Theism
In this book, I discuss the question whether God exists, not as a Tillichian religious symbol, but as an actual person, albeit a person who is very different from you and me. My procedure is to examine arguments bdth for and against God's existence qua pe
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PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES IN PHILOSOPHY Editors: WI L F RIDS ELL A R S, KEITH LEHRER,
University of Pittsburgh University of Arizona
Board of Consulting Editors: JONATHAN BENNETT, ALL A N
G I B BAR D, University of Michigan
ROBERT STALNAKER, ROBERT
Syracuse University
G.
TURNBULL,
Cornell University Ohio State University
VOLUME 30
CLEMENT DORE Department of Philosophy. Vanderbilt University. Nashville
THEISM
....
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER '~ ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER
Ubrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
I>ore, CleOlent, 1930TheisOl. (Philosophical studies series in philosophy; v. 30) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. God-Proof. I. Title. II. Series. BTl02.1>67 1984 231'.042 84-1948 ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6302-3 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-6300-9
e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6300-9
Published by 1>. Reidel Publishing CoOlpany, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA I>ordrecht, Holland. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer AcadeDlic Publishers, 190 Old I>erby Street, Hingh8Dl, MA 02043, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer AcadeDlic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH I>ordrecht, Holland.
All Rights Reserved © 1984 by 1>. Reidel Publishing CoOlpany, I>ordrecht, Holland and copyrightholders as specified in the preface.
No part of the Olaterial protected by this copyright notice Olay be reproduced or utilized in any fOfDl or by any Oleans, electronic or Olechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any infofDlation storage and retrieval systeOl, without written perDlission frOOl the copyright owner.
to Mary, Florence, Joe and Katherine
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ix
CHAPTER 1 /
Does Suffering Serve Valuable Ends?
CHAPTER 2 /
The Cosmological Argument
14
CHAPTER 3 /
The Design Argument
25
CHAPTER 4 /
A Moral Argument
36
CHAPTER 5 /
A Modal Argument
49
CHAPTER 6 /
Is God's Existence Logically Possible?
62
CHAPTER 7 /
Descartes's Meditation V Argument
82
CHAPTER 8 /
Agnosticism
104
CHAPTER 9 /
God and Perceptual Skepticism
111
APPENDIX /
Two Arguments of St. Anselm
141
NOTES
1
148
A RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY
161
INDEX
195
PREFACE
In this book, I discuss the question whether God exists, not as a Tillichian religious symbol, but as an actual person, albeit a person who is very different from you and me. My procedure is to examine arguments bdth for and against God's existence qua person and to assess their relative merits. I shall try to show that there is more evidence that God exists than that he does not. This position is, of course, rejected nowadays, even by most religious thinkers, who hold, for one reason or another, that evidence has nothing to do with religious belief, properly understood. My reply to these thinkers is simply to ask them to examine what follows. A useful companion to Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and the Appendix of this book would be Alvin Plantinga's The Nature of Necessity.l Though I avoid technical terminology wherever possible, those chapters presuppose an el
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