Divine Aseity

Articles exploring God's attribute of self-existence and the challenge posed to God's unique aseity by Platonism, the view that there are mind-independent abstract objects.

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05 / 06

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Review Article: God and Necessity by Brian Leftow

A critical review of Brian Leftow's claim to ground modality in God's will.

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Response To Van Inwagen And Welty

In response to my critics, I argue that Peter van Inwagen, despite his protestations, is an advocate of an indispensability argument for Platonism. What remains to be shown by van Inwagen is that his ...

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Necessary Beings by Bob Hale

Bob Hale is one of the most important Platonists writing today. The unintended interface of his rich metaphysical theory of modality with theism is briefly explored....

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Review: Natur und Zahl: Die Mathematisierbarkeit der Welt by Bernulf Kanitscheider

A critical review of a prominent, non-theistic, German philosopher’s attempt to articulate a philosophy of mathematics consistent with naturalism, an attempt which, it is argued, fails, both wit...

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Absolute creationism and divine conceptualism: A call for conceptual clarity

The contemporary debate over God and abstract objects is hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity concerning two distinct metaphysical views:  absolute creationism and divine conceptualism. ...

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"Absolute Creation" And "Theistic Activism": A Plea For Terminological Uniformity

Morris and Menzel’s view that God is the Creator of abstract as well as concrete objects is variously referred to by the labels “absolute creation” and “theistic activism.&rdqu...

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God and the Platonic Host

First given at the C. S. Lewis Society in Oxford, England, this lecture explores not only the challenge posed by Platonism to divine aseity but also C.S. Lwis’ interesting response to that chall...

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Review: An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics: Mathematics as the Science of Quantity and Structure

Review: An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics: Mathematics as the Science of Quantity and Structure by James Franklin.  James Franklin aspires to a realist view of mathematical objec...

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Response To Bridges And van Inwagen

Bridges’ so-called “moderate realism” is really a misnomer, since Aquinas’ view was that mathematical objects and universals are mere entia rationis, having no existence in the...

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God and Abstract Objects

Central to classical theism is the conception of God as the sole ultimate reality, the creator of all things apart from Himself.  Such a doctrine is rooted in Hebrew-Christian Scripture and unfol...

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God and Abstract Objects

Platonism poses a challenge to the Christian doctrine that God is the sole ultimate reality.  The claim of absolute creationism that God has created abstract objects faces the formidable problem ...

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Peter Van Inwagen, Substitutional Quantification, and Ontological Commitment

Peter van Inwagen has long claimed that he doesn’t understand substitutional quantification and that the notion is, in fact, meaningless. Van Inwagen identifies the source of his bewilderment as...

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Review: God and Necessity

A critical review of Brian Leftow's attempt to safeguard divine aseity in the face of the challenge of Platonism.

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Propositional Truth - Who Needs It?

On a deflationary view of truth the truth predicate does not ascribe a property of any explanatory significance to statements. The truth predicate is merely a device of semantic ascent, by means of wh...

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Mary Leng's Mathematics and Reality

Mary Leng’s new book is a very thorough and closely argued response from a non-realist perspective to W. V. Quine’s Indispensability Argument for the existence of abstract objects, specifi...

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God and the Platonic Host

This paper, presented before the C. S. Lewis Society in Oxford on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, surveys the options available to the theist for meeting the challenge posed by platonism to div...

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God and Abstract Objects

To the uninitiated, platonism, science, and Christianity might seem poles apart. Neither the average scientist nor the average Christian, after all, finds abstract objects to be relevant to his quotid...

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Van Inwagen On Uncreated Beings

Peter van Inwagen argues that (1) there are uncreated abstract objects like properties and (2) the affirmation of the existence of uncreated abstract objects is consistent with the affirmation of the ...

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Why are (some) Platonists so insouciant?

Some platonists truly agonize over the ontological commitments which their platonism demands of them. But many others are remarkably insouciant about positing the existence of abstract objects, despit...

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