In an interesting turnabout, Fancois Tremblay has sought to turn William Lane Craig’s use of the kalam Cosmological argument against him.

Part of the argument, namely premise 2: “The universe began to exist,” draws on, among other things, Craig’s argument against the possibility of an actual infinite (it also draws on the empirical scientific evidence that the universe did begin to exist). Basically, the argument is that if the past is infinite in duration, then an infinitely large number of days (or months, or years, take your pick) has been traversed. But since an infinite number of things cannot actually be traversed, the past cannot be infinite.

Temblay has accepted this premise, but he thinks it is damaging to the Christian faith traditionally expressed, or to a number of faiths, I suppose. Why? Because, says Francois,

This is where I must now part ways with William Craig. While his argument against infinite regress is reasonable, we also have to contend with his belief in an infinite god. And we have to ask, what does it mean for a god’s knowledge, power, benevolence, and presence to be qualified by “infinite”?

Since an actual infinite cannot exist, says Francois, an infinite God cannot exist either, and so if there is a God, he must be finite.

The main question I would want to ask is who the argument is supposed to be directed against. Are there any philosophers of religion who defend a concept of Theism whereby God’s knowledge is said to consist of an infinite number of propositions? And if there are, does it do any harm to traditional Christian theism to show that they are wrong? After all, all it takes is a google search for the words “God,” “knowledge,” “propositional” and “intuitive” to find out that omniscience doesn’t have to be viewed as having an infinitely large collection of true beliefs. Likewise, omnipresence need not be defined in terms of being present in an infinite number of places (in fact if God is literally not extended in space, it is just obvious that this is not what it means), and so forth.

Turnabout is fair play, but in this case it did not pay off.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

I’m not a very close follower of the US Supreme Court, but this I do know: Justice Antonin Scalia Rocks.

His basic message to America is this: If you don’t like the constitution, then just say so. Lobby to have it changed. But please, don’t project your own beliefs onto it. It says what it says. Deal with it.

I recently found The Cult of Scalia, a website devoted to the man, and I thought I’d share it with you.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Maybe being an academic is a good thing, and maybe it’s not. One thing is for sure, however: Some people just aint cut out for it. Here are some people who have, for the very first time, it seems, encountered one paper written by Alvin Plantinga. Remember, this (apparently) is their first exposure to his comments on methodological naturalism.

For those of you who are in fact familiar with the field, and with Plantinga in particular, did you know, until reading that link, that Plantinga was an idiotic nutbar who knows little or nothing about philosophy of science and who, apparently, is a sympathiser with Ken Ham and the Creation science movement, clearly lacks understanding of logic, with a unique ability to engage in “f**kwittery”?

It’s so nice that we have these people who will never actually publish anything in Plantinga’s field (or read more than one of his essays, or in most cases – get a degree in any way connected to the field) to tell us these things.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

OK, call me slow, but until today I had never heard of the ossuary of James. The what? It’s an ornate box that contains pieces of bone from deceased love ones. This one dates to around AD sixty something, and features the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

It’s fairly obvious why this ruffles some Catholic feathers. Mary, Joseph’s wife, is said to have been a virgin her whole life by the Catholic Church, and James, one of Jesus’ “brothers,” is said to have been a cousin. Some Catholics, unsurprisingly, have chimed in with anyone who says that it is a forgery, but the evidence doesn’t look good for them here, and here the claim of a forgery is debunked. I guess Mary’s first name isn’t “The Virgin” after all. But then, a lot of people have been saying that for a while. They’re called Protestants.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...