemic attitudes with respect to the existence of God, namely, agnosticism and skepticism. For the skeptheist, we cannot know (or have good reasons to believe) that God exists, since there can be neither conceptual (a priori) nor empirical (...) (a posteriori) evidence for the existence of God. (shrink)

When the phrase “playing God” is used in debates concerning the use of new technologies, such as cloning or genetic engineering, it is usually interpreted as a warning not to interfere with God’s creation or nature. I think that this interpretation of “playing God” arguments as a call to non-interference with nature is too narrow. In this paper, I propose an alternative interpretation of “playing God” arguments. Taking an argumentation theory approach, I provide an argumentation scheme and accompanying critical questions (...) that capture the moral concerns expressed by “playing God” arguments. If I am right, then “playing God” arguments should be understood, not as a warning to leave God’s creation or nature alone, but rather as an invitation to think carefully about all the ways in which the use of new technologies could go seriously wrong. (shrink)

The ontological argument in Anselm’s Proslogion II continues to generate a remarkable store of sophisticated commentary and criticism. However, in our opinion, much of this literature ignores or misrepresents the elegant simplicity of the original argument. The dialogue below seeks to restore that simplicity, with one important modification. Like the original, it retains the form of a reductio, which we think is essential to the argument’s great genius. However, it seeks to skirt the difficult question of whether 'exists' is a (...) genuine predicate by appealing instead to a distinction between having only mediated causal powers and having unmediated causal powers. Pegasus has no unmediated causal powers, but he has mediated causal powers through the thoughts, depictions, and literature in which he figures. This distinction allows us to argue about the existence of God without begging any questions. (shrink)

Theistic and analytic philosophers of religion typically privilege classical theism by ignoring or underestimating the great threat of alternative monotheisms. [1] In this article we discuss numerous god-models, such as those involving weak, stupid, evil, morally indifferent, and non-revelatory gods. We find that theistic philosophers have not successfully eliminated these and other possibilities, or argued for their relative improbability. In fact, based on current evidence – especially concerning the hiddenness of God and the gratuitous evils in the world – many (...) of these hypotheses appear to be more probable than theism. Also considering the – arguably infinite – number of alternative monotheisms, the inescapable conclusion is that theism is a very improbable god-concept, even when it is assumed that one and only one transcendent god exists. [1] I take ‘theism’ to mean ‘classical theism’, which is but one of many possible monotheisms. Avoiding much of the discussion around classical theism, I wish to focus on the challenges in arguing for theism over monotheistic alternatives. I consider theism and alternative monotheisms as entailing the notion of divine transcendence. (shrink)

Theistic and analytic philosophers of religion typically privilege classical theism and monotheism by ignoring or underestimating the great threat of polytheism. We develop an argument from infinitely many alternatives, which decisively demonstrates that if a monotheistic or polytheistic god-model obtains, it will almost certainly be polytheistic. Probabilistic calculations are performed in order to illustrate the difficulties faced by the monotheistic proponent. After considering possible objections, such as whether there should be limits placed on how many possible god-models could obtain, we (...) conclude that our argument from infinitely many alternatives is sound, and highly unlikely to be overcome. (shrink)

A symposium on my *Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary* (2015). In response to Wallace, I attempt to clarify the dialectical and epistemic role that my arguments from counterexamples were meant to play, I provide a limited defense of the comparison to the Gettier examples, and I embrace the comparison to Moorean anti-skeptical arguments. In response to deRosset, I provide a clearer formulation of conservatism, explain how a conservative should think about the interaction between intuition and science, and discuss what (...) conservatives should say about scattered territories, clonal colonies, and arbitrary systems. In response to Tillman and Spencer, I fortify my original presentation of the debunking arguments by clarifying why, even while trees (if they exist) are paradigmatically causal, conservatives are meant to be rationally obstructed from believing that it is trees that are causing our tree beliefs. (shrink)

Chalmers has argued that Bayesianism supports the existence of a priori truths, since it entails that scrutability conditionals are not rationally revisable. However, as we argue, Chalmers's arguments leave open that every proposition is rationally deniable, which would be devastating for large parts of his philosophical program. We suggest that Chalmers should appeal to well-known convergence theorems to argue that ideally rational subjects converge on the truth of scrutability conditionals. However, our discussion reveals that showing that these theorems apply in (...) effect requires assuming scrutability. Consequently, Bayesianism doesn't conflict with Chalmers's scrutability framework, but it doesn't support it, either. (shrink)

LeMans’s gontological argument aims to prove the non-existence of God on the basis that it is possible to conceive of a being that is greater than any actual thing. If God were actual, then it would be possible to conceive of something greater than God. As this is not possible, God does not exist.

In light of the advancements in cognitive science and the evolutionary psychology of religion in the past two decades, scientists and philosophers have begun to reflect on the theological and atheological implications of naturalistic—and in particular, evolutionary—explanations of religious belief and behaviour. However, philosophical naiveté is often evinced by scientists and scientific naiveté by philosophers. The aim of this article is to draw from these recent contributions, point out some common pitfalls and important insights, and suggest a way forward. This (...) proposal avoids the genetic fallacy as well as misunderstandings of the cognitive mechanisms that give rise to religious belief. In the end, it may well be that the cognitive science of religion is atheologically and theologically ambiguous; traditional philosophers of religion on both sides of the debate still have work to do. (shrink)

The modern belief that mindless forces can be ultimate efficient causes of natural events is a conceptual impossibility. The logically ultimate cause of any change, the something that is ultimately making it occur in the present moment, is either a mind or not. More specifically, the cause either chooses to act or it does not. By choice here, I mean an act of free will in the libertarian sense. Where there is choosing in this sense there must be a mind. (...) And when we say that an agent acts thus freely, we mean that it acts without being causally determined to act by anything beyond itself. However, this is conceptually indistinguishable from the idea of an ultimate efficient cause. To say that an agent is the ultimate cause in a causal chain is, by definition, to say that it acts without being caused to act by anything beyond itself. It is the head of the causal chain. It is, therefore, a matter of conceptual necessity that ultimate causes be minds, a fact that we have been blind to since the Scientific Revolution on the bad analogy of machines. Thus, every force ultimately governing the universe must be a mind corresponding either to the polytheist’s or the monotheist’s generic definition of divinity, and monotheism’s eternal mind will always be the most complete and justifiable explanation for the existence of the universe as a whole, even for the existence of the gods themselves. (shrink)

Timothy O’Connor presents a novel and powerful version of the cosmological argument from contingency. What distinguishes his argument is that it does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This version thus avoids powerful objections facing the Principle. We present and develop the argument, strengthening it in various ways. We fill in big gaps in the argument and answer criticisms. These include the criticisms that O’Connor considers as well as new criticisms. We explain how his replies to a Kantian (...) criticism and to the demand for contrastive explanation fail, and properly answer the criticism and the demand. We develop two new criticisms, the objection from opaqueness and the objection from constitution, and explain how these objections can be answered. (shrink)

This essay outlines answers to the problem of evil from Jewish perspectives. The essay uses traditional Jewish sources to illustrate theodicies familiar in other religious traditions, and introduces a few less familiar Jewish theodicies besides. Other responses to the problem of evil are also considered. Jewish responses are not usually framed in contemporary philosophical categories, and mine is an attempt at categorization. The traditional Jewish sources might show some promise of contributing to contemporary philosophical debate.

I argue for the following four theses: (1) The Dread Thesis: human beings should fear having false religious beliefs concerning some religious doctrines; (2) The Radical Uncertainty Thesis: we, namely most human beings in our culture at our time, are in a situation where we have to commit ourselves on the truth or falsity of some propositions of ultimate importance; (3) The Radical Choice Thesis: considerations of expected loss or gain do not always provide guidance as to how to commit (...) ourselves on matters of religious doctrine that are both radically uncertain and of ultimate importance; (4) The Scandal Thesis: radical choice on matters of ultimate importance is neither good nor inevitable, but due to the collective failure of philosophers of religion. Then I consider some inadequate responses: playing the faith card; contra-Pascalian decision theory; spiritual chauvinism; that faith presupposes uncertainty; the older pachyderm; irony, subjectivity, relativism and non-cognitivism; tainted truth; and muddling through. Finally I submit that the way forward is quite simply to become better philosophers. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to critically assess two opposing theses about the epistemology of religious belief. The first one, developed by John Mackie, claims that belief in God can be justified or warranted only if there is a good argument for the existence of God. The second thesis, elaborated by Alvin Plantinga, holds that even if there is no such argument, belief in God can be justified or warranted. I contend that the first thesis is plausibly false, because (...) belief in God is not just like a scientific hypothesis, and the second thesis is likely true if epistemic externalism is the correct view. However, even if the second thesis is true, I argue that to work on good arguments for God’s existence is unavoidable in order to cope with a new version of the Great Pumpkin objection, as well as to achieve other relevant purposes such as to convince rational observers outside the theistic community that belief in God is likely justified or warranted. (shrink)

In this article, we evaluate various responses to a noteworthy objection, namely, the infinite God objection to the kalām cosmological argument. As regards this objection, the proponents of the kalām argument face a dilemma—either an actual infinite cannot exist or God cannot be infinite. More precisely, this objection claims that God’s omniscience entails the existence of an actual infinite with God knowing an actually infinite number of future events or abstract objects, such as mathematical truths. We argue, however, that the (...) infinite God objection is based on two questionable assumptions, namely, that it is possible for an omniscient being to know an actually infinite number of things and that there exist an actually infinite number of abstract objects for God to know. (shrink)

The Pinocchio paradox, devised by Veronique Eldridge-Smith in February 2001, is a counter-example to solutions to the Liar that restrict the use or definition of semantic predicates. Pinocchio’s nose grows if and only if what he is stating is false, and Pinocchio says ‘My nose is growing’. In this statement, ‘is growing’ has its normal meaning and is not a semantic predicate. If Pinocchio’s nose is growing it is because he is saying something false; otherwise, it is not growing. ‘Because’ (...) stands here for a non-semantic relation; it might be supposed to be causal or of some other nature, but it is not semantic. The paradox is discussed in relation to Tarski’s and Kripke’s theories of truth. Although the paradox is not necessarily a counter-example to a theory of a truth predicate, it is a problem for a theory of truth of the kind preserved by validity. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss formal reconstructions of Anselm’s ontological argument. We first present a number of requirements that any successful reconstruction should meet. We then offer a detailed preparatory study of the basic concepts involved in Anselm’s argument. Next, we present our own reconstructions—one in modal logic and one in classical logic—and compare them with each other and with existing reconstructions from the reviewed literature. Finally, we try to show why and how one can gain a better understanding of (...) Anselm’s argument by using modern formal logic. In particular, we try to explain why formal reconstructions of the argument, despite its apparent simplicity, tend to become quite involved. (shrink)

Religious epistemology is the study of how subjects' religious beliefs can have, or fail to have, some form of positive epistemic status and whether they even need such status appropriate to their kind. The current debate is focused most centrally upon the kind of basis upon which a religious believer can be rationally justified in holding certain beliefs about God and whether it is necessary to be so justified to believe as a religious believer ought. Engaging these issues are primarily (...) three groups of people who call themselves ‘fideists’, ‘Reformed epistemologists’, and ‘evidentialists’. Each group has a position, but the positions are not mutually exclusive in every case, and in the debate, the names better describe the groups' emphases than mutually exclusive positions in the debate. In this article, we will first give a brief historical survey of evidentialism, fideism, and reformed epistemology. Second, we will give the fideist's position. Third, we will give the evidentialist's position. Fourth, we will give the reformed epistemologist's position, and last, we will include some comments on the current state of the debate, where we will show that the groups' positions are not mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly conflicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also that it can be epistemically rationally grounded. In this paper, I argue (...) that quasi-fideism fails. Its central tenets either have unattractive consequences or are implausible. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Setting Up the Argument The Evidence for Fine‐Tuning Epistemic Probability Determining k′ and the Comparison Range Justifying Premises (1) and (2) The Multiverse Hypothesis Miscellaneous Objections Conclusion: Putting the Argument in Perspective References.