In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment

Front Cover
James F. Sennett, Douglas Groothuis
InterVarsity Press, Oct 4, 2005 - Religion - 336 pages
The shadow of David Hume, the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, has loomed large against all efforts to prove the existence of God from evidence in the natural world. Indeed from Hume's day to ours, the vast majority of philosophical attacks against the rationality of theism have borne an unmistakable Humean aroma. The last forty years, however, have been marked by a resurgence in Christian theism among philosophers, and the time has come for a thorough reassessment of the case for natural theology. James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis have assembled a distinguished team of philosophers to engage the task: Terence Penelhum, Todd M. Furman, Keith Yandell, Garrett J. DeWeese, Joshua Rasmussen, James D. Madden, Robin Collins, Paul Copan, Victor Reppert, J. P. Moreland and R. Douglas Geivett. Together this team makes vigorous individual and cumulative arguments that set Hume's attacks in fresh perspective and that offer new insights into the value of teleological, cosmological and ontological arguments for God's existence.
 

What people are saying - Write a review

We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.

Contents

INTRODUCTION
9
Hume on Natural Theology
19
IN PRAISE OF HUME
42
DAVID HUME ON MEANING VERIFICATION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY
58
HUMES STOPPER AND THE NATURAL THEOLOGY PROJECT
82
Hume and the Arguments
105
HUME AND THE KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
123
GIVING THE DEVIL HIS
150
HUME FINETUNING AND THE WHO DESIGNED GOD? OBJECTION
175
HUME AND THE MORAL ARGUMENT
200
DAVID HUME EXPERIENTIAL EVIDENCE AND BELIEF IN GOD
226
THE ARGUMENT FROM REASON AND HUMES LEGACY
253
HUME AND THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
271
DAVID HUME AND A CUMULATIVE CASE ARGUMENT
297
Contributors
330
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2005)

James F. Sennett (M.Div. in Old Testament, Lincoln Christian Seminary; Ph.D. in philosophy, University of Nebraska) has taught at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary, Northwestern College, Pacific Lutheran University, Palm Beach Atlantic College, and McNeese State University. He is author of Modality, Probability, and Rationality: A Critical Examination of Alvin Plantinga's Philosophy. And he is editor of The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader. His articles have appeared in such professional journals as Philosophia Christi, Faith and Philosophy, Journal of Philosophical Review, Cross Currents, Religious Studies and International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.

Douglas R. Groothuis (Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Oregon) is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He has also been a visiting professor or adjunct faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (Colorado Springs extension), Metropolitan State College of Denver, Westminster Theological Seminary (California campus), University of Oregon, New College Berkeley and Seattle Pacific University. His articles have been published in professional journals such as Religious Studies, Sophia, Theory and Research in Education, Philosophia Christi, Themelios, Think: A Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Christian Scholar's Review, Inquiry and Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has written several books, including Truth Decay, In Defense of Natural Theology (coeditor), Unmasking the New Age, Jesus in an Age of Controversy, Deceived by the Light, The Soul in Cyberspace, and, in the Wadsworth Philosophers Series, On Pascal and On Jesus.

Bibliographic information