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260Properly unargued belief in GodInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 26 (3). 1989.Without embracing Reformed Epistemology (advocated by Plantinga and others), I argue against two claims: (1) A person S is epistemically justified in believing that God exists only if S has a good argument for the existence of God. (2) There are no professional philosophers in our culture today who are justified in believing that God exists even though they do not have, and have never had, a good argument for the existence of God. Likely evidentialist objections are discussed at length.
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269Mackie on miraclesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (3): 368-375. 1988.J. L. Mackie, in "The Miracle of Theism" (OUP 1981), chapter 1, argues that "it is pretty well impossible that reported miracles should provide a worthwhile argument for theism addressed to those who are initially inclined to atheism or even to agnosticism." I argue that Mackie fails to establish this conclusion. All that he can show is that those who are initially inclined to theism or agnosticism may be justified in predicting that the next miracle report they examine will not be such as to fo…Read more
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43Hume on miracles and contrary religionsSophia 14 (1). 1975.This paper addresses a line of argument in Hume's Enquiry, Section X Part 2 -- specifically, on pp.121-222 of Selby-Bigge's edition. In September 2021 I read it for the first time in several decades, and realized that the argument is seriously flawed. Although I cannot recommend that anyone else read it in its current state, perhaps by the end of 2021 I'll be in a position upload a revised version of the paper to this site.
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38God and Infinite Hierarchies of Creatable WorldsFaith and Philosophy 23 (4): 460-476. 2006.This paper has been superseded by chapter 3 of my book "God, the Best, and Evil" (OUP 2008). The chapter concerns God's choices in cases in which God has infinitely many better and better options.
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333Structures of greater good theodicies: The objection from alternative goodsSophia 37 (2): 1-17. 1998.The paper investigates how greater good theodicies are supposed to work, and argues that, in principle, appeal to greater goods can explain why God, if he exists, is justified in refraining from ensuring that there is little or no evil. (Readers interested in objections from alternative goods might also want to look at the rather different discussion of them in Section 7.11 of my book God, The Best, and Evil (OUP 2008).
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293Eyeballing evil: Some epistemic principlesPhilosophical Papers 25 (2): 127-137. 1996.The version uploaded to this site is a late draft. The paper arises both from William L. Rowe's classic 1979 discussion of the problem of evil, argues that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse, and also from Steven Wykstra's response, in the course of which he argues for the following Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access (CORNEA): "On the basi…Read more
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151This is a response to Richard M. Gale’s review of my book God, the Best, and Evil, Clarendon Press 2008. The review was published on-line in May 2009, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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267Perception and corrigibilityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 48 (3): 369-372. 1970.This paper, the first of mine to be published, criticizes some arguments against the logical (i.e., metaphysical) possibility that there is incorrigible knoweledge of the external world.
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68Locke and the relativisation of identityPhilosophical Studies 27 (6). 1975.Arc there cases in which an object x is thc same F as an object y but x is not the same G as y, cvcn though x is a G? A11 aihrmativc answer will have drastic repercussions 011 0ne’s account of identity and on one’s quantification theory. For suppose that the expression ‘x is the same F as y’ can be understood as ‘x is an F and y is an F and x is identical with y’, and that ‘x is not the same G as y’ can be understood as ‘it is not the case that x is a G and y is a G and x is identical with y’. T…Read more
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279The Prospects for the Free Will DefenceFaith and Philosophy 27 (2): 142-152. 2010.My main conclusion is that the prospects for a successful Free Will Defence employing Alvin Plantinga’s basic strategy are poor. The paper explains how the Defence is supposed to work, and pays special attention both to the definition of Transworld Depravity and also to whether is is possible that God actualizes a world containing moral good.
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202Review of "God and Necessity" by Brian Leftow (review)Philosophia Christi 3 (1): 284-286. 2001.The review is a concise summary of the main line of argument Leftow advances for his highly original, detailed theistic account of the metaphysical foundations of broadly logical necessity.
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275Similarity, continuity and survivalAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 53 (1). 1975.The paper defends the claim that it is metaphysically possible that continuants of at least some kinds can have life-histories that incorporate temporal gaps -- i.e., the continuants can go out of existence and then come into existence again. Opponents of this view have included Graham Nerlich and Bernard Williams, whose writings I discuss.i
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35Review of Brian Leftow, God and Necessity: Oxford University Press: Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-926335-6, hb, x + 575 pp (review)Sophia 54 (2): 227-229. 2015.The review is a summary of the main thrust of Leftow's rich and very interesting theistic account of alethic possibility and necessity.
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221The God Beyond Belief, by N. Trakakis: Book reviews (review)Religious Studies 44 (3): 363-367. 2008.
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318Hume on testimony to the miraculousSophia 11 (1): 20-25. 1972.Hume, in the Enquiry Section X Part 1, claims that ’all probability supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where one side is found to overbalance the other and to produce a degree of evidence proportioned to the superiority’. He concludes that in assessing miracle-claims one should weigh the historical testimony supporting the miracle against the testimony supporting the regularity to which it is an exception. I argue that both his premise and his conclusion are false.
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177God and the BestFaith and Philosophy 13 (3): 311-328. 1996.The paper reaches two main conclusions: Firstly, even if there are one or more possible worlds than which there are none better, God cannot actualise any of them. Secondly, if there are possible worlds which God can actualise, and than which God can actualise none better, then God must actualise one of them. The paper is neutral between compatibilist and libertarian views of creaturely freedom. The paper's main ideas have been used, with modifications, in my book "God, the Best, and Evil" (OUP 2…Read more
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1721Swinburne on the Simplicity of TheismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3 (2). 2011.This paper argues that (1) Richard Swinburne’s general account of the simplicity of empirical hypotheses fails because it involves a deeply problematic notion of postulating a property, while there is a wide range of hypotheses where the assessment of simplicity rests entirely on the number and kinds of postulated properties, (2) Swinburne’s main argument in ’The Christian God’ for the simplicity of theism, the one based on considerations about pure limitless intentional power, is significantly …Read more
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WATTS, G. S.: "The Revolution of Ideas" (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62 (n/a): 318. 1984.
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555Reply to Oppy on God, the Best and EvilSophia 50 (1): 211-219. 2011.My reply corrects one misstatement in Oppy’s summary of my book, abandons a footnote in the light of one of Oppy’s criticisms, and argues that Oppy’s other criticisms do not succeed in showing either that my claims are mistaken or that the arguments by which I supported them are defective
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302Popper on induction and independencePhilosophy of Science 44 (2): 326-331. 1977.Karl Popper, in "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" Section *vii, argues that if you find that some objecta a,b, c ... have a specific property P, then this discovery by itself does not increase the probability that some other object also has P. He concludes that there can be no effective principle of induction. My paper disproves Popper's claim, using very elementary considerations..
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54Miracles and principles of relative likelihoodInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 18 (3). 1985.I EXAMINE VARIOUS SUGGESTED PRINCIPLES FOR WEIGHING TESTIMONY TO PAST EVENTS AND IDENTIFY ONE WHICH SEEMS TO BE BOTH TRUE AND ROUGHLY IN THE SPIRIT OF DAVID HUME’S ESSAY. I ARGUE THAT HUME FAILS TO PROVIDE GOOD REASONS FOR SAYING THAT THIS PRINCIPLE, WHEN APPLIED TO REPORTS OF MIRACLES PURPORTING TO SUPPORT RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, WILL ALWAYS LEAD US TO REJECT THE OCCURRENCE OF THE MIRACLE
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273Wiggins' defence of essentialismSouthern Journal of Philosophy 13 (4): 459-469. 1975.This paper is a critique of David Wiggins's treatment of essentialism in his book Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Blackwell 1967). I argue in detail that he has not provided an adequate account either of the concept of a sortal term or of the concept of a substance-concept, even though both concepts play important roles in his case for essentialism. I also discuss Wiggins's views on how substance-concepts are related to judgments of identity through time.
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19Colin Howson Objecting to God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Pp. xi+ 220.£ 17.99 (Pbk). ISBN 978 0 521 18665 0 (review)Religious Studies 48 (3): 415-419. 2012.
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33Some internal theodicies and the objection from alternative goodsInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 34 (1). 1993.
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451Identity and spatio-temporal continuityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (2): 184-189. 1972.This article considers recent arguments against the proposition that one and the same object cannot go out of existence and then come into existence again (so that, e.g., teleportation would involve change of identity.). It argues that these arguments can be evaded by adopting a four-dimensional ontology, according to which human beings, trees, etc., have temporal as well as spatial parts.
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Richard SwinburneIn Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), Medieval Philosophy of Religion: The History of Western Philosophy of Religion, Volume 2, Routledge. pp. 5. 2009.In tyhis book chapterI provides concise overviews of Richard Swinburne's views on topics in natural theology and also in distinctively Christian philosophical theology; changes in his views are identified. I explain Swinburne's positive, cumulative case for the existence of God, and his discussion of objections to God based on evil, and then move on to outline his views on A tonement, Revelation, the Trinity, and the Incarnation. I then sketch his case for the truth of Christianity, and and his…Read more
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |