TF Philosophy of Religion Study Group, 2011

2011 Tyndale Fellowship Study Groups Draft Schedule.
Philosophy of Religion Section.

June 30th.

2:00pm: Welcome and administration
2:30pm: Katherine Munn, 'Evidence and Faith'
4:00pm: Tea
4:30pm: David Moss, 'Must Knowledge of God be Based on Reasons?'
6:30pm: Supper
7:30pm: Matthew Hart, 'Calvinism and the Problem of Hell'.

July 1st.

8:00am: Breakfast
9:30am: Kyle Scott, 'Return of the Great Pumpkin'
11:00am: Coffee
11:30am: Joshua Farris, 'William Hasker and the Origin of the Soul'
1:00pm: Lunch
2:30pm: Daniel von Wachter 'What do God's free actions begin with?'
4:00pm: Tea at TH
4:30pm: Prayers and TH news (at TH) followed by
5:00pm: Drinks reception.
6:30pm: Supper
7:30pm: Paul Helm, Tyndale Lecture 2011, 'Distinctions and Divisions in God'.


July 2nd.

8:00am: Breakfast
9:30am: Michael Willenborg, 'The End of Arguments From Evil and Various
Other Atheologica'
11:00am: Coffee
11:30am: Ben Arbour, 'Does God Know the Present?: Another Problem for Open Theism'
1:00pm: Lunch
Close.

The following are Abstracts of the papers to be presented.

P. HELM (2011 TF Philosophy of Religion Lecture)

Distinctions and Divisions in God

The paper explores some consequences of the affirmation of contingency to God (as in divine action), and the denial of such contingency (as in the tri-personhood of the godhead) for our understanding of God.

KATHERINE MUNN

Evidence and Faith

This paper is based on the winning entry for the 2010 'Paternoster Young Philosopher of Religion of the Year' Prize.

DAVID MOSS

Must Belief in God Be Based on Reasons?

This paper is based on the runner-up entry for the 2010 'Paternoster Young Philosopher of Religion of the Year' Prize.

I distinguish two ways of knowing: knowing propositionally and knowing by acquaintance. Contemporary philosophy has predominantly focused on the former, yet I argue that knowing God is rather a matter of acquaintance. This recognition best fits actual uses of "knowledge of God," while alleviating sceptical doubts that often attend attempts to account for how we can have knowledge of God propositionally. An interesting implication is that we can know God, while not knowing propositionally that we know God.

M. HART

Calvinism and the Problem of Hell 

Calvinists, on account of their commitment to compatibilism have a harder time than Arminians when it comes to solving the problem of evil, even more so when it is the problem of Hell under consideration. In this paper I sketch an outline for a Calvinist theodicy of Hell. I identify the two requirements for a successful theodicy to be i) that it shows how God is morally permitted to act in the way he does and ii) that it provides God with a plausible motivation to so act. With regard to (i) I argue that any claims that we have rights to the effect that God is obliged not to cause us to sin (and so deserve Hell) are either unsupported, trumpable or even cancelled. With regard to (ii) I argue that the Calvinist is much benefitted by focusing on privileging goods, goods such that their possession by one entails their non-possession by many. I intend to use this to show that God's motive in reprobation can be loving.

K. SCOTT kyle.scott@ed.ac.uk

Return of the Great Pumpkin

Alvin Plantinga has argued that belief in God can be properly basic, that is, that belief in God can be rationally held even in the absence of other supporting beliefs.1 An important objection (or rather, group of objections) has been made against this claim that has become known as the Great Pumpkin objection. At the heart of these objections is the claim that Plantinga's method could be used to defend, not just belief in God, butalso some clearly irrational beliefs such as Linus' belief that the Great Pumpkin returns to the pumpkin patch each Halloween. Plantinga has responded to some objections of this form, and I will argue that his responses to these problems are adequate. There is, however, a more troubling version of this argument that Plantinga has yet to respond to. I call this objection the Return of the Great Pumpkin objection. The Return of the Great Pumpkin objection takes inspiration from an unpublished paper by Keith DeRose.2 In this paper DeRose claims that Plantinga has only considered the objection as claiming that his method could be used to defend any belief. This objection is easy for Plantinga to respond to, but is does not get to the heart of the problem. Plantinga's method is supposed to show that there is no reason to think that there is anything epistemically wrong in believing in God in the basic, so if is there is method then this objection will succeed. DeRose has helped to get us closer to what he calls the "real objection" but it is still unclear how successful the objection is because he does not spell out how, if at all, Plantinga's method could be used to defend some other belief, and what exactly theuse of this method would be supposed to have demonstrated. In my paper I will address these issues by setting out Plantinga's method more clearly, and argue that it is supposed to demonstrate that the belief that it is applied to is intellectually acceptable. Once this has been achieved, it will be clear that there are beliefs that can be defended using Plantinga's method, that are clearly not intellectually acceptable. It follows from this that Plantinga has not shown that belief in God is intellectually acceptable. In the final part of the paper I wish to sketch a solution to the problem. Duncan Pritchard has offered a solution to the Dretske's cleverly disguised mules problem by drawing a distinction between favouring and discriminating evidence.3 By appealing to favouring evidence – e.g. in this case that there is a large and varied historical community that shares the belief – the Christian believer can avoid the problem, while also maintaining that belief in God can be properly basic. The believer in the Great Pumpkin, or any other potential counterexample, cannot make a similar appeal, so the problem has been neutralised.

• His most developed defence of this claim can be found in Warranted Christian Belief (2000). • "Voodoo Epistemology". Available from: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/
virtual_library/
articles/derose_keith/voodoo_epistemology.pdf
• "Relevant Alternatives, Perceptual Knowledge and Discrimination" Noûs (2010) 44 245-68

J. FARRIS.

William Hasker and the Origin of the Soul

In the recent debate over the origin of the soul it seems there has been some movement in the direction of traducianism. This may be due motivations found in science and the consensus of the soul's dependence on the body, evolutionary theory and a commitment to weak naturalism within theological development. This is certainly true of William Hasker in his recent essay: "Souls Beastly and Human" found in The Soul Hypothesis.Hasker implicitly identifies with a emergentist kind of traducianism or a kind of hybrid view, when discussing his emergentism in the context of evolution: "This in my opinion is one of the more important ways in which emergent is superior both to traditional, creationist versions of dualism and also to materialistic views which affirm the causal closure of the physical domain." My contention with Hasker's recent article is with his reasons for rejecting traditional dualism and the implications of his view on the origin of the soul. The focus of my paper is to evaluate Hasker's recent essay and offer some broader applications on the debate over the origin of the soul. First, I intend to interact with and evaluate Hasker's recent essay. In it Hasker critiques both materialist views of human persons and creationist/traditional accounts of human persons. Next, Hasker argues that the best of both worlds are exemplified in his emergent substance dualism. What is not clear is the position an emergentist must come down on as it pertains to the dialogue over the origin of the soul. Second, I intend to bring some clarity to this discussion on the relationship between the origin of the soul and its connection to emergentist and traditional accounts of human persons. It seems to me that Hasker is assimilating creationist views of the soul with traditional accounts of the soul (Cartesianism and hylomorphism). It may be possible to break down the views in four ways. First, one could hold to a traditional account of the soul with creationism both seem natural together. Second, one could hold to a traditional account of the soul, yet a traducianist view of the soul as being some fissile thing. Third, it seems natural to hold to an emergentist view of the soul and a traducianist view of the soul's origin—this seems to be Hasker's view. Fourth, it seems possible to hold to an emergentist view of the soul and a creationist or hybrid view on the soul's origin. Third, I will offer a critique of Hasker's view by showing that many of the criticisms he offers against materialism can be applied to his version of emergent dualism with what he seems to connect with traducianism. I will spend some time arguing in favour of a creationist/traditional account of souls by arguing in favor of soulish intuitions and the unlikely problem of souls coming from a material base. These intuitions include: subjectivity, first-person awareness, the soul's independence and a unified agent. Furthermore, it appears that Ecclesiastical history leans in favor of creationism, but the debate has not been definitive ether way. The philosophical arguments offered here and the tradition's tendency is mutually supportive.

D. von WACHTER.

What Do God's Free Actions Begin With?

Even though it is unfashionable to assume that human agents can initiage causal processes with their free will, theists are committed to holding that God can initiate causal processes (which he himself then has to sustain). He can initiate the beginning of the universe or the rolling of a billard ball. The question of this talk is what such processes begin with. William Alston has suggested that any event can be brought about by God 'directly' and that any action of God might be a 'basic' action. We need to distinguish Alston's question which actions of God are basic from the question what the processes which God initiates begin with. This latter question has not been addressed. I distinguish various senses of 'basic action' and show that a basic action need not be what an action process begins with. The usual view about this is that processes initiated by God begin with a 'willing', 'trying', 'undertaking' or 'intention' in God's mind. I shall argue that this view is false and offer an alternative.

M. WILLENBORG

The End of Arguments From Evil and Various Other Atheologica.

In 1967 when Alvin Plantinga set out to investigate the rational justification of theism in God and Other Minds, he coined the term 'atheology' to refer to that family of arguments aimed at demonstrating the irrationality of belief in God. Central to his examination of the arrows in the atheologian's quiver were analyses of various formulations of the argument from evil; in this regard, what follows will mirror his approach. However, after detailing the shape of arguments from evil generally construed, I propose to lay out a strategy by which the theist can expose vast swaths of atheology as dialectically deficient (hereafter referred to simply as 'The Strategy'). The reaches of this deficiency, I will contend, can be shown to extend beyond arguments from evil to also encompass arguments from divine hiddenness, as well as most arguments that attempt to spell trouble for theism by seizing on current deliverances of science. But though its reach extends at least this far, it is perhaps a mistake to say that this is where it ends. The exact scope of its application may be as yet unknown, or so I will suggest.

B. ARBOUR.

Does God Know the Present?

Another Problem for Open Theism In this paper, I presuppose, for the sake of constructing a reductio argument against open theism, that William Hasker's arguments for theological incompatibilism are correct. I argue by way of modal proof that the combination of Hasker's arguments for theological incompatibilism, together with his belief that libertarian accounts of freedom require PAP, logically entail that God must lack knowledge not only of future contingents, but also of the entire present reality.  This is caused, at least in part, because Hasker (and all other open theists) hold to a tensed theory of time (also known as the A-series approach to time). When coupled together with metaphysical presentism (which is Hasker's understanding of what A-series approaches to time demand, given the nature of the actual world), I argue that if God's knowledge of the future requires that future actions are not contingent, but rather are metaphysically determined, then these same arguments for theological incompatibilism must be brought to bear on the present, thereby establishing that the present (which is certainly real, given presentism) must also be determined. Of course, if the present is determined, this eliminates free will in the present. However, because decisions and choices are made in the present, Hasker's definition of LFW demands that the present not be determined, but rather contingent. This problem necessitates, for Hasker's position, that God must lack knowledge of the present if metaphysical libertarianism holds true in the present reality. I also show (again, by way of modal proof) that Hasker's efforts to avoid this charge by appealing to God's knowing the present directly are unsuccessful, and that even if God's knowledge of the present is direct, his arguments against divine foreknowledge of future contingents entail either (1) that humans lack LFW at the present, or (2) that God lacks knowledge of the present. Given Hasker's tenacious defense of LFW, he must conclude that (2) God lacks knowledge of the present. Additionally, I show that even if one agrees that God's knowledge renders actions necessary by virtue of divine infallibility (rather than cry, "Sleigh's fallacy!" and move on), even the application of tensed logic to the modal argument I utilize against Hasker's theological incompatibilism does not alleviate the tensions I create for him. Furthermore, I argue that the existence of the present demands that propositions concerning the present possess truth-values, and that this necessitates God's knowledge of such propositions, by virtue of his being essentially omniscient (ala maximal greatness and perfect being theology). In this essay, I carefully distinguish between de dicto and de re conceptions of necessity to avoid objections levied against my argument so motivated. I also suggest a particular conception of the way that Hasker's argument for theological incompatibilism understands accidental necessity. I put forward a theory of accidental necessity (based on Thomas Flint's recent essay on accidental necessity delivered at the conference celebrating Alvin Plantinga's retirement at Notre Dame) such that we understand accidental necessity as entailed (at minimum) by modal necessity. That is, if some event is modal necessity, since modal necessity is the strongest form of necessity, then modal necessity entails that the same event is at least accidental necessity, which is a weaker form of logical necessity. Last, the material in this essay mentions (briefly) the Anselmian timelessness solution to this conundrum offered by Katherin Rogers. I show how Brian Leftow's interpretation of Anselmian timelessness also alleviates the same tension. I do not engage in the discussion as to which person is a more faithful exegete of Anselm, but rather only the analytic discussions of divine timelessness as it relates to the freedom/foreknowledge dilemma with respect to divine knowledge of the present.