Questions we are engaging with for this week’s philosophy of religion class. Part of this, the last part represents its own separate forum for the class; it is supposed to be a debate forum.
Creator of the world
Does the theistic view that God created the universe imply that the universe must have had a beginning? What might the implications of the answer to this question be?
Yes, the theistic view, in particular, the Christian theistic view entails that the universe had a beginning. I’d go so far to say that it entails the creatio ex nihilo (created out of nothing) position. What this implies is that all of reality, including knowledge, is contingent on God speaking (revealing) Himself for us.
Creator of value
Is something good because God wills it or does God will it because it is good?
Euthyphro’s Dilemma can be avoided if we posit what can be called a Trinitarian actualism (versus essentialism, which is the Thomistic way out of the dilemma). A trinitarian actualism entails a notion of God wherein God’s being is in becoming. That is to say, like essentialism attempts, that God just is. But in the actualistic sense, God just is his personal relation to the world; contingent upon nothing else but who he is in his inner-personal freedom as the triune God. Something is good, therefore, because God is good in himself; but he has freely chosen for himself that his goodness becomes what it is as he graciously and dynamically becomes us that we might become him (not by nature, but grace). More to clarify, but this will have to suffice for my sentence long response 
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Revealer
Does the fact that there’s such disagreement between theists over what exactly it is that God has revealed provide a reason to suppose that God hasn’t revealed anything? What would follow from this conclusion?
No. It isn’t this relative. It may be this relative for the outsider looking in. But if the work is done, like through comparative religions, for example, and we engage in an abductive exercise, so to speak, it is clear that not all “revelations” are equal. So, I think the question itself is non-starting in this sense.
Offerer of eternal life
Can an intelligible and plausible account of ‘eternal life’ be given?
As we’re interested in both the truth and meaning of this question you may want to break this down into the following:
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- Could personal identity endure after bodily death? Can any of the accounts that Mawson discusses be defensible? Why/why not?
- In what way would ‘eternal life’ be a good?
You may want to begin to answer this question by offering a definition of ‘eternal life’, and its relation to bodily death.
I must answer this is as a Christian theist (of the Trinitarian variety) first; and attendant with that, refer to the only one who has provided a concrete answer for that question.
Eternal Life
Eternal life is God’s triune life in relation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no other eternal life available. This life, entered into humanity (‘he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him [Jesus]), and made God’s eternal life available to all of humanity by taking all of human life, as he is archetypal human life, putting it to death (the sinful, separated heart of humanity from God), rising again (on the third day)—and in turn, raising all of humanity with his—which has thus forged a way for all of humanity, if they will, through his willing for them first, to participate in his eternal and ascended life with the Father forevermore; indeed, by the Holy Spirit.
A Raw Syllogism
P1. The triune God alone is eternal life.
P2. Human beings can participate in God’s triune eternal life, if God makes a way for them to enter that type of life.
P3. God has made a way for human beings to participate in God’s triune life, through uniting humanity to his humanity in Jesus Christ.
P4. Human beings can participate in God’s triune life, in the humanity of Jesus Christ, if they choose to do so.
P5. Therefore, human beings who choose to participate in God’s triune life, in and through the humanity of Jesus Christ, can experience God’s triune and eternal life that he alone is.
It seems as if Mawson is attempting to purely think of eternal life as the perdurance of human life, albeit in the presence of God. I don’t think this quite follows. The only perduring life and eternal life, in the theistic frame, is God’s life. As such, the discussion must be oriented by how it is that a human being might come to participate in God’s eternal life. I tried to tease that out above. I think Mawson hinders himself by presupposing that all of the so-called “Abrahamic faiths” are “essentially” referring to the same God. But that is, at the very least, a very debatable premise.
The motion we will be debating is: ‘This house believes that it is logically possible that there be a God.’
There is nothing inherently illogical in believing that a god exists. It is possible, as Mawson et al. has done, to construct a notion of godness that is self-referentially coherent vis-à-vis this god’s properties; whether, essential or accidental properties. But just because this notion of godness can be constructed in a self-referentially coherentist manner, does not in itself, lead to the conclusion that this god must necessarily exist, per se. It only leads one to the conclusion that such a god could exist (which seems to be the minimum being sought by the theistic philosopher).
So, alternatively, as a Christian theist, what I present as a thesis, in regard to a god necessarily, or even tacitly existing, is that we expand our horizons, categorically. I propose that in order for us to concretely know that God exists, that we adopt an orientation that sees revelation claims as the necessary ground by which the seekers might come to know that God exists. This might entail that the God we encounter through a revelation claim is not concordant with the self-referential and coherentist account of God that Mawson presented and argued for. It might mean, that if we were to encounter such a “revelational God,” through his self-revelation, that we might be asked to go beyond what a purely philosophical accounting of a god provides us with.
So, I would argue that merely presenting the seekers with a purely self-referential coherentist account of a god, as a logical possibility, while coherent, sets the would-be knower of God up for potential failure; in the sense that false expectations have been given over against the categories and emphases that a god outside of our “immanent frames” might present us with. Logical possibility vis-à-vis God’s existence is something that human agents might attempt to construct in an a prior fashion. But there is no guarantee that the god so constructed is corollary with the God who might potentially show up through self-revelation. In other words, I would argue that simply constructing an argument for the logical possibility of a God’s existence simply sets the would-be knower of God up with a procrustean bed. In which case, the logical possibility for there being a God might in fact bring the would-be knower of God to miss encountering the real God if he discloses himself in his self-revelation in such a way that ends up transcending the would-be knowers already developed notion of godness. At best, this would-be knower, upon encountering an ostensibly self-revealed God, might attempt to shape this self-revealed God into the form they had already constructed for this God to logically fit. But then, this might result in the seekers’ ultimately rejecting the logical possibility for a God’s existence; insofar that the philosophical construct and revelation claims end up being so discordant, that the seeker simply throws their hands up in frustration and disbelief.
In the end: I think Mawson and other theistic philosophers can present and develop an argument for the logical possibility for a God to exist. But ultimately, this could be a self-defeating venture; insofar that this God’s existence, circumscribed by the philosophers’ wits as it is, might cause seekers for God to miss the real God, if in fact the real God appears differently than the philosophers had imagined him to necessarily, or even to tacitly be.