Could God Fail to Exist?

I apply developments in modal reasoning to the question of whether God has necessary existence. My larger task is to assess the main reasons to think that God is not a metaphysically necessary being. I consider Hume’s conceivability-based argument, and then I pay attention to more recent arguments,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal for philosophy of religion
Main Author: Rasmussen, Joshua (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Innsbruck in cooperation with the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham [2016]
In: European journal for philosophy of religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Hume, David 1711-1776 / Swinburne, Richard 1934- / Existence of God
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
NBC Doctrine of God
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Description
Summary:I apply developments in modal reasoning to the question of whether God has necessary existence. My larger task is to assess the main reasons to think that God is not a metaphysically necessary being. I consider Hume’s conceivability-based argument, and then I pay attention to more recent arguments, including Swinburne’s neo-Humean argument and the subtraction argument. I show that such arguments face a ‘parity’ problem, since the very reasoning that gets them off the ground also launches parallel arguments for an opposite conclusion. In my closing section, I sketch an argument schema designed to illustrate a new, general strategy for deducing the necessary existence of God by building upon recent modal cosmological arguments.
Contains:Enthalten in: European journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.24204/ejpr.v8i3.1692