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God and Dispositional Essentialism: An Account of the Laws of Nature
Author(s) -
Adams Dani
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12162
Subject(s) - essentialism , theism , relation (database) , philosophy , epistemology , natural law , appeal , sovereignty , natural (archaeology) , order (exchange) , law , political science , politics , economics , archaeology , finance , database , computer science , history
It is common to appeal to governing laws of nature in order to explain the existence of natural regularities. Classical theism, however, maintains the sovereignty thesis : everything distinct from God is created by him and is under his guidance and control. It follows from this that God must somehow be responsible for natural laws and regularities. Therefore, theists need an account of the relation between (i) regularities, (ii) laws, and (iii) God. I examine competing accounts of laws of nature and conclude that dispositional essentialism provides the most satisfactory explanation of the relation between (i), (ii) and (iii).