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501. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 19 > Issue: 2
William Lane Craig Absolute Creationism and Divine Conceptualism: A Call for Conceptual Clarity
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The contemporary debate over God and abstract objects is hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity concerning two distinct metaphysical views: absolute creationism and divine conceptualism. This confusion goes back to the fount of the current debate, the article “Absolute Creation” by Thomas Morris and Christopher Menzel, who were not of one mind concerning God’s relation to abstract objects. Confusion has followed in their wake. Going forward, theistic philosophers need to distinguish more clearly between a sort of modified Platonism, according to which abstract objects depend ontologically on God, and a sort of divine psychologism, according to which objects typically thought to be abstract are, in fact, concrete mental entities of some sort.
502. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 19 > Issue: 2
Robert Larmer Decretalism and the Laws of Nature: A Response to Jeffrey Koperski
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In his article, “Breaking Laws of Nature,” Jeffrey Koperski considers various attempts to give an account of the laws of nature. Following early modern natural philosophers, he opts for an account he terms “decretalism,” namely the view that laws are not created entities or powers that act as intermediaries between God and nature, but rather are best understood as God’s decrees. Koperski argues there are good reason for accepting his account and that it does not commit him to occasionalism. In response, I argue that the reasons he gives for accepting decretalism are unconvincing and that decretalism does in fact commit him to occasionalism.
503. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 19 > Issue: 2
Stephen T. Davis Cartesian Omnipotence
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Let’s call “Cartesian omnipotence” (CO) the view that an omnipotent being can bring about any state of affairs at all, even logically impossible ones. The present paper explores what can be said in support of CO. It turns out that several powerful and interesting arguments can be given in its defense, although in the end, along with the vast majority of philosophers of religion, I reject it.
504. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 19 > Issue: 2
Donald T. Williams “Made for Another World”: C. S. Lewis’s Argument from Desire Revisited
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C. S. Lewis’s argument from desire is best understood as an argument to the best explanation. It has two weaknesses. First, it is not clear that everyone in fact has the experience it references. Second, even if it successfully points to the existence of some Desired Object not experienced in the finite temporal world, it cannot of itself show that this object is a god, much less the God of the Bible. Nevertheless, the argument does have value in confirming, for people who recognize themselves as having had the experience of sehnsucht, the more explicit conclusions reached by other arguments.
505. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 19 > Issue: 2
John Warwick Montgomery A Computable Universe?
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The very idea of a noncomputable universe creates considerable anxiety among not a few cosmologists and mathematical theorists. This brief paper offers some suggestions as to why noncomputability constitutes a threat to a certain philosophical mentality.
506. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Angus Menuge, Jonathan J. Loose Introduction to Symposium on Dualism and Physicalism
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Routinely dismissed as a defeated position, substance dualism has seen a resurgence. This is partly due to a persistent failure of reductive physicalism to capture mental phenomena and to the instability of nonreductive alternatives. But it is also due to the return of the subject to center stage in the philosophy of mind and to the rich diversity of historical and contemporary theories of the soul. It is therefore time for a serious reevaluation of the merits of substance dualism by both dualists and their physicalist rivals, hence this symposium and the related book, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism.
507. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Craig J. Hazen Editor’s Introduction
508. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Eric T. Olson Swinburne’s Brain Transplants
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Richard Swinburne argues that if my cerebral hemispheres were each transplanted into a different head, what would happen to me is not determined by my material parts, and I must therefore have an immaterial part. The paper argues that this argument relies on modal claims that Swinburne has not established. And the means he proposes for establishing such claims cannot succeed.
509. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Richard Swinburne The Argument to the Soul from Partial Brain Transplants
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Suppose we transplant the left hemisphere of one person, Alexandra, into the skull of another person, Alex, from whom both cerebral hemispheres have been removed; and transplant Alexandra’s right hemisphere into the skull of another person, Sandra, both of whose cerebral hemispheres have been removed. Both of the resulting persons will then have some of Alexandra’s brain and probably almost all of her memories and character. But since at most only one of them can be Alexandra, being Alexandra must, by the “principle of the identity of composites,” involve having another essential non-physical part—her soul. It is our soul and only our soul which makes us who we are.
510. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
J. P. Moreland The Fundamental Limitations of Cognitive Neuroscience for Stating and Solving the Ubiquitous Metaphysical Issues in Philosophy of Mind
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According to Nancey Murphy, advances in science have made substance dualism a position with very little justification. However, contra Murphy’s claims, I defend the following thesis: When the central issues in philosophy of mind are made clear, it becomes evident that cognitive neuroscience which is rooted in the empirical data offers very little help, if at all, for selecting, clarifying and arguing about the central metaphysical issues, especially questions about the existence and nature of consciousness and the soul. Thus, the Autonomy Thesis seems warranted in philosophy of mind. To defend this thesis, I, first, show that the central metaphysical issues in philosophy of mind are largely autonomous with respect to neuroscientific discoveries; second, respond to claims made by Murphy that, if true, would undermine my thesis.
511. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Brandon Rickabaugh The Primacy of the Mental: From Russellian Monism to Substance Dualism
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I argue for the primacy of the mental from recent physicalists’ endorsements of phenomenal transparency and the nontransparency of the physical. I argue that the conjunction of these views shows that (1) arguments for dualism from introspection are difficult to resist; and (2) a kind of Hempel’s dilemma removes constraints that block substance dualism. This shows that (1) raises the probability of the primacy of the mental, while (2) lowers the probability of the primacy of the physical. Lastly, I argue that the conjunction of (1) and (2) raises the probability of substance dualism.
512. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Lynne Rudder Baker The First-Person Perspective
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Baker rejects naturalistic views that exclude first-person facts. Persons are emergent, constituted entities having first-person perspectives (FPPs) that are ineliminable, first-personal, dispositional, multi-stage properties. Persons appear gradually with FPPs in the rudimentary stage (intentional, conscious thought), but are distinguished by the later, robust stage (self-consciousness). We possess first-person perspectives essentially and thereby have first-personal persistence conditions. Transtemporal identity is unanalyzable, requiring a variant of the Simple View. All that can be said is that a person exists whenever her FPP is exemplified. The view is “not-so-simple” because (among other things) it eschews substance dualism.
513. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Jonathan J. Loose The Constitution View: Not So Simple
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Lynne Rudder Baker’s work was driven by commitments to quasi-naturalist materialism and the ontological distinctiveness of human persons. The incompatibility of these commitments is apparent in her constitution view (CV). Baker's “Not-so-simple Simple View” of personal identity is inferior to the Simple View traditionally associated with substance dualism since CV’s underlying account of persons is vacuous. It also entails a dilemma: either indeterminate identity or the problem of the many. Finally, CV also fails to support Baker’s view that human persons do not begin to exist prior to the acquisition of a capacity for conscious, intentional thought.
514. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
William Hasker What Has CERN to Do with Jerusalem?
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There is disagreement concerning the relevance of scientific data to a theological account of the nature of human beings. I contend that science is indeed relevant, but not in a way that should lead us to discount philosophical and theological ideas about human nature. I mention five different findings of science that have significant implications for our understanding of the mind-body relationship.
515. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Angus Menuge The First-Person Perspective Is Not a Mere Mental Property
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Lynne Rudder Baker maintained that persons are essentially constituted by a first-person perspective. But she argued that this perspective is only an emergent property: it does not require a mental substance. In this paper, I argue that the first-person perspective cannot be a mere mental property, because it presupposes the existence of a mental substance. This makes it incoherent to claim that possession of a first-person perspective is what makes an individual a person. And, intentionality, which is required to have a first-person perspective, also presupposes a mental subject. So the constitution view is not successful in avoiding substance dualism.
516. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Joshua R. Farris Souls, Emergent and Created: Why Mere Emergent Dualism Is Insufficient
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With the challenges from science, there has been a shift away from traditional or classical versions of substance dualism (most notably Thomism and Cartesianism come to mind) toward emergentist accounts of the mind. Of particular importance for those still inclined to make some distinction between the mind and brain, emergent substance dualism provides an attractive option. However, it promises more than it can deliver. In the present article, I show that a version of emergent substance dualism, where the brain produces a soul (what I call mere emergent substance dualism), lacks the resources to account for the particularity of the soul. I show that, if, in fact, souls (in this case human souls) have primitive thisness, then physical laws could not produce these souls. That being the case, I show how creationism and emergent substance dualism, rather than being disjunctive options, are compatible. In the end, what I call emergent-creationism or creationist-emergentism provides an attractive theory of the origin of souls.
517. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
William Hasker Emergent Dualism and Emergent Creationism: A Response to Joshua Farris
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Joshua Farris offers “emergent creationism” as an alternative to emergent dualism. It is argued that emergent creationism cannot deliver some of the advantages claimed for it, and that Farris’s objections to emergent dualism are not compelling.
518. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Stephen E. Parrish Defending Theistic Conceptualism
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There has been much discussion of the relationship between God and abstract objects. Three positions taken by theists are Absolute Creationism, Theistic Conceptualism, and Antirealism. I argue that Theistic Conceptualism combined with Perfect Being theology can avoid common criticisms, and that it renders the created abstract objects of Absolute Creationism unnecessary. I also hold that Antirealism is quite close to Theistic Conceptualism, and that Antirealism when combined with God as an omniscient being ends up being almost indistinguishable from it.
519. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Christopher Woznicki Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Account of Petitionary Prayer: A Reformation Alternative to Contemporary Two-Way Contingency Accounts
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Many contemporary philosophical accounts of petitionary prayer assume that petitionary prayer attempts to persuade God to act by giving God reasons to do that which God would otherwise not have done had the prayer not been offered. Alternatively, this essay suggests there is an account of what petitionary prayer accomplishes that has largely been left underexplored in contemporary philosophical literature: the Secondary-Causal Account. I suggest that the work of the Italian Reformer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, is a helpful resource for developing this alternative which is faithful to Scripture, meets confessional requirements, and can meet common intuitions about prayer.
520. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
John C. Wingard, Jr. God and Possible Worlds: A Reformed Exploration
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In this essay I consider how God is related to possible worlds from a classically evangelical and Reformed perspective, contending that God’s essential perfections determine what is genuinely possible. I then consider briefly three views that take God to be a significant delimiter of possible worlds and offer some defense of one of those views, the view that there are many genuinely possible worlds that are equally and unsurpassably good and that God might have chosen to actualize. I conclude by noting two significant implications of my position, one epistemological and the other concerning the problem of evil.