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Did we learn the concept of God and infer his existence from some other more basic belief, or did we have the concept of God or a belief in his existence 'already in the mind'? Such is the issue of nativism: whether there is something in the mind prior to experience. Some theologians and philosophers espouse strongly nativist views. For example, Gordon Clark argues for a form of concept nativism. He argues that human beings have “innate ideas and a priori categories” the purpose of which are for “receiving a verbal revelation, of approaching God in prayer, and of conversing with other men about God and spiritual realities.” Clark makes two arguments for his view. First, he argues that it is not possible to arrive at a concept of God from sense experience: "Since man was created in the image of God, he has an innate idea of God…it is not possible for a blank mind to abstract the concept of God from sensory experience nor to lift sensory language by its bootstraps to a s...

Natural human language-use entails moral obligations, specifically objective obligations between persons. All of these obligations are routinely broken (see Twitter). These obligations are both objective and social. They depend on being objective and not merely an expression of a particular preference or culture. They also depend on the existence of a social context composed of more than one person.  As Nicholas Wolterstorff claims, “speaking is, through and through, a normative engagement.” Wolterstorff suggests three norms and provides examples: (i) speech should be related rightly to the mental state of the speaker. If the speaker asserts something he ought to believe it. If the speaker promises something, he ought to intend to fulfill the promise. If the speaker requests something, he ought to want it. (ii) speech should be rightly related to the facts. A speaker ought not to assert what is false or proclaim someone guilty who is innocent. (iii) speech should ...

Perhaps the best defense of the utility of philosophy for Christian ministry is found in Moreland and Craig's  Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview  (16-19). The following is my summary of six benefits: Apologetics  – when an objection is made against Christianity it is almost always a philosophical objection or involves a philosophical assumption. Just consider the following objections: (i) there is no evidence for the existence of God (ii) miracles are impossible (iii) the presence of evil in the world entails that God does not exist (iv) How do we know that the bible is true? (v) How can Christianity be the only way to God? (vi) That might be true for you but not for me (vii) How do you know that Jesus was raised from the dead? All of these objections require philosophical replies. Polemics  – the church is called upon to criticize and refute false views. One important way to refute erroneous views is by philosophical argument. Refuting people ...

Children acquire natural languages. How they are capable of doing so is mysterious. A child appears to go from learning a few words and sentences to knowing how to construct infinite sentences in her learned language. Such a mystery provoked a long-lasting debate between empiricists and nativists.  Empiricists about language acquisition hold that there is no innate knowledge 'in the mind' of a language learner without which the learner could not acquire a natural language. Nativists, by contrast, hold that there must be some innate feature of human minds (beyond the mere dispositional power to learn) that makes language acquisition possible for human beings. In order to explain the phenomena of human language acquisition, one must show how a theory can answer a number of questions. Here are four:  (i) How is it that human beings acquire knowledge from a limited set of experiences? If it turns out that the set of experiences are insufficient to explain the resultant ...

Martin Lloyd-Jones w as against formal debates with unbelievers . Why? His first reason is that no one comes to faith through a debate. Thus, debates are not useful. However, though the debate opponent rarely comes to faith, Dr. William Lane Craig (who debates non-believers regularly) claims people in his audiences do so . Debates are not merely show downs between two people with opposing views, but show cases of opposing views allowing audiences to to hear both sides. Loyd-Jones then says that the topic of God is too serious a matter for public debate. I'm not clear what he means at this point. Isn't a 'formal' debate as serious as one can get? What would count as a serious venue for talking about God? Only church on Sunday morning? Only when preaching? Finally, he suggests that unbelievers are so blinded by sin that they cannot talk about God (or cannot talk about him properly). But surely believers and unbelievers share enough common ground to begin a discus...

Here's an interview with Ed Feser, author of Five Proofs of the Existence of God: Feser's presentation of the 'Aristotelian' proof is well done.

Adams writes "to refute two...objections to the doctrine of divine necessity" (742). In doing so, he provides a refutation for evolutionary naturalism and an argument for the existence of God. Obj #1: The proposition, 'God exists', cannot be a necessary truth because only analytic truths can be necessary truths but existential propositions cannot be analytic truths. 'God exists' is an existential proposition. Therefore, 'God exists' cannot be a necessary truth. Why think analytic propositions cannot be existential propositions? An analytic proposition is a conditional the consequent of which is a correct analysis of the antecedent. For example, the proposition 'if he is a bachelor, then he is unmarried' (or 'all bachelors are unmarried') is an analytic proposition. Due to their conditional nature, analytic propositions do not imply existence. 'If he is a bachelor, then he is unmarried' is true even if there are no bachel...

From a very young age, we can recognize the quality of sentences. We evaluate sentences according to some standard, some criteria of good, bad, better, or worse. If God created the world then it is likely that he would endow human beings with some way to recognize good and bad sentences according to some standard. One might think that this would entail that human beings know what makes sentences good or bad. But recognition of the value of an entity does not entail knowing what makes it valuable. This is true of good and bad actions as much as it is true of good or bad sentences. One might not know why murder, theft, or deception are bad even though one can recognize them to be so. If so, then it is not necessary that humans know what makes those sentences good or bad. If God did not create the world, it is implausible to think (a) that sentences have good or bad making properties (b) that we would find bad sentences objectionable. One might reply that what we mean by 'ba...

Alexander Campbell was an influential pastor in 19th century. He came up with an interesting argument for the existence of God. I saw it nicely analyzed by Caleb Clanton . Campbell argues that human beings must have obtained the concept of God at some time in the past. But what best explains the cause of our having such a concept? There are five plausible options. First, the idea of God is innate to human minds. We never really obtained the concept; it was always within us. Second, the concept of God was acquired through direct experience of God. Third, the concept of God was arrived at by experience and reflection. Fourth, the concept of God is a product of human imagination. Finally, the concept of God was revealed to human beings by a being that has the ability to reveal concepts to human beings. Campbell argues that the best explanation for the concept of God in human minds is that God revealed it to us. He argues that all the other options have serious flaws. First, Campbe...