I’m currently in Boston at a 3-week seminar entitled “Open Theology and Science”. The goal of the conference is to generate new research at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology in light of the distinctive commitments of open theism (= broadly classical theism + real future contingency + epistemic openness of the future for… Read More »
Derek, a commentator on my blog, has asked me some about whether essential divine relationality (as implied in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity) entails essential divine temporality. In other words, would God’s being essentially an active, loving, multi-personal unity require that God experience continued change and hence divine temporality? In response, I submit “no”… Read More »
Philosopher Elliott Sober thinks that design arguments against naturalism commit a fallacy that he calls ‘probabilistic modus tollens‘, which he takes to be an inference of the following form: Probably, (if p then q).Not-q.Therefore, probably, not-p. Thus, he construes the argument against naturalism from cosmic fine-tuning as follows: Probably, (if naturalism were true, then the… Read More »
It is not uncommon in discussions over controversial topics for one side to accuse the other of fallaciously “arguing from ignorance” or from “personal incredulity”. In discussions of intelligent design versus Darwinian naturalism the closely related “God-of-the-gaps” objection is frequently leveled. I believe that most attributions of these fallacies are uncharitable and undeserved. Consider the… Read More »
The Special Theory of Relativity (STR) is one of the most well-confirmed theories in modern physics, or so I’ve been told by those I trust. It’s also widely regarded by metaphysicians as being of utmost significance for the metaphysics of time. In particular, it’s widely thought to have dealt a death blow to the tensed… Read More »
‘Maverick Philosopher‘ Bill Vallicella has written recently on the distinction between ‘de re‘ and ‘de dicto‘ beliefs. As he explains the distinction, a de dicto belief is a belief about a dictum (basically, a proposition). Thus, in “Sam believes that Cicero is a politician” the verb “believes” is followed by a ‘that’-clause which expresses a… Read More »
Here’s a nice short piece by Frank Pastore. It’s entitled “Why Atheism Fails: The Four Big Bangs”. The four problems, posed somewhat more precisely than Pastore himself does, are: How did the universe come about given that it’s non-eternal? How could life have emerged from non-living matter? How could mind and self-consciousness have emerged from… Read More »
Suppose that free will theism is true. Free will theism entails theism, the thesis that God exists, where ‘God’ is understood to denote a necessary being essentially possessing the greatest possible set of compossible great-making properties, including maximal power, knowledge, and goodness. Free will theism also entails that God has created a world of creatures… Read More »
What philosophers call ‘propositions’ are useful theoretical entities. They are useful because they help to unify a range of otherwise disparate mental and linguistic phenomena. Thus, propositions are often thought to be (a) the contents of our mental representations, (b) the objects of intentional attitudes, (c) the meanings of sentences, and (d) the primary bearers… Read More »
It is commonly held among philosophers that events are the kinds of things that can most properly be said to serve as causes and effects. On this view, the event of the rock’s hitting the window causes the event of the window’s breaking. Some, however, prefer to analyze causation in terms of states (or states-of-affairs).… Read More »