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15 Theistic Arguments (Copious Helpful Resources)

15 Theistic Arguments (Copious Helpful Resources)

Last updated on: June 10, 2018 at 5:46 pm by Dave Armstrong

15 Theistic Arguments (Copious Helpful Resources) 2018-06-10T17:46:46-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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Hungarian-British philosopher and polymath Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) in 1933: vanquisher of a moribund positivism, and developer of the notion of tacit knowledge, which has strong similarities to Cardinal Newman’s illative sense [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

* * * * *

THEISTIC ARGUMENTS

1. AESTHETIC ARGUMENT

Beauty as a Road to God (Eleonore Stump, 2007) [PDF download]

2. “PROPERLY BASIC” BELIEF / INNATE KNOWLEDGE / TACIT KNOWLEDGE / PLATONISM

Must Christianity be Empirically Falsifiable? (Dave Armstrong, 2010)

Non-Empirical “Basic” Warrant for Theism & Christianity (Dave Armstrong, 2015)

Dialogue w Agnostic: God as a “Properly Basic Belief” (Dave Armstrong vs. JD Eveland, 2015)

The Epistemology Of Soren Kierkegaard (Siegbert W. Becker)

Belief in God (William Lane Craig, 2011)

Tacit Knowledge (Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind)

“It is Wrong, Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone, to Believe Anything Upon Insufficient Evidence?” (Peter van Inwagen, 1996)

Christian Belief and the Platonic Conception of Rationality (Peter van Inwagen, 1999)

What is Analytic Philosophy? What is Naturalism? (Peter van Inwagen, 2006)

Can Theology be Tacit? A Review Essay on Personal Catholicism, by Martin X. Moleski, S. J. (Joseph Kroger, 2000)

Are Beliefs about God Theoretical Beliefs? Reflections on Aquinas and Kant (John O’Leary-Hawthorne & Daniel Howard-Snyder, 1996)

Polanyi and Newman: A Reconsideration (Martin X. Moleski, S. J.)

Personal Catholicism (Martin X. Moleski, S. J., 1999)

An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (book by John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1870)

The Illative Sense [ch. 9 of Grammar of Assent] (John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1870)

Passionate Reason: Kierkegaard and Plantinga on Radical Conversion (Richard Otte, 2014)

Kierkegaard and the Modern Religious Mind (Paul Pardi, 2010)

Induction and Other Minds (Alvin Plantinga, 1966)

Induction and Other Minds, II (Alvin Plantinga, 1968)

Is Belief in God Properly Basic? (Alvin Plantinga, 1981)

Intellectual Sophistication and Basic Belief in God (Alvin Plantinga, 1986)

Swinburne and Plantinga on Internal Rationality (Alvin Plantinga & Richard Swinburne, 2001)

Rationality and Public Evidence (Alvin Plantinga, 2001)

On ‘Proper Basicality’ (Alvin Plantinga, 2008)

Theism, Atheism, and Rationality (Alvin Plantinga)

Science, Faith, and Society (book by Michael Polanyi, 1946)

The Stability of Beliefs (Michael Polanyi, 1952)

Faith and Reason (Michael Polanyi, 1961)

Tacit Knowing: Its Bearing on Some Problems of Philosophy (Michael Polanyi, 1962)

The Structure of Tacit Knowing (Michael Polanyi, 1964)

The Structure of Tacit Knowing (Michael Polanyi, 1965)

The Structure of Consciousness (Michael Polanyi, 1965)

Transcendence and Self-Transcendence (Michael Polanyi, 1970)

Christian Faith and Belief (Alexander R. Pruss, 2001)

Michael Polanyi and Tacit Knowledge (Mark K. Smith, 2003)

Tacit Knowledge (Wikipedia)

3. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

[see my long collection of links]

4. DESIRE / LONGING ARGUMENT

My “Romantic / Imaginative” Conversion to Christianity (Dave Armstrong, 1997; rev. 2015)

C. S. Lewis and the Romantic Poets on Longing, Sehnsucht, and Joy (edited by Dave Armstrong, 2001)

The Relationship of Romanticism to Christianity and Catholicism in Particular (edited by Dave Armstrong, 2001)

Myth-as-Truth, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Conversion of C. S. Lewis (edited by Dave Armstrong, 2004)

Argument for God from Desire: Atheist-Christian Dialogue (Dave Armstrong) [8-7-17]

The Argument from Desire (Peter Kreeft, 1994)

The Bayesian Argument from Desire (Victor Reppert, 2009)

The ontological argument from desire (Alexander R. Pruss, 2010)

[see also my Romantic & Imaginative Theology: Inklings of the World Beyond web page for more related materials]

5. EXPERIENTIAL ARGUMENT

“William P. Alston” in The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers (Daniel Howard-Snyder)

Review of Keith E. Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Daniel Howard-Snyder, 1997)

A Religious Experience Argument for the Existence of a Holy Transcendent Being (Alexander R. Pruss, 2001)

Willam P. Alston – Religious Experience as Perception of God (John Piippo, 2017)

6. HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

[includes: Jesus Christ, Miracles, Prophecy, and the Revelation of Inspired Scripture]

[collected in a separate paper]

7. LOGIC AND REASON ARGUMENT

[defunct links: need to find more articles]

8. MATHEMATICS ARGUMENT

God and the ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics’ (William Lane Craig, 2013)

9. MIND ARGUMENT

[defunct links: need to find more articles]

10. MORAL ARGUMENT

Theistic Foundations of Morality (David Baggett & Jerry L. Walls, 2011)

Can We Be Good without God? (William Lane Craig, 1992)

The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality (William Lane Craig, 1997)

Debate: Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? (William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris, April 2011)

Sam Harris on Objective Moral Values and Duties (William Lane Craig, 2011)

Navigating Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape (William Lane Craig, 2012)

Can God Ground Necessary Moral Truths? (William Lane Craig, 2012)

The Moral Argument for God (William Lane Craig, 2013)

“Objective” or “Absolute” Moral Values? (William Lane Craig, 2013)

Moral Arguments for the Existence of God (C. Stephen Evans, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014)

Does morality depend on God? (Edward Feser, 2011)

Do We Need God to be Moral? (John Frame vs. Paul Kurtz, 1996)

The Argument from Conscience (Peter Kreeft, 1988)

11. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

[see my long collection of links]

12. PRAGMATIC ARGUMENTS AND THE APOLOGETICS OF BLAISE PASCAL

The Apologetic Methodology of Blaise Pascal (Phil Fernandes, 2004)

Deposed Royalty: Pascal’s Anthropological Argument (Douglas Groothuis, 1998)

The Argument from Pascal’s Wager (Peter Kreeft, 1988)

Pascal: The First Modern Christian (Edward T. Oakes, 1999)

13. PRAYER

[defunct links: need to find more articles]

14. TELEOLOGICAL (DESIGN) ARGUMENT

[see my long collection of links]

15. TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT

Four Arguments for Transcendence (Peter Kreeft, 2008)

CUMULATIVE / MULTIPLE ARGUMENTS

Introduction: The Resurrection of Theism (William Lane Craig, 1991)

“Sobel’s Acid Bath for Theism.” Review Article: Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God, by Jordan Howard Sobel (William Lane Craig, 2004)

Arguing Successfully about God: A Review Essay of Graham Oppy’s Arguing about Gods (William Lane Craig, 2008)

God Is Not Dead Yet (William Lane Craig, 2008)

Theist Arguments (William Lane Craig, 2009)

The New Atheism and Five Arguments for God (William Lane Craig, 2010)

Religious Epistemology (Trent Dougherty & Chris Tweedt, 2015)

Classical Theism Roundup (Edward Feser, 2012)

Is Natural Theology Theologically Taboo? (Douglas Groothuis, 1995)

Arguments for the Existence of God (A. J. Hoober, c. 1982)

20 Arguments for the Existence of God (Peter Kreeft, 1994)

Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments (Alvin Plantinga)

QUALITIES / CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD (CLASSICAL ORTHODOX THEISM)

ATEMPORALITY / OUTSIDE OF TIME

Before the Mountains Were Brought Forth: A Defense of Divine Timelessness (Lydia McGrew, 2014)

Eternity (Eleonore Stump & Norman Kretzmann, 1981) [PDF download]

IMMUTABILITY

Immutability (Brian Leftow, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, rev. 2014)

An Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God ( Bruce A. Ware, 1986)

IMPASSIBILITY

Aquinas on Divine Impassibility (Paul Helm, 2010)

Timelessly Present, Compassionately Impassible: A Defense of Two Classical Divine Attributes (dissertation by Philip R. Olsson, 2012)

OMNIPOTENCE

[links defunct]

OMNIPRESENCE

[links defunct]

OMNISCIENCE

Closing the Door on Open Theism (Martyn McGeown)

SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND SIMPLICITY

Why Is There Anything At All? It’s Simple (Edward Feser, 2013)

SUSTAINING CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE

Creation and Conservation Once More (William Lane Craig, 1998)

Classical Theism (Edward Feser, 2010)

An exchange with Keith Parsons, Part II (Edward Feser, 2014)

The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God (Peter van Inwagen, 1988)

TRINITARIANISM

The Holy Trinity: Biblical Proofs (Dave Armstrong, 1982)

The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity (Robert Bowman, Jr.)

The Blessed Trinity (Catholic Encyclopedia)

And Yet They Are Not Three Gods But One God (Peter van Inwagen, 1988)

Trinity (Peter van Inwagen, 1998)

Three Persons in One Being: On Attempts to Show that the Doctrine of the Trinity is Self-Contradictory (Peter van Inwagen, 2003)

Third-Person Self-References and Trinitarian Hints in the Old Testament (Andrew S. Malone, 2009)

The Personality of the Holy Spirit (Glenn Miller)

The Deity of the Holy Spirit (Glenn Miller)

Pushbacks: Problems in the NT Witness to The Holy Spirit (Glenn Miller)

The Ancient Church Formulas in the NT (Glenn Miller)

NT Passages mutually involving the Father, Son, and Spirit (Glenn Miller, 1996)

Christian Distinctives: The Trinity (Glenn Miller, 2002)

Testing the Trinitarian ‘hypothesis’ in the Old Testament (Glenn Miller, 2003)

Nicene Christology and Introduction to the Trinitarianism of the Ante-Nicene Fathers (Matt Paulson)

***

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