From a Necessary Being to a Perfect Being: A Reply to Byerly
Cosmological arguments for God typically have two stages. The first stage argues for a first cause or a necessary being, and the second stage argues from there to God. T. Ryan Byerly offers a simple, abductive argument for the second stage where the best explanation for why the being is found to hav...
| Subtitles: | "Special Issue - The Future of Philosophy of Religion" |
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| Main Author: | |
| 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
2022
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| In: |
European journal for philosophy of religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 14, Issue: 1, Pages: 257-268 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Cosmological arguments for God typically have two stages. The first stage argues for a first cause or a necessary being, and the second stage argues from there to God. T. Ryan Byerly offers a simple, abductive argument for the second stage where the best explanation for why the being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. The reasoning behind this argument is that universal generalizations explain observations of their instances; for example, the universal generalization that all ravens are black explains why some particular raven is observed to be black. Similarly, the fact that a being has all perfections explains why we find the being to have necessary existence. I distinguish between two readings of Byerly's proposed theistic explanation, and conclude that his explanation does not offer an advantage to the theist in either case. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.2022.3446 |