Theism and Contrastive Explanation
I argue that there could not be grounds on which to introduce God into our ontology. My argument presupposes two doctrines. First, we should allow into our ontology only what figures in the best explanation of an event or fact. Second, explanation is contrastive by nature, in that the explanandum al...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham
[2017]
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| In: |
European journal for philosophy of religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 9, Issue: 1, Pages: 19-26 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Theism
/ Ontological proof of God's existence
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism NBC Doctrine of God |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (teilw. kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | I argue that there could not be grounds on which to introduce God into our ontology. My argument presupposes two doctrines. First, we should allow into our ontology only what figures in the best explanation of an event or fact. Second, explanation is contrastive by nature, in that the explanandum always consists in a contrast between a fact and a foil. I argue that God could not figure in true contrastive explanatory statements, because the omnipotence of God guarantees that for any true proposition p, God could have made it the case that ~p just as much as He could have made it the case that p. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v9i1.1862 |