^{page 367 note 1} Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)Google Scholar. The title is a clever allusion to Hume's remark in the tenth chapter of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that it is a miracle that anyone assents to the Christian religion.

^{page 368 note 1} Mackie, , Theism, p. 93.Google Scholar

^{page 368 note 2} Ibid.

^{page 369 note 1} Ibid. p. 94.

^{page 370 note 1} Whitrow, G. J., critical notice in British journal for the Philosophy of Science XXXI (1980), 409Google Scholar. See also idem., The Natural Philosophy of Time, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 198), pp. 28–32.

^{page 370 note 2} This same rejoinder was used unsuccessfully by Aquinas against Bonaventure (Scg 2.38; St 1.46.2 ad 6). For a discussion see Kovach, Francis J., ‘The question of the eternity of the world in St Bonaventure and St Thomas – a critical analysis’, Southwestern journal of Philosophy V (1974), 141–72.Google Scholar

^{page 370 note 3} It may not even be true. Some modern defenders of the kalām argument have argued that an infinite past would entail the existence of moments infinitely removed from the present. For an analysis see Craig, William Lane, ‘The finitude of the past’, Aletheia II (1981), 235–42.Google Scholar

^{page 371 note 1} Mackie, , Theism, p. 89.Google Scholar

^{page 371 note 2} Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘“Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause”: Hume's argument exposed’, Analysis XXXIV (1974), 150.Google Scholar

^{page 371 note 3} For example, Jonathan Edward's argument in his On the Freedom of the Will 2.3 that something cannot come into existence uncaused because it then becomes inexplicable why just any and everything cannot or does not come to exist uncaused. It cannot be said that only things of a certain nature come into existence uncaused because prior to their existence they have no nature which could control their coming to be. For a discussion see Prior, Arthur N.,' ‘Limited indeterminism,’ in Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 65.Google Scholar

^{page 372 note 1} Hume, David to Stewart, John, February 1754, in The Letters of David Hume, 2 vols., ed. Grieg, J. Y. T. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 1, 187.Google Scholar

^{page 373 note 1} Hume, David, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A., 3rd ed., ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), xii.III.130.Google Scholar

^{page 373 note 2} Mackie, , Theism, p. 89.Google Scholar

^{page 373 note 3} Craig, William Lane, ‘God, time, and eternity’, Religious Studies XIV (1978), 497–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 373 note 4} Note that whereas for the theist creation lacks a material cause but has an efficient cause, for Mackie the universe lacks both a material and an efficient cause (as well as any other sort of cause, such as final, formal or whatever).

^{page 373 note 5} Mackie, , Theism, pp. 84, 94.Google Scholar

^{page 374 note 1} Hoyle, Fred, From Stonehenge to Modern Cosmology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1972), p. 36Google Scholar; Idem, Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975), p. 658.

^{page 375 note 1} Mackie, , Theism, pp. 94–5.Google Scholar