Theistic Replies to the A Priori Argument for Atheism

In the central chapter of Can God Be Free?, William Rowe offers what amounts to an a priori argument for atheism. In what follows, I first clarify this argument, and I then defend it against recent criticisms due to William Hasker. Next, however, I outline four ways in which theists might plausibly reply to Rowe's argument.

Theistic Replies to the A Priori Argument for Atheism

In the central chapter of Can God Be Free?, William Rowe offers what amounts to an a priori argument for atheism. In what follows, I first clarify this argument, and I then defend it against recent criticisms due to William Hasker. Next, however, I outline four ways in which theists might plausibly reply to Rowe's argument.

God and Suffering

This chapter launches a new investigation of the question of God’s existence, examining it against the reality of human suffering and bringing to the fore contentious presuppositions concerning agency and value at the core of the debate. When we survey the world, we observe an enormous amount of pain, including virtually unspeakable kinds of maltreatment and agony, many instances of which seem patently unfair, unearned, and pointless. This chapter initiates the book’s argument that, in light of these observations, it is reasonable to conclude that God does not exist. The chapter critically examines and extends the work of William Rowe, John Hick, and Alvin Plantinga, taking up apparently pointless instances of suffering and the proposed justifying goods of character-building and free will.

On William Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil

William Rowe has put forward four popular evidential arguments from evil. I argue that there was already a prominent distinction between logical and evidential arguments from evil—the IN-IM-distinction, and that its adoption leads to two important results. First, all three non-Bayesian evidential arguments are actually not evidential but logical, while the Bayesian evidential argument genuinely evidential. Second, and most importantly, Rowe’s Bayesian evidential argument is redundant, in the sense that it has the same difficulties his three non-Bayesian arguments have. His move from the three earlier non-Bayesian arguments to the Bayesian argument is futile.

Reid's Regress

Thomas Reid's Essays on the Active Powers presents what is probably the most thoroughly developed version of agent-causal libertarianism in the modern canon. While commentators today often acknowledge Reid's contribution, they typically focus on what appears to be a serious problem for the view: Reid appears to commit himself to a position according to which acting freely would require an agent to engage in an infinite number of exertions of active power. In this essay, we maintain that, properly understood, Reid's version of agent-causal libertarianism generates no regress of exertion. Our discussion begins by presenting Reid's account of free action and why it appears vulnerable to a worrisome regress. We then consider three attempts to address the regress in the contemporary literature offered by William Rowe, Gideon Yaffe, and James Van Cleve, which we find unsatisfactory. We then develop a solution to the worry—one that takes very seriously both what Reid means by an ‘efficient’ cause and his appeal to normative features when explaining action. We call it the ‘networked capacity’ view.

Los ríos profundos. 60 años después en tres entrevistas breves

La aparición de Los ríos profundos, en 1958, llevó a José María Arguedas a un puesto imprescindible en la literatura peruana, más aún porque contribuyó a eclosionar, junto con el resto de su obra, un debate en diferentes niveles (con mayor difusión entre los estudios literarios y las ciencias sociales) que perdura hasta nuestros días. Dicho debate también ha servido para conocer el nivel de críticos e intelectuales que aportaron no solo con la comprensión de la novela, sino al desentrañamiento de problemáticas latentes en nuestra sociedad (de esa labor destacan nombres como Tomás Escajadillo, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos García-Bedoya, Gonzalo Portocarrero, Alberto Flores Galindo, William Rowe, Roland Forgues, Ricardo González Vigil, Mauro Mamani, Gonzalo Espino, Dorian Espezúa y muchos más). Afortunadamente, seguimos contando con voces consolidadas en la academia y en la escena literaria peruana que ayudan a enriquecer la lectura de esta novela capital. En esa línea, gracias a Gonzalo Espino Relucé, Nécker Salazar Mejía y Richard Parra, montaremos un breve diálogo con el afán de saber su opinión e indagaciones trascurridas en torno a tan importante novela tras 60 años de haber sido publicada.

The Ontological Argument

William Rowe claims that Anselm’s ontological argument, as restated by Alvin Plantinga, begs the question because, in order to know the truth of the key premise—“It is possible that God exists in reality”—we must know, independently of the argument, that God exists in reality. This chapter argues that Rowe focuses on Plantinga’s restatement of Anselm’s argument at the expense of Plantinga’s own version of the argument, and that Plantinga anticipates and addresses Rowe’s objection. Although Plantinga concedes that a rational person could reject his argument’s central premise, it might be possible to build on Plantinga’s argument by adding a further step derived from Iris Murdoch, which shows that the existence of God is not only possible but necessary, and therefore actual. This reconstruction is not an ontological argument in its purest form, but a fusion of elements from ontological, moral, and cosmological arguments for the existence of God.

Radically insensitive theists

Sceptical theists attempt to meet the challenge to theism posed by evidential arguments from evil by appealing to the limitations of human cognition. Drawing on an exchange between William Rowe and Michael Bergmann, I argue that consistent sceptical theists must be radically insensitive to certain kinds of evidence about prima facie evils – that is, that they must endorse the claim that not even evidence of extreme and pervasive suffering could justify disbelief in theism. I show that Bergmann's attempt to respond to this problem does not succeed and argue that no alternative response is forthcoming, concluding that the threat of radical insensitivity constitutes a serious and underappreciated difficulty for sceptical theism.

The Ethics of the Anselmian Being II (Respect)

Prior formulations of the problem of evil, for example, by J. L. Mackie, William Rowe, and Paul Draper, assume that God must have requiring reasons to prevent evils to creatures, and use that assumption as the basis for claiming that the existence (or types, or amount, or distribution) of evils in this world is either incompatible with or gives strong prima facie evidence against the existence of God. But given that God’s reasons with respect to preventing evils are justifying, not requiring, reasons, no such arguments can get off the ground. This account, which is based on a first-order theory of divine ethics, differs from skeptical theism, which is based on moral epistemology. This difference makes the account developed here immune from the most serious criticisms that have made trouble for skeptical theism.