Divine Bootstrapping: Do Abstract Objects Lead to Atheism?

Realism about a certain kind of ‘abstract object’, namely, universals or properties, has been thought to pose a problem for theism.  To be a realist about universals or properties is just to believe that they exist.  First, I talk about two different kinds of reason to believe in them, which lead to two different roles they are supposed to play.  For the sake of argument, I’ll assume they’re both good reasons.  Does realism about universals lead to a problem for theism — for a certain specific kind of theism, one that says only God exists ‘a se’, not dependent upon anything?  We’ll look at two arguments that say there would be a bad kind of circle of dependence.  Paying attention to the two roles universals are supposed to play will show that the two arguments fail, for two different reasons.  The arguments were developed before the relatively recent growth of the ‘grounding’ literature; but they have to do with inadmissible grounding structure; so I’ll be connecting these debates, which make use of notions of priority, to the metaphysics of grounds.

In this lecture, distinguished professor Dean Zimmerman, Rutgers, will speak at the Blackfriars Aula, 3pm 11 March.

Venue: Blackfriars Hall - St Giles Oxford, OX1 3LY United Kingdom Array ( [lat] => 51.756248 [lng] => -1.259881 )

Contact:
Aquinas Institute
aquinas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk