English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Philosophical discussion of theistic arguments mainly focus on their first (existence) stage, which argues for the existence of something having some very general, if suggestive, feature. I shall instead consider only the second (identification) stage of one such argument, the cosmologic al argument from contingency. Taking for granted the existence of an absolutely necessary being, I develop an extended line of argument that supports the more nearly theistic claim that such a being is a transcendent, personal cause of our contingent universe. Some traditional theistic arguments involve two broad stages. In the existence stage, one argues for the existence of something thinly identified (intelligent designer, unmoved mover, necessary being). In the identification stage, one argues for a thicker identification of the explanans as something at least approximating the concept of God, conceived as a perfect, personal, and transcendent source of everything else. Ever since Hume and Kant, the would-be demolishers of such arguments, most of the action has centered on the first stage, even among those whose positive conclusions warrant a consideration of the second stage. I will comment only briefly on the first stage and instead develop the identification stage of one such argument, the cosmological argument from contingency. According to the version of the argument that most interests me, the existence of the universe is and can only be explainable in terms of necessary being, a being that exists of absolute necessity. The sole comment I will make on this concerns one reason some philosophers dismiss the sort of reasoning involved. According to them, conceivability, suitably understood, is a rough and ready guide to metaphysical possibility. But we can easily conceive the nonexistence of necessary being. So its non-existence is presumptively possible—which of course implies that its existence is not possible. If we are given pause by the fact that parallel reasoning that begins with the presumptive possibility of necessary being establishes the opposite conclusion, the case is nonetheless settled by the fact that accepting the existence of necessary being at the fount of all existence precludes boatloads of prima facie possibilities. 2 2 My comment here is just to note that there is a attractive alternative picture of the epistemology of modality which will not support this summary dismissal of the cosmological argument. According to it, claims concerning the metaphysical modality are often justified in part for their explanatory power (analogous to highly theoretical scientific claims), and …

‘And This All Men Call God’