Theism and Ultimate Explanation The Necessary Shape of Contingency

by O'Connor, Timothy

• ISBN13: 9781405169691
• ISBN10: 1405169699
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-02-11
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

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

Author Biography

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).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
The Explanatory Role of Necessity	p. 1
Modality and Explanation	p. 3
Relative and Absolute Necessity	p. 3
Scientifically Established Necessities	p. 5
An Epistemological Worry about Modality: Causal Contact With Modal Facts	p. 7
Modal Nihilism	p. 10
Modal Reductionism and Deflationist	p. 15
Modal Anti-Realism and Quasi-Realism	p. 27
Conclusion	p. 30
Model Knowledge	p. 32
Conceivability As Our Guide?	p. 32
Modality a Matter of Principal?	p. 36
The Theoretical Roles of Modal Claims: Towards a Modal Epistemology	p. 41
The Spheres of Possibility	p. 60
The Necessary Shape of Contingency	p. 63
Ultimate Explanation and Necessary Being: The Existence State of the Cosmological Argument	p. 65
Necessary Being	p. 68
Two Objections to the Traditional Answer	p. 73
Necessary Being As the Explanatory Ground of Contingency?	p. 79
The Identification State	p. 86
From Necessary Being to God, I: Transcendent, Not Immanent	p. 86
Two Models of Transcendent Necessary Being: Logos and Chaos	p. 93
Varieties of Chaos	p. 93
Interlude: The Fine-Tuning Argument	p. 97
From Necessary Being to God, II: Logos, Not Random Chaos	p. 109
The Scope of Contingency	p. 111
How Many Universes Would Perfection Realize?	p. 111
Perfection and Freedom	p. 121
Some Applications of the Many-Universe-Creation Hypothesis	p. 122
Necessary Being and the Scope of Possibility	p. 125
Necessary Being and the Many Necessary Truths	p. 128
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Anselm?	p. 130
The Unity of the Divine Nature and Its Consequences	p. 132
Natural Theology in the Understanding of Revealed Theology	p. 140
Coda	p. 143
Notes	p. 145
Bibliography	p. 162
Index	p. 172
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