Last week I had the pleasure of interacting with British philosopher Dr. Alex Malpass on the topic of the argument for God from logic. (Many thanks to podcaster extraordinaire Parker Settecase for hosting and moderating the discussion.) Dr. Malpass recently published an article in the journal Sophia in which he leveled several objections at the Anderson-Welty argument. Here’s the abstract for the article:
James Anderson and Greg Welty have resurrected an argument for God’s existence (Anderson and Welty 2011), which we will call the argument from logic. We present three lines of response against the argument, involving the notion of necessity involved, the notion of intentionality involved, and then we pose a dilemma for divine conceptualism. We conclude that the argument faces substantial problems.
In our 90-minute-or-so live-broadcast discussion, Dr. Malpass summarized his three criticisms and I gave responses to each one. We also fielded a few questions from viewers. In the end, there was a surprising (but gratifying) amount of agreement between us regarding some of the logical and metaphysical issues at stake, even though Alex remains unpersuaded by the argument! Anyway, you can watch the exchange and draw your own conclusions:
Be sure to watch right to the end, where the two Brits are invited to weigh in on the contentious coffee-versus-tea debate.
I’m grateful to Dr. Malpass for his willingness to participate in what proved to be an illuminating and good-humored discussion, and I look forward to further exchanges (including, I hope, a published response to his article). For those interested, Dr. Malpass has his own blog here.