It has occurred to me--this is likely well-known--that one should not both accept sceptical theism and Plantinga's self-defeat argument against naturalism+evolution.

The conditional probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given sceptical theism is inscrutable.  It remains inscrutable no matter what non-question-begging evidence is added to the mix.  If Plantinga is right that the inscrutability of

P1 = P(our cognitive faculties are reliable | naturalism and evolution)

would be an undercutting defeater for all our beliefs if we accepted naturalism and evolution, then by the same token the inscrutability of

P2 = P(our cognitive faculties are reliable | sceptical theism)

would be an undercutting defeater for all our beliefs if we accepted sceptical theism.

The argument that sceptical theism is self-defeating seems stronger than that naturalism+evolution is self-defeating.  For the claim that P1 is low or inscrutable is highly controversial.  But the claim that P2 is inscrutable is obvious.

Likewise, if radical voluntarism says that God chooses what is right and wrong and good and bad independently of any prior normative facts, then I think

P3 = P(our cognitive faculties are reliable | radical voluntarism)

is inscrutable.  For P(falsehood is good | radical voluntarism) is inscrutable (and no evidence will help to make us conclude that falsehood is bad if radical voluntarism is true, because if falsehood is good, God might well try to make us think falsehood is bad, because being wrong about the value of falsehood would be good for us), and P(our cognitive faculties are reliable | God exists and falsehood is good) is low or inscrutable.

I am inclined to endorse these as arguments against sceptical theism and radical voluntarism.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Central Division Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers

May 8-10, 2008 â—? Union University â—? Jackson, Tennessee

Conference Theme: Engaging Eastern Thought

The thesis that truth supervenes on being is that any two possible worlds that differ in the truth-value of a proposition also differ in whether some entity exists or not.

Truth supervenes on being if and only if contingent truth supervenes on being.  (Necessary truths trivially supervene on everything.)

A theistic argument for contingent truth supervening on being:  If p is a contingent truth that does not supervene on being, then no one can have brought it about that p.  For how can someone make such a p be true?  One’s making something contingently be thus-and-so is a matter of causing and/or refraining from causing (I make an egg be hardboiled by causing it to heat up;  I make it be spoiled by leaving it alone).  Causation is a relation.  Relations hold only between entities.  So, any contingent truths that are brought about by someone must supervene on being.  The same is true for contingent truths that are brought about by something.  Ergo, if there is a contingent truth that does not supervene on being, it is ultimately lacking in explanation (it might have a constitutive explanation, but that has to stop somewhere, and it can’t stop at being/non-being, so the problem remains).  And it is contrary to divine sovereignty that there be contingent truths that are not caused to be such, at least indeterministically, by God.  (The latter consideration entails that Molinism is false.)  So, contingent truth supervenes on being, because God is the first cause (even if indeterministically) of all contingent truth.

1. Every attitude that humans take that cannot be constructed out of simpler attitudes is appropriate on some occasions. (Premise)
2. There are properly religious attitudes that humans take that cannot be constructed out of simpler attitudes. (Premise)
3. Therefore, some properly religious attitudes are appropriate on some occasions. (by 1 and 2)
4. If a properly religious attitude is appropriate, then there is a numinous being. (Premise)
5. If there is a numinous being, there is a supernatural and numinous being. (Premise)
6. Thus, there is a supernatural and numinous being. (by 3-5)

The argument is valid, but has four premises, not one of which is uncontroversial.  [The above has been edited: The first version of the argument had "holy" in place of "numinous" in 5, which mistake a sharp-eyed commenter pointed out.  A typo was also fixed. - ARP]

My first post.  It is a bit hand wavy and way, way overdue (Sorry, Matthew).  Again, thanks for the warm welcome earlier.  Now that we've made nice, feel free to explain how I'm missing something terribly obvious.  

I saw that the opening rounds of the Draper/Plantinga debate have been posted over at The Secular Web (HT to JD).  I wanted to look at Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN), which can be stated as follows. 

Erik Wielenberg's excellent new book God and the Reach of Reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell is now out.  This is a rare gem.  I read most of this in MS form and I can't say enough good things about it.  Erik is that rare bird who--though he may have an axe to grind, we all do--does not just go about chopping people to bits.  This is not a polemic, it's an exploration and a surprising one at that. 

You come out of the study with a greater appreciation for all three thinkers and learn something about just about every area of philosophy.  I know blurbs often say that a book is "must reading" but for readers of Prosblogion this is surely more than a cliche.

This book is both insightful and *honorable* in the way he gives Lewis his due and really tries to put these guys into conversation together.  (Russell was in America for most of Lewis's active apologetics career I think.)

I haven't read the published version yet and obviously Erik and I didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, but this is a fantastic book which will reward a careful read for any level of reader.  We've probably wasted too much bloggage on the likes of Dennett and Dawkins.  All three of Lewis, Hume, and Russell could be full of bluster at times, but their arguments need to be engaged.  This book does that.

Available at Amazon.com here (this link helps offset the (growing) costs of running Prosblogion).

Thanks to Jeremy Pierce and Matthew Mullins for getting me on The Prosblogion. And thanks to those who welcomed me in the comments section.

I want to start with a question: why are atheistic philosophers so much more certain of their beliefs than theistic philosophers are? (N. B.: I’m talking here just of atheistic and theistic philosophers – not the man in the street.)  

Let me elaborate a bit:

Please join me in welcoming Prosblogion's latest contributor Robert Gressis. Rob recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, and starting this Fall will be a postdoctoral fellow at Notre Dame's Center for the Philosophy of Religion. You can find out more about his philosophical interests on his profile.