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Truth-Conditions and Necessary Existence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
My objectives are twofold. I want first to show (mainly following John Hick) that there is a conception of necessary existence or aseity, distinct from a conception of ‘logically necessary being’, which is at least prima facie plausible and second to show, with respect to this specific conception, that there are relevant questions about stating truth-conditions which are unsatisfied and perhaps even in principle unsatisfiable, and that these are questions which must be met before such a prima facie plausible conception can be taken to give us the basis of a satisfactory theological elucidation of what it is to speak of God. I shall argue that it is doubtful whether these questions about truth-conditions can be met.
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References
page 259 note 1 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII (1961), pp. 725–734Google Scholar, and ‘Necessary Being’, Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. XIV (1961), PP. 353–369.Google Scholar
page 259 note 2 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII (1961), p. 728.Google Scholar
page 260 note 1 In his essay on Aquinas in Anscombe, G. E. M. and Geach, P. T., Three Philosophers (Oxford: 1961), p. 83.Google Scholar
page 260 note 2 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII (1961), p. 728Google Scholar. See also in criticism here Daher, Adel, ‘God and Factual Necessity’, Religious Studies, vol. 6 (March 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 261 note 1 ibid., p. 729.
page 261 note 2 ibid., pp. 729–31.
page 262 note 1 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII (1961), P. 731.Google Scholar
page 262 note 2 This has been convincingly argued by Brown, P. T., ‘Professor Malcolm on Anselm's Ontological Arguments', Analysis (1961).Google Scholar
page 263 note 1 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII, (1961), p. 731.Google Scholar
page 263 note 2 ibid., p. 732.
page 263 note 3 ibid., p. 733.
page 263 note 4 ibid.
page 263 note 5 ibid.
page 264 note 1 Hick, John, ‘God and Necessary Being’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVIII (1961), P. 733.Google Scholar
page 265 note 1 Edwards, Paul, ‘Some Notes on Anthropomorphic Theology’, in Religious Experience and Truth, Hook, Sydney (ed.), (New York: 1961), p. 242.Google Scholar
page 267 note 1 I have argued this and have generally elucidated and criticised Ziff's account in my ‘The Intelligibility of God-talk’, Religious Studies, vol. 6, no. I (1970)Google Scholar. See as well Hoffman, Robert, ‘On Being Mindful of “God”: Reply to Kai Nielsen’, Religious Studies, vol. 6, no. 3 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 267 note 2 Hick develops this in his ‘Theology and Verification’ reprinted in Hick, John (ed.), The Existence of God (New York: 1964), pp. 253–274Google Scholar. I have criticised Hick's account in my ‘Eschatological Verification’, The Canadian Journal of Theology, vol. XVII (October 1963)Google Scholar. Hick has replied to this in the second edition of his Faith and Knowledge (Ithaca, New York: 1966), pp. 196–199Google Scholar and I have in turn responded in my Contemporary Critiques of Religion, pp. 71–9.
page 267 note 3 I have argued against specifically Neo-Thomistic conceptions and utilizations of aseity in my ‘God, Necessity and Falsifiability’ in Traces of God in a Secular Culture, McLean, George F. (ed.) (New York: Alba House, 1973), pp. 271–304.Google Scholar