Two challenges for ‘no-norms’ theism

Scientific and Philosophical Challenges to Theism *

Modern science developed within a culture of Judeo-Christian theism, and science and theism have generally supported each other. However, there are certainly areas in both science and religion that puzzle me. Here I outline some puzzles that have arisen for me concerning everlasting life, human free will, divine free will, the simplicity and probability of God, the problem of evil, and the conv...

Theism and Dialetheism

The divine attributes of omniscience and omnipotence have faced objections to their very consistency. Such objections rely on reasoning parallel to the semantic paradoxes such as the Liar or the set-theoretic paradoxes like Russell’s paradox. With the advent of paraconsistent logics, dialetheism— the view that some contradictions are true — became a major player in the search for a solution to ...

Theism & Mathematical Realism

Historically, most mathematicians have believed that mathematical truths such as "2+5=7" exist independently of human minds, being universally and eternally true. Mathematicians believe they are discovering properties of, say, prime numbers, rather than merely inventing them. This view of mathematics dates back to Pythagoras (500 BC) and Plato (400 BC). It is often called “Platonism”. In order ...

Theism and Physical Cosmology1

Content-blind norms, no norms, or good norms? A reply to Vranas.

In the psychology of thinking, little thought is given to what constitutes good thinking. Instead, normative solutions to problems have been accepted at face value, thereby determining what counts as a reasoning fallacy. I applaud Vranas (Cognition 76 (2000) 179) for thinking seriously about norms. I do, however, disagree with his attempt to provide post hoc justifications for supposed reasonin...