Michael J. Almeida presents a bold new defence of the existence of God. He argues that entrenched principles in philosophical theology which have served as basic assumptions in apriori, atheological arguments are in fact philosophical dogmas. Almeida argues that not only are such principles false - they are necessarily false.

At least since Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, it has increasingly become accepted that the existence of God is, intellectually, a lost cause, and that religious faith is an entirely non-rational matter--the province of those who willingly refuse to accept the dramatic advances of modern cosmology. Are belief in God and belief in science really mutually exclusive? Or, as noted philosopher of science and religion Richard Swinburne puts forth, can the very same criteria which scientists use to (...) reach theories about everything from DNA to the Big Bang be used to argue for the existence of God? In Is There a God? Swinburne presents a powerful and approachable case for the existence of God. Using the methods of scientific reasoning, Swinburne rigorously argues that science, far from replacing God, provides good grounds for belief in God. With each new discovery and advance, from black holes to quarks, superstrings to continuing evolution, science brings us closer to a complete understanding of how things work--but science can only go so far. Though it can explain much of how the universe works, science doesn't tell us why there is a universe at all. We can understand much of how life evolved, but why is there any life on earth? We can name and explicate scientific laws, but how is it that they operate in the universe? The Darwinian theory holds that the complex animal and human bodies that are here today exist because, ages ago, there were certain chemicals on earth, and given the laws of evolution, it was probable that complex organisms would emerge. But why those laws rather than any other? Why those chemicals? In Swinburne's view, the ultimate grand unifying theory is possible only by a belief in what he calls theism, acknowledging the existence of God: it was God who brought about the natural laws so that humans and animals would evolve. The watch may have been made, Swinburne asserts in reference to Richard Dawkins, with the aid of some blind screwdrivers (or even a blind watchmaking machine), but they were guided by a watchmaker with some very clear sight. At the heart of his argument is Swinburne's belief that the very success of science in showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong grounds for believing there is an even deeper cause of that order. By embracing a belief in God that acknowledges the truth in science, Swinburne's elegant argument supplies an essential spiritual element to our understanding of order and beauty, the structure beneath the chaos of the natural world. This informed and provocative volume will be essential reading for all readers of popular science, philosophy, and religion. (shrink)

God’s creative act, if genuinely free, would ground the existence of creatures without necessitating them. Since God is perfectly responsive to reason, his freely creating requires that he have an adequate but non-coercive reason to create. A coercive reason for an act is one that outweighs the reasons for any alternative act, whereas an adequate reason is one that is not outweighed by the reasons in favor of any alternative act. How, in the absence of an offsetting reason not to (...) create, is God’s adequate reason not also a coercive reason, i.e., one that would necessitate creation? Chapter 7 argues that God’s creating and God’s remaining within himself each have to be understood as determinate manners in which God may affirm his own unsurpassable goodness. Cantorian reflections are then deployed to explain how God’s extra, i.e., un-offset, reason to create does not give him more of a reason to create than to not create. Finally, God’s actual reason to create is identified. (shrink)

One of the greatest revolutions in mathematics occurred when Georg Cantor promulgated his theory of transfinite sets. This revolution is the subject of Joseph Dauben's important studythe most thorough yet writtenof the philosopher and mathematician who was once called a "corrupter of youth" for an innovation that is now a vital component of elementary school curricula.Set theory has been widely adopted in mathematics and philosophy, but the controversy surrounding it at the turn of the century remains of great interest. Cantor's (...) own faith in his theory was partly theological. His religious beliefs led him to expect paradoxes in any concept of the infinite, and he always retained his belief in the utter veracity of transfinite set theory. Later in his life, he was troubled by recurring attacks of severe depression. Dauben shows that these played an integral part in his understanding and defense of set theory. (shrink)

Brian Leftow offers a theist theory of necessity and possibility, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. He argues that necessities of logic and mathematics are determined by God's nature, but that it is events in God's mind - his imagination and choice - that account for necessary truths about concrete creatures.

Discussions of the evidential argument from evil generally pay little attention to how different models of divine providence constrain the theist's options for response. After describing four models of providence and general theistic strategies for engaging the evidential argument, I articulate and defend a definition of 'gratuitous evil' that renders the theological premise of the argument uncontroversial for theists. This forces theists to focus their fire on the evidential premise, enabling us to compare models of providence with respect to how (...) plausibly they can resist it. I then assess the four models, concluding that theists are better off vis-à-vis the evidential argument if they reject meticulous providence. (shrink)

God, who is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent Creator and Providence, exists and There is evil are logically compatible claims. God exists, If God exists, then He has a morally sufficient reason for allowing any evil that He does allow , and There is evil is a consistent triad of propositions. Thus any pair from that triad is also consistent. Thus God exists and There is evil are logically compatible. But this does not settle the question as to whether the (...) truth of There is evil in the world has such consequences for theism as making it highly improbable that God exists or making it unreasonable to believe that God exists . That propositions P and Q are logically compatible does not entail that one does not provide powerful evidence against the other. In particular, it has seemed that some actual evils are gratuitous or in some manner just could not fit into a God-made world. Thus the simple argument is offered that: There are gratuitous evils; If there are gratuitous evils, then there is no God; so: There is no God. I will call this simple argument the ‘root argument’, for it is this argument and sophistications of it that will occupy us hereafter. (shrink)