Category: Metaphysics

  • Whatever begins to exist has a cause

    Consider the following argument: If it’s possible for a thing to come into existence without a cause, this possibility is grounded in a property of the thing itself, or a property of nothingness. This possibility is not grounded in a property of the thing itself, nor in a property of nothingness. Therefore, it is not… →

  • Middle knowledge or Molinism?

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    [UPDATE: I’ve actually modified the related post since I wrote this one. I’m leaving this post here, though, because I still think it’s got an interesting thought in it] In my recent post on God’s providence I discussed a view which I called “middle knowledge”. To some this might have been confusing, for this position is… →

  • Divine simplicity and constituent ontologies

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    I’ve recently begun reading about Aristotelean-Thomistic philosophy. In A-T metaphysics, the doctrine of divine simplicity has a central place. This is the doctrine that God has no parts, be they physical or metaphysical. From this it follows that he is identical to his nature, to his existence, and to each of the divine attributes. Now… →

  • God’s control and our free will

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    This is the second post in a series of posts on God’s providence. Last time we looked at a bunch of passages from Scripture which weigh in on the question. This time, as the title suggests, we’re going to talk about the relationship between God’s control and our free will. In our first post, we… →

  • Modality and the ontological argument

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    Previously, I outlined what I find to be a compelling ontological argument from Alexander Pruss. In the post, we dispelled the idea that there is a single ontological argument and distinguished between a number of families on such arguments. The one we focussed on is a so-called Gödelian ontological argument, named after the famous mathematician… →

  • 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… →

  • 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… →

  • 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… →

  • Explanations

    Recently[1] I’ve been doing some reading on (amoung other things) Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. One thing that’s involved in these arguments is the idea of an “explanation”. We generally have a firm grasp or intuition of whether something is an explanation for some fact or not. Consider the following statements involving explanations: John… →

  • A failed analysis of would-counterfactuals

    I was thinking about “would-counterfactuals” the other day and wondering how they’re meant to be understood on a libertarian account of free will that holds to contrary choice as a necessary condition for a free choice. I thought I had come up with some way of giving meaning to statements of the form “Agent S… →