Cosmological Argument
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Russell, Infinity, and the Tristram Shandy Paradox
RUSSELL, INFINITY, AND THE TRISTRAM SHANDY PARADOX by Shandon Guthrie INTRODUCTION Mathematicians have puzzled for centuries what precisely we mean when we refer to the concept of infinity . Some have suggested that infinity is merely something that exists in the mind. Yet others maintain that infinity possesses some ontological status in the real world. In an attempt to demonstrate the difference between the reality of an infinite and the idea of an infinite, Aristotle had suggested the terms actual infinite (the completed whole value of infinity) and potential infinite (susceptible to infinite addition). (1) Analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell believed that an actual infinite could be achieved as long as the counter possessed an actually infinite number of years to do it. In the example given in Sterne's novel, we have the example of Tristram Shandy. (2) Sterne writes about Tristram Shandy as an individual committed to writing an autobiography. However, he is so slow that it takes him one year in order to complete only one day. This means that the most recent event that could be recorded is the day that occurred one year ago. As Shandy writes an additional day, it takes him an additional year to complete the events of that day. Russell uses this example and believes that an actual infinite can be achieved through successive addition only if Shandy has an infinite number of days to complete it. RUSSELL'S ASSESSMENT OF THE TRISTRAM SHANDY PARADOX Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) suspects that the Tristram Shandy paradox can be solved. For Russell, it is the individual who possesses an infinite number of days. -
On God's Existence
Scholars Crossing SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations Summer 2001 On God's Existence W. David Beck Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/sor_fac_pubs Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Epistemology Commons, Esthetics Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, History of Philosophy Commons, History of Religions of Eastern Origins Commons, History of Religions of Western Origin Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Other Religion Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Beck, W. David, "On God's Existence" (2001). SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations. 167. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/sor_fac_pubs/167 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. W. DAVID BECK 49 compared to the energy involved in the entire act of, say, raising one's hand to vote. When an engineer throws a switch to release the water behind Hoover Dam, the vast amount of potential energy unleashed by the moving water is overwhelmingly greater than that involved in the engineer throwing the switch. It may be the same with libeliarian acts. Perhaps the energy released in the exercise of active power is miniscule compared to the poten tial energy released in the body as part of the relevant causal pathway. I just don't lmow. Second, even if one opts for this second option (the release of energy is virtually undetectable), it doesn't follow that the resulting gap would not be detectable, since the effects of a libertarian act could still be quite different in a "gappy" way from what would have followed in the absence of that act. -
Thomas Aquinas' Argument from Motion & the Kalām Cosmological
University of Central Florida STARS Honors Undergraduate Theses UCF Theses and Dissertations 2020 Rethinking Causality: Thomas Aquinas' Argument From Motion & the Kalām Cosmological Argument Derwin Sánchez Jr. University of Central Florida Part of the Philosophy Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the UCF Theses and Dissertations at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Undergraduate Theses by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Sánchez, Derwin Jr., "Rethinking Causality: Thomas Aquinas' Argument From Motion & the Kalām Cosmological Argument" (2020). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 858. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/858 RETHINKING CAUSALITY: THOMAS AQUINAS’ ARGUMENT FROM MOTION & THE KALĀM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT by DERWIN SANCHEZ, JR. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in Philosophy in the College of Arts and Humanities and in the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2020 Thesis Chair: Dr. Cyrus Zargar i ABSTRACT Ever since they were formulated in the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas’ famous Five Ways to demonstrate the existence of God have been frequently debated. During this process there have been several misconceptions of what Aquinas actually meant, especially when discussing his cosmological arguments. While previous researchers have managed to tease out why Aquinas accepts some infinite regresses and rejects others, I attempt to add on to this by demonstrating the centrality of his metaphysics in his argument from motion. -
Summary the Purpose of the Dissertation Is to Present The
Summary The purpose of the dissertation is to present the abductive argument of Richard Swinburne in favor of theism. Richard Swinburne was born on December 26, 1934. He is a British philosopher, a retired professor of the University of Oxford, where he held the position of Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion (Oriel College). He has devoted all his philosophical activity to the justification of the Christian faith – he has intended to show that it is rational to believe in God. The main thesis of the dissertation is that Swinburne’s concept of theism does not remain consistent with the assumption that God is perfectly good. This inconsistence comes from the fact that human experience of suffering cannot be reconciled with God’s perfect goodness, especially assuming that God allows or causes the suffering. The structure of the work corresponds to the logical construction of Swinburne’s line of reasoning. The first chapter – Methodology of Philosophy – describes the main philosophical methods Swinburne uses in presenting his arguments. It is divided into two parts: the first one (Theory of Explanation) primarily presents the Swinburne’s construction of the concept of coherence, which is a prerequisite for considering any theory as probable or true. Moreover, this part discusses Swinburne’s dual explanatory theory, according to which two types of explanation are possible: (1) scientific, based on the analysis of unintentional causation, and (2) personal, based on the analysis of intentional causation. At the same time, Swinburne tries to show that it is not possible to explain certain phenomena in the world only by means of scientific explanation. -
The Absurdity of Life Without God (Craig)
The Absurdity of Life Without God (Craig) 1. Life Without God is Meaningless: William Lane Craig argues that, if there is no God, then life itself lacks meaning, value, and purpose. The primary motive of this conclusion is the idea that, without God, there is no immortality. And, without immortality, then each and every one of us is doomed to die. Life is, as Craig notes, merely a brief transition out of oblivion and back into oblivion. Not only that, but the human race—indeed, the entire universe—is doomed to die. In 5 billion years, the Sun will engulf the Earth in a fiery death. Billions of years after that, the entire universe, as it expands and cools, will one day be nothing but a litter of dead, cold stars, forever getting further and further from one another, travelling forever into the dark recesses of dead, cold, lifeless space. (1) Life is Meaningless: If we are all doomed to die, then nothing really matters. No one’s life has any ULTIMATE significance. Our advancements to expand human knowledge, to alleviate human suffering, to learn to live in peace will all eventually be meaningless. Craig claims that, because human beings are doomed to be here for only a short time, astronomically speaking, we are no more significant than a “swarm of mosquitos”; and man, “because he ends in nothing, he IS nothing”. But, he says, even if we could live forever, life would still be meaningless. It is not MERE eternity that gives life meaning. There must be something that GIVES it meaning. -
Richard Swinburne's Arguments for Substance Dualism
Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013). -
Literature Review
New Insights and Directions for Religious Epistemology http://www.newinsights.ox.ac.uk Literature Review Analytic epistemology experienced a monumental resurgence in the latter part of the twentieth century. A short paper by Edmund Gettier launched a frenzied era of original research into the nature of some of our central epistemic concepts, e.g., knowledge, justification, rationality, belief, defeat, and evidence. The excitement of Gettier’s challenge to the view that knowledge is justified true belief drew interest from a wide range of very talented philosophers. Formidable figures such as Fred Dretske, John Pollack, Robert Nozick, Roderick Chisholm, Alvin Goldman, Marshall Swain, David Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Richard Swinburne, and Gilbert Harman, to name just a few, published widely on the foregoing epistemic concepts. This outpouring of original research meant that new theoretical tools and insights became available for application in philosophy of religion. Religious epistemology, taking advantage of this resurgence in mainstream epistemology, experienced a new era of original research. William Alston, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne all played a particularly central role in this resurgence. Alston, in his popular book Perceiving God, argued that religious beliefs held by way of religious experience are just as justified as our regular or quotidian perceptual beliefs. In his masterpiece Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga, inspired by (i) the notion of a basic belief in the epistemic theory of foundationalism, (ii) his proper functioning account of warrant, and (iii) John Calvin’s theology, defended the position that Christian beliefs are warranted if true. The broad outlines of his position came to be labeled “Reformed Epistemology.” Wolterstorff, in his Reason within the Bounds of Religion, provided an elegant and sophisticated account of the role religious belief play in an agent’s overall epistemic “web” of beliefs. -
Curriculum Vitae of Alvin Plantinga
CURRICULUM VITAE OF ALVIN PLANTINGA A. Education Calvin College A.B. 1954 University of Michigan M.A. 1955 Yale University Ph.D. 1958 B. Academic Honors and Awards Fellowships Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1968-69 Guggenheim Fellow, June 1 - December 31, 1971, April 4 - August 31, 1972 Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1975 - Fellow, Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, 1979-1980 Visiting Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford 1975-76 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, 1975-76, 1987, 1995-6 Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 1980-81 Fellow, Frisian Academy, 1999 Gifford Lecturer, 1987, 2005 Honorary Degrees Glasgow University, l982 Calvin College (Distinguished Alumni Award), 1986 North Park College, 1994 Free University of Amsterdam, 1995 Brigham Young University, 1996 University of the West in Timisoara (Timisoara, Romania), 1998 Valparaiso University, 1999 2 Offices Vice-President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1980-81 President, American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 1981-82 President, Society of Christian Philosophers, l983-86 Summer Institutes and Seminars Staff Member, Council for Philosophical Studies Summer Institute in Metaphysics, 1968 Staff member and director, Council for Philosophical Studies Summer Institute in Philosophy of Religion, 1973 Director, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, 1974, 1975, 1978 Staff member and co-director (with William P. Alston) NEH Summer Institute in Philosophy of Religion (Bellingham, Washington) 1986 Instructor, Pew Younger Scholars Seminar, 1995, 1999 Co-director summer seminar on nature in belief, Calvin College, July, 2004 Other E. Harris Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching (Danforth Foundation), 1968 Member, Council for Philosophical Studies, 1968-74 William Evans Visiting Fellow University of Otago (New Zealand) 1991 Mentor, Collegium, Fairfield University 1993 The James A. -
God? a Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist
God? A Debate Between A Christian and An Atheist William Lane Craig Walter Sinnott-Armstrong OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS GOD? POINT/COUNTERPOINT SERIES Series Editor James P. Sterba, University of Notre Dame AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND RACIAL PREFERENCE Carl Cohen and James P. Sterba GOD? A DEBATE BETWEEN A CHRISTIAN AND AN ATHEIST William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong GOD? A DEBATE BETWEEN A CHRISTIAN AND AN ATHEIST William Lane Craig Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Point/Counterpoint Series James P. Sterba, Series Editor 1 2004 1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 http://www.oup-usa.org Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Craig, William Lane. God? : a debate between a Christian and an atheist / William Lane Craig, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. p. cm.—(Point/counterpoint series) ISBN 0-19-516599-3 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-19-516600-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. God—Proof. 2. Atheism. I. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, -
The Existence of God
The Existence of God Richard Swinburne Why believe that there is a God at all? My answer is that to suppose that there is a God explains why there is a physical universe at all; why there are the scientific laws there are; why animals and then human beings have evolved; why humans have the opportunity to mould their characters and those of their fellow humans for good or ill and to change the environment in which we live; why we have the well-authenticated account of Christ‟s life, death and resurrection; why throughout the centuries millions of people (other than ourselves) have had the apparent experience of being in touch with an guided by God, and so much else. In fact, the hypothesis of the existence of God makes sense of the whole of our experience, and it does so better than any other explanation that can be put forward, and that is the grounds for believing it to be true.In this lecture I shall try to show you how it makes sense of the first three of these phenomena.That phenomena evident to all, and in particular the universe and its order, provide good grounds for believing that God exists has been a general Christian, Jewish, and Islamic conviction.The production of arguments to show this is called „natural theology‟, and it might be useful to start with a few remarks about the place of natural theology in Christian tradition . The prophet Jeremiah wrote of the “covenant of night and day”,1 indicating that the regularity by which day succeeded night showed that the god in charge of the Universe was powerful and reliable, viz, that that god was God. -
Theistic Arguments: the Craig Program
Theistic Arguments: The Craig Program Edwin K. P. Chong Version: March 12, 2005 1 Introduction Reference: • William Lane Craig, God, Are You There? Five Reasons God Exists and Three Reasons It Makes a Difference, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, 1999. Motivation: • World’s greatest thinkers have wrestled with the question of God. • Is there a personal, transcendent being who created the universe and is the source of moral goodness? • Today’s university student is not trained to deal with this issue. • Instead of reflecting rationally on the issue, many students absorb uncritically the easy an- swers and secular prejudices of their teachers. • People who think that it doesn’t make a difference what you believe about God simply reveal that they haven’t thought very deeply about the question. • Even atheist philosophers, e.g., Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, recognized that the ques- tion makes a tremendous difference. Three reasons it makes a difference: 1. If God does not exist, then life is ultimately meaningless. 2. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. 3. If God does exist, then not only does life have meaning and hope, but there is also the possibility of coming to know God and his love personally. None of this shows that God exists. But it does show that it makes a tremendous difference whether God exists. • Blaise Pascal: even if the evidence for and against the existence of God were absolutely equal, the rational thing to do would be to believe that God exists. • Presumption of theism: presume that God exists unless we have some good reason to think that atheism is true. -
Craig, William Lane. "Religious Epistemology"
verified, positivistic philosophers held them to be literally meaningless, as if one had asserted, “’t was brillig, and the slythey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Under criticism, the Verification Principle underwent a number of changes, including its permutation into the Falsification Principle, which held that a meaningful sentence must be capable in principle Religious epistemology of being empirically falsified. The fate of religious William Lane Craig language was thought to be no brighter under falsificationism than under verificationism, as became evident at a famous Oxford University symposium on “Theology and Falsification” held in 1948. "Enlightenment critiques of the reasonableness of religious belief point to defects not so much in At the symposium Antony Flew borrowed a story religious belief as in the conceptions of told several years earlier by John Wisdom knowledge uncritically adopted as the basis of concerning two explorers who came upon a patch these critiques. Maybe religious knowledge looks of flowers in a jungle clearing. One explorer was dubious because we have the wrong idea about convinced that the flowers were tended by a what it is to know something and how we know gardener. In the ensuing days, however, despite what we know." --C. Stephen Evans and Merold the explorers’ every effort to find him, no gardener Westphal, Christian Perspectives on Religious was ever detected. To save his hypothesis, the Knowledge. one explorer was progressively forced to qualify his original hypothesis to the point that the Introduction hypothesized gardener must be invisible, intangible, and undetectable. To which the other In Religious Epistemology we encounter the finally replied, “Just how does what you call an intersection of traditional epistemology with the invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener newly burgeoning field of Philosophy of Religion.