A philosophical assessment of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, exposing some errors of reasoning that undermine part of the foundation of his atheism. Distinctions between theism, atheism and agnosticism are also provided and explored for their significance to Dawkins’ argument.

This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral 'zero' (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they seem to have encountered (e.g., 'In the beginning was neither non-being nor being: what was there, bottomless deep?' RgVeda X.129). The concept of non-being and its permutations of nothing, negation, (...) nullity, etc., receive more sophisticated treatment in the works of grammarians, ritual hermeneuticians, logicians, and their dialectical adversaries variously across Jaina and Buddhist schools. The present analysis follows the function of negation/the negative copula, nãn, and dialetheia in grammar and logic, then moves onto ontologies of non-existence and extinction and further suggestive tropes that tend to arrest rather than affirm the inexorable being-there of something. After a discussion of interests in being (existence), non-being and nothingness in contemporary metaphysics, the article examines Heidegger’s extensive treatment of nothingness in his 1929 inaugural Freiburg lecture, 'Was ist Metaphysik?', published later as 'What is Metaphysics?' The essay however distances itself from any pretensions toward a doctrine of Metaphysical Nihilism. (shrink)

The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological arguments, noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Chapter 4 offers an entirely new approach (...) to the cosmological argument - the approach of theistic modal realism. The proper explananda of cosmological arguments on this approach is not change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. The proper explananda is the totality of metaphysical reality - all actualia and all possibilia. The result is the most compelling and least objectionable version of the cosmological argument. (shrink)

I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely (...) physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic tradition. The notions of “grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model. (shrink)

Arguments move from premises to conclusions. The premises state things taken temporally for granted; if the argument works, the premises provide grounds for affirming the conclusion. A valid deductive argument is one in which the premises necessitate, that is, entail, the conclusion. What I shall call a ‘correct’ inductive argument is one in which the premises in some degree probabilify the conclusion, but do not necessitate it. More precisely, in what I shall call a correct P-inductive argument the premises make (...) the conclusion probable ; in what I shall call a correct C-inductive argument, the premises add to the probability of the conclusion. Arguments only show their conclusions to be true if they start from true premises; arguments of the above types which work and do start from such premises I will call sound arguments. Arguments are only of use to show to an individual that the conclusion is true if he already knows the premises to be true. Most of what I shall have to say today concerns arguments with respect to which there is no doubt that the premises are true. (shrink)

Arguments move from premises to conclusions. The premises state things taken temporally for granted; if the argument works, the premises provide grounds for affirming the conclusion. A valid deductive argument is one in which the premises necessitate, that is, entail, the conclusion. What I shall call a ‘correct’ inductive argument is one in which the premises in some degree probabilify the conclusion, but do not necessitate it. More precisely, in what I shall call a correct P-inductive argument the premises make (...) the conclusion probable ; in what I shall call a correct C-inductive argument, the premises add to the probability of the conclusion. Arguments only show their conclusions to be true if they start from true premises; arguments of the above types which work and do start from such premises I will call sound arguments. Arguments are only of use to show to an individual that the conclusion is true if he already knows the premises to be true. Most of what I shall have to say today concerns arguments with respect to which there is no doubt that the premises are true. (shrink)

In his “Third Way” Aquinas appears to argue in a way that relies upon shifting quantifiers in a fallacious way. Some have tried to save this and other parts of the “Third Way” by introducing sophisticated logical and metaphysical machinery. Alternatively, Aquinas’ apparently fallacious quantifier shift can be seen to be part of a valid argument if we supply a simple premise which an Aristotelian natural philosopher would surely hold. In this short paper, I consider candidates for this premise, defend (...) a specific premise, and from that discussion draw a moral about quantifier predicate logic. I conclude that Aristotelian natural philosophy is more than an historical backdrop to Aquinas’ arguments. (shrink)

The argument from design is one of the most widely debated arguments for the existence of God. There has been much written in support of and in criticism of the argument's basic structure and conclusion. I shall attempt to clarify these positions, and to argue that the theistic account provides a more rationally justified explanation of human life on earth than the atheistic account. Many philosophers think that any proof for the existence of God is mere "metaphysical speculation." Many times (...) these philosophers use the criteria of scientific empiricism as the standard for an "acceptable" scientific theory, regardless of the subject matter. I shall formulate the argument from design as an empirical scientific theory according to the school of scientific falsificationism as stated by Karl Popper. The principal literature to be investigated in this study will be the most recent articles and texts which discuss relevant scientific data, and their philosophical implications for the argument from design. The results of this investigation demonstrate that it is possible to formulate an argument for the existence of God which meets all of the criteria of the falsificationists school of scientific empiricism. (shrink)