theism

Hinman’s Opening Argument for God

Joe Hinman has published his opening argument for God on his blog site: http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2017/07/opening-argument-resolved-that-belief.html Here is his argument in summary form: 1. All naturalistic phenomena are contingent and temporal. 2. Either some aspect of being is eternal and necessary unless or something came from nothing (creation ex nihilo) 3. Something did not come from nothing. Hinman’s Opening Argument for God

Hinman’s ABEAN Argument – Part 1: “Eternal and Necessary”

Joe Hinman wants me to seriously consider two arguments for the conclusion that “God is real”.  I’m going to focus on his ABEAN argument for a number of posts, before I examine his argument from religious experience. I have attempted to summarize Hinman’s  first argument in a brief standard form argument: Hinman’s ABEAN Argument 1. Hinman’s ABEAN Argument – Part 1: “Eternal and Necessary”

Is Christianity True? – Part 2: The Christian Worldview

The Four Basic Worldview Questions A religion is fundamentally a system of religious beliefs.  What makes a collection of religious beliefs a “system” is that they are built up around a set of core beliefs called a “worldview”.  There are different ways of conceptualizing worldviews; I favor conceiving of worldviews as problem-solving schemas, on analogy Is Christianity True? – Part 2: The Christian Worldview

Is Christianity True? – Part 1: What is Christianity?

I have been producing a series of podcasts on the question “Is Christianity true?”.  So far, four podcasts have been published, and I’m currently working on podcast # 5: http://thinkingcriticallyabout.podbean.com/ The first four podcasts are introductory in nature, but in podcast #5,  I will be shifting gears and will start working on an evaluation of Is Christianity True? – Part 1: What is Christianity?

How NOT to Argue for Agnosticism

I recently purchased a couple of introductory books on the philosophy of religion.  One of the books is by a contemporary analytic philosopher of religion, Richard M. Gale, titled: On The Philosophy Of Religion (Thompson Wadsworth, 2007).  The other is by a philosopher named Gary Cox, who is not a specialist in philosophy of religion: The How NOT to Argue for Agnosticism

Is Necessary Existence Necessary?

Consider the following argument for the existence of God. 1. Something exists. 2. Anything that exists must either exist contingently or necessarily. 3. It is impossible that everything that exists is contingent. 4. Therefore, there must exist at least one necessary being. 5. Only God could be a necessary being. 6. Therefore, God exists. I Is Necessary Existence Necessary?