Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:04:59.945Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Internal and External Questions about God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Robin Le Poidevin
Robin Le Poidevin
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Characteristic of metaphysics are general questions of existence, such as ‘Are there numbers?’ This kind of question is the target of Carnap's argument for deflationism, to the effect that general existential questions, if taken at face value, are meaningless. This paper considers deflationism in a theological context, and argues that the question ‘Does God exist?’ can appropriately be grouped with the ‘metaphysical’ questions attacked by Carnap. Deflationism thus has the surprising consequence that the correct approach to theism is that of radical theology. The paper attempts to show why Carnap's argument fails, and why, nevertheless, enough remains of it for us to conclude that God cannot be outside time and space.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 485 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic (London: Gollancz).Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1950). ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, vol. 4. Reprinted, with some modifications, in Philosophy of Mathematics, 2nd ed., ed. Benacerraf, P. and Putnam, H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 241–57.Google Scholar
Cupitt, D. (1980). Taking Leave of God (London: SCM Press).Google Scholar
Frege, G. (1959). The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. Austin, J. L. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Haack, S. (1976). ‘Some Preliminaries to Ontology’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, V, pp. 457–74.Google Scholar
Hale, B. (1987). Abstract Objects (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Helm, , P. (1988). Eternal God (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986). On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Lucas, J. R. (1989). The Future (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1974). The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Russell, B. ‘Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types’, American Journal of Mathematics, XXX, pp. 222–62. Reprinted in Logic and Knowledge, ed. Marsh, R. C. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), pp. 59–102.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1977). The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1980). The Scientific Image (Oxford: Clarendon Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar