Blog Archive

  • A Gödelian ontological argument

    I’ve never really had a nice relationship with the ontological argument from Anselm. When I first heard of it, it seemed strange that existence would be greater than non-existence, so I pushed it aside. About 2 years later, I realised that existence could maybe be bootstrapped from other properties, like power. But by then I had come to realise the distinction between epistemology and ontology, and struggled to believe that this argument wasn’t confusing the two at some point. That’s where I’m at at the moment: existence-in-mind just doesn’t seem comparable to existence-in-reality in the way that’s needed for the…

  • World-types have explanations but not grounds?

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    On the one hand I personally like the idea of middle-knowledge for understanding the relationship between God’s providence and our libertarian-free choices[1]. On the other hand, I’m what William Lane Craig once called[2] a latter-day Leibnizian, who wants “everything to be brought into submission to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, including facts concerning human free choices.” Of course, in that context he was concerned with the grounding objection to the Molinist’s counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs). It seems to me, however, that the CCFs can be explained, even if they can’t be grounded. Let me explain. A “subjunctive counterfactual conditional”…

  • The possibility premise of the simple existential cosmological argument

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    In my previous post I showed that even without the plausible S5 or Brouwer axioms, we can move from the possible explanation of the maximal simple existential fact (we called it K there), to the existence of a necessary being. Now I see no reason for thinking such an explanation is impossible, and it seems to me that since we’re merely asking for possibility, that premise should get the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, consider this argument for it If each fact in a collection of simple existential facts possibly has an explanation, then possibly the conjunction of those facts…

  • A cosmological argument from simple existential facts

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    There are loads of different cosmological arguments out there and hopefully someday I’ll be able to write blog posts about some of them. Right now, however, I want to share an interesting version I came up with, thanks to an argument from Alexander Pruss: define a “simple existential fact” to be a true proposition reporting simply the existence or non-existence of a specific being[1,2]. So U doesn’t exist, where U is any specific unicorn and Roland exists, where Roland is me, are simple existential facts of the actual world. Now, let K be the conjunction of all simple existential facts of the…

  • Epistemological issues in the moral argument

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    I am a proponent of a moral argument, taken from William Lane Craig, given in the following form: If God doesn’t exist, then objective moral values and duties don’t exist Objective moral values and duties do exist Therefore, God exists I’ve had a number of previous posts here dealing with specific details of this argument’s defence. Here I wish to discuss a defence of the second premise that goes like this: In the absence of any defeaters, we are rationally compelled to trust the deliverances of our various faculties In our moral experience we perceive objective moral duties and values…

  • Covenantal Modalism

    This probably isn’t a novel idea, but I thought it was worth sharing. I was talking to my friend, Marcus, about various theological topics and at some point the question of the nature of blessing in the Old and New Testaments came up. I was trying very hard to articulate generally how I saw the relationship between the different covenants we see in the Bible, and more particularly the difference between what blessing looks like in pre-exilic Israel and post-Easter Christianity. Then, it dawned on me how I might explain my position, and that’s what I’m going to do here.…

  • Biblical passages dealing with God’s Providence

    Earlier in this blog I promised that I’d do a series on God’s providence. If you look at the “preliminaries” post, the schedule looks like this: Biblical passages that deal with God’s providence God’s control and our free will The question of suffering Why a proper understanding of providence is important Here we attempt the first of these topics. I find that too regularly that discussion about God’s providence goes on without any explicit discussion of the relevant biblical passages. This post is meant serve to fill this “gap” in my discussion on this blog. I don’t claim that this is…

  • True mathematical propositions

    Platonists believe that abstract objects such as numbers, colours, sets, ideas and so on are actually existing things (often referred to as the “Platonic realm”). So, if you’re a Platonist and a mathematician, you can take the axioms of maths as descriptions of the kind of objects, found in the Platonic realm, that you want to be working with. So, by “set” we mean those objects described by the Zermelo-Frankel axioms (for example). Then say we have some mathematical proposition that says “There exists some set S such that P(S)” where P is some property S could satisfy. If you’re…

  • Materialism is self-defeating

    Consider the following argument against materialism (the thesis that only physical things exist): If materialism is true, then the deliverances of our cognitive faculties are caused by a purely physical system (eg. our brain) Purely physical systems are not purposive Rationality is purposive Therefore, if materialism is true, then we are incapable of being rational Therefore, if materialism is true, we cannot rationally assent to materialism Therefore, materialism is self-defeating (1) seems plausible, since on materialism only physical systems exist. When I say something is “purposive” I mean that it seeks to achieve some goal, ie. there’s teleology. So (2)…

  • Derivative Divine Command Theory

    While I was having a discussion in the comments here it dawned on me that I might’ve stumbled upon a novel Divine Command Theory (DCT). Before I get there I should probably give a brief description of what a DCT is. DCT is a meta-ethical theory that seeks to ground our moral duties in the commands of God. To ground our duties involves giving a basis for them. So when asked, “why ought I be loving to my neighbour” the divine command theorist will answer, “because God has commanded that you ought be loving to your neighbour”. This isn’t just a…

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