As a counterpoint to demonstrative proofs in metaphysics, Robert Nozick presented the case for God’s existence based on the value of personal experiences. Personal experiences shape one’s life, but this is even more evident with extraordinary experiences, such can be religious ones. In the next step, says the argument, if those experiences can be explained only by invoking the concept of the Supreme Being, then God exists. The second step mirrors scientific explanation constituting what Nozick calls the “argument to the (...) best explanation.” The argument is set against the background of Nozick’s methodology which rejects demonstrative proofs in metaphysics. Its purpose is threefold. It aims to establish a certain sort of experience (religious/spiritual) as a legitimate basis for the argumentation; it aims to show that it is not philosophically blasphemous to explain such experiences by introducing a concept of divinity. Finally, it seeks to showcase the non-dogmatic, investigative nature of the argument. By exploring the merits of Nozick’s proposal, I will try to elucidate all three components, which should pave the way for a broader discussion on the role of non-demonstrative arguments in metaphysics. (shrink)

One classical version of cosmological argument, defended famously by Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, deduces the existence of a First Cause from the existence of a particular sort of causal series: one that is ‘essentially ordered’. This argument has received renewed defence in recent work by Feser, Cohoe, and Kerr. I agree with these philosophers that the argument is sound. I believe, however, that the standard defence given of the ECA in these philosophers can be complemented by a formulation that (...) appeals to the powers theory of possibility. This approach to possibility has been defended in recent years by, for example, Pruss, Jacobs, and Vetter. In this article, I show how this modal theory allows us to defend the ECA in a way that is dialectically advantageous as well as clarifying. (shrink)

This paper deals with the relationship between divine knowledge and sense experience and the first three Thomistic ways to prove the existence of God. It reinforces the ways in the light of contributions and critiques coming from the realist-phenomenological and the analytic perspectives. To this end, it examines the insights of an important author of each of these two traditions, Josef Seifert and Richard Swinburne.

In this article, I present a Leibnizian cosmological argument to the conclusion that either the totality of physical beings has a non-physical cause, or a necessary being exists. The crucial premise of the argument is a restricted version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, namely the claim that every contingent physical phenomenon has a sufficient cause (PSR-P). I defend this principle by comparing it with a causal principle that is fundamental for physicalism, namely the Causal Closure of Physics, which says (...) that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause (CC). I find that the evidence for Causal Closure is weaker than the evidence for PSR-P, which means that physicalists who take CC to be justified must concede that PSR-P is also justified, and to a higher degree. Since my Leibnizian cosmological argument succeeds if PSR-P is granted, I conclude that physicalists must either give up CC and thereby physicalism, or accept that a necessary being exists. (shrink)