This is going to be a very exciting book. I look forward to reader's comments on this. You can pre-order it on Amazon and I'd insert a link if it weren't $75. However, do be sure to let your librarian know about this book. I'll but the TOC and description below the fold.
Book Information
Theism and Ultimate Explanation
The Necessary Shape of Contingency
By: Timothy O'Connor (Indiana University, USA)
Reviews
"A breathtaking sweep from metaphysics through theology. This is a superb book in the philosophy of religion, the like of whose quality and originality is rare."
Alexander Pruss, Baylor University
Description
An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion - from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book's second part - the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete.
- A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician's quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most general features of the world we inhabit
- Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary
- Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism
- Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I: The Explanatory Role of Necessity:
1. Modality and Explanation
Relative and Absolute Necessity
Scientifically Established Necessities
An Epistemological Worry About Modality: Causal Contact With Modal Facts
Modal Nihilism
Modal Reductionism and Deflationism
Modal Anti-Realism and Quasi-Realism
Conclusion
2. Modal Knowledge
Conceivability As Our Guide?
Modality a Matter of Principle?
The Theoretical Roles of Modal Claims: Towards a Modal Epistemology
The Spheres of Possibility
Part II: The Necessary Shape of Contingency:
3. Ultimate Explanation and Necessary Being: The Existence Stage of the Cosmological Argument
Necessary Being
Two Objections to the Traditional Answer
Necessary Being as the Explanatory Ground of Contingency?
4. The Identification Stage
From Necessary Being to God, I: Transcendent, Not Immanent
Two Models of Transcendent Necessary Being: Logos and Chaos
Varieties of Chaos
Interlude: the Fine-Tuning Argument
From Necessary Being to God, II: Logos, not Random Chaos
5. The Scope of Contingency
How Many Universes Would Perfection Realize?
Perfection and Freedom
Some Applications of the Many-Universe-Creation Hypothesis
Necessary Being and the Scope of Possibility
Necessary Being and the Many Necessary Truths
6. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Anselm?
The Unity of the Divine Nature and Its Consequences
Natural Theology in the Understanding of Revealed Theology
Coda
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Timothy O'Connor is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has published widely in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Persons and Causes (2000), and the editor of Agents, Causes and Events (1995) and Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings (2003).
From the Blackwell site.
I'm lookling forward to this book, too. Amazon notified me today that my copy is in the mail!