Evidence for God from Certainty

Faith and Philosophy 25 (1):31-46 (2008)
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Abstract

Human beings can have “strongly certain” beliefs—indubitable, veridical beliefs with a unique phenomenology—about necessarily true propositions like 2+2=4. On the plausible assumption that mathematical entities are platonic abstracta, naturalist theories fail to provide an adequate causal explanation for such beliefs because they cannot show how the propositional content of the causally inert abstracta can figure in a chain of physical causes. Theories which explain such beliefs as “corresponding” to the abstracta, but without any causal relationship, entail impossibilities. God, or a very god-like being, provides the best causal explanation for such beliefs.

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Katherin Rogers
University of Delaware

References found in this work

Mathematical truth.Paul Benacerraf - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (19):661-679.
Does God Have Beliefs?William P. Alston - 1986 - Religious Studies 22 (3-4):287 - 306.
Divine necessity.Robert Merrihew Adams - 1983 - Journal of Philosophy 80 (11):741-752.
On explaining knowledge of necessity.Joel Pust - 2004 - Dialectica 58 (1):71–87.

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