The Argument from Collections

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Menzel
Keyword(s):  
Weak Sense ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument

Very broadly, an argument from collections is an argument that purports to show that our beliefs about sets imply—in some sense—the existence of God. Plantinga (2007) first sketched such an argument in “Two Dozen” and filled it out somewhat in his 2011 monograph Where the Conflict Really Lies: Religion, Science, and Naturalism. This chapter reconstructs what strikes the author as the most plausible version of Plantinga’s argument. While it is a good argument in at least a fairly weak sense, it doesn’t initially appear to have any explanatory advantages over a non-theistic understanding of sets—what the author calls set theoretic realism. However, the author goes on to argue that the theist can avoid an important dilemma faced by the realist and, hence, that Plantinga’s argument from collections has explanatory advantages that realism does not have.

The argument from souls to God

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-305
Author(s):  
RICHARD SWINBURNE
Keyword(s):  
Mental Life ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Universal Properties ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Enormous Number

AbstractHumans are pure mental substances, that is essentially souls, who have a rich mental life of sensations, thoughts, intentions, and other pure mental events, largely caused by and sometimes causing events in their brains and so in their bodies. God has reason to create humans because humans have a kind of goodness, the ability to choose between good and evil, which God himself does not have. The existence of these causal connections between mental events and brain events requires an enormous number of separate psychophysical laws. It is most improbable that there would be such laws if God had not made them. Each soul has a thisness; it is the particular soul it is quite independently of its mental properties and bodily connections. So no scientific law, concerned only with relations between substances in virtue of their universal properties, could explain why God created this soul rather than that possible soul, and connected it to this body. Yet a rational person often has to choose between equally good alternatives on non-rational grounds; and so there is nothing puzzling about God choosing to create this soul rather than that possible soul. Hence the existence of souls provides a good argument for the existence of God.

scholarly journals Kant’s post-1800 Disavowal of the Highest Good Argument for the Existence of God

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Kahn
Keyword(s):  
Moral Law ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Opus Postumum

AbstractI have two main goals in this paper. The first is to argue for the thesis that Kant gave up on his highest good argument for the existence of God around 1800. The second is to revive a dialogue about this thesis that died out in the 1960s. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I reconstruct Kant’s highest good argument. In the second, I turn to the post-1800 convolutes of Kant’s Opus postumum to discuss his repeated claim that there is only one way to argue for the existence of God, a way which resembles the highest good argument only in taking the moral law as its starting point. In the third, I explain why I do not find the counterarguments to my thesis introduced in the 1960s persuasive.

Nonbelief as Support for Atheism

1998 ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Theodore M. Drange
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
The World ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
The Given

The Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg has recently put forward an argument for atheism based on the idea that God is supposed to be perfectly loving and so would not permit people to be deprived of awareness of his existence. If such a deity were to exist, then, he would do something to reveal his existence clearly to people, thereby causing them to become theists. Thus, the fact that there are so many non-theists in the world becomes good reason to deny the existence of God conceived of in the given way. I first raise objections to Schellenberg’s formulation of the argument and then suggest some improvements. My main improvement is to include among the divine attributes the property of strongly desiring humanity’s love. Since to love God requires at least believing that he exists, if God were to exist, he must want widespread theistic belief. The fact that so many people lack such belief becomes a good argument for atheism with respect to God conceived of in the given way. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered, in particular the claim that God refrains from revealing himself to people in order to avoid interfering with their free will or to avoid eliciting inappropriate responses from them or some other (unknown) purpose. An attempt is made to refute each of these objections.

scholarly journals Uma avaliação do argumento ontológico modal de Plantinga

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Domingos Faria
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
The Other ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Abstract My aim in this paper is to critically assess Plantinga’s modal ontological argument for existence of God, such as it is presented in the book “The Nature of Necessity” (1974). Plantinga tries to show that this argument is (i) valid and (ii) it is rational to believe in his main premise, namely “there is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated”. On the one hand, I want to show that this argument is logically valid in both systems B and S5 of modal logic. On the other hand, I think that this argument is not a good argument to show that God exists or that it is rational to believe in God.

Ukrainian community life of believers

2008 ◽  
pp. 110-134
Author(s):  
Pavlo Yuriyovych Pavlenko
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Religious Activity ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Religious System ◽  
Real Presence ◽  
The Status ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
The Individual

The cornerstone of any religion is its anthropological concept, which seeks to determine the essential orientations of man, to outline the ideological framework of its existence, to represent the idea of ​​its essence, purpose in earthly life. The main task of the religious system is the act of involving and subordinating man to the spiritual divine realm as the realm of the transcendental existence of God. Belief in the real presence of the latter implies a new understanding of oneself, which ultimately leads the religious individual to the desire to be involved in this transcendental existence, to have intimate relations with him, to have a consciousness inherent in God. Note that in this context, all human being is interpreted as a certain arena for this realization. Therefore, the religious life of the individual acquires the status of religious activity.

The Problem of Evil and Replies to Some Important Responses

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-131
Author(s):  
Bruce Russell
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Strong Argument ◽  
Parallel Argument ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil

I begin by distinguishing four different versions of the argument from evil that start from four different moral premises that in various ways link the existence of God to the absence of suffering. The version of the argument from evil that I defend starts from the premise that if God exists, he would not allow excessive, unnecessary suffering. The argument continues by denying the consequent of this conditional to conclude that God does not exist. I defend the argument against Skeptical Theists who say we are in no position to judge that there is excessive, unnecessary suffering by arguing that this defense has absurd consequences. It allows Young Earthers to construct a parallel argument that concludes that we are in no position to judge that God did not create the earth recently. In the last section I consider whether theists can turn the argument from evil on its head by arguing that God exists. I first criticize Alvin Plantinga’s theory of warrant that one might try to use to argue for God’s existence. I then criticize Richard Swinburne’s Bayesian argument to the same conclusion. I conclude that my version of the argument from evil is a strong argument against the existence of God and that several important responses to it do not defeat it.

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