Estranged Notions: Proofs for the Existence of God (#AMA with Dr. Edward Feser)

Yesterday's post:

Proofs for the Existence of God (#AMA with Dr. Edward Feser)

Estranged Notions: Do Theological Claims Need to be Falsifiable?

Today's post:

Do Theological Claims Need to be Falsifiable?

Feser obviously thinks “no”, but his arguments are as usual full of errors.

Estranged Notions: Is an All-Evil God as Likely as an All-Good God?

Today's post:

Is an All-Evil God as Likely as an All-Good God?

Feser vs. Stephen Law from five years ago, on Law's “evil god” reversed-theodicy arguments.

Estranged Notions: Does the Bible Say All Atheists are Intellectually Dishonest?

Today's post:

Does the Bible Say All Atheists are Intellectually Dishonest?

This is another round in the argument with Koukl over Romans 1:18ff, and at this stage it descends into argument about whether the passages in question actually support Koukl's position. The alternative view (which I linked in the earlier post on this argument) of how to construe the Greek text (in the absence of punctuation) is of course not addressed.

Estranged Notions: Do Atheists Simply Repress Their Knowledge of God?

Today's post:

Do Atheists Simply Repress Their Knowledge of God?

This is Feser's corner of a recent multi-way argument between apologist Greg Koukl, Randal Rauser, Feser, and atheist Jeff Lowder. Unsurprisingly Feser thinks that the Thomist perspective is the only right answer, but at least he has the apparent intellectual honesty to reject Koukl's nonsense.

But there's a wildcard in here that I didn't see mentioned by anyone involved. (I'd skimmed parts of this exchange on Rauser's blog and links before seeing this post). Koukl is using the usual “without excuse” clobber passage from Romans 1:18-20:

Estranged Notions: Reassessing Plantinga’s Ontological Argument for God

Today's post:

Reassessing Plantinga’s Ontological Argument for God

This is a response from Feser to the modal ontological argument, which makes a number of specific errors:

Estranged Notions: Can Something Actually Cause Itself to Exist?

Today's post:

Can Something Actually Cause Itself to Exist?

Estranged Notions: Does “Atheology” Exist?

Yesterday's post:

Does “Atheology” Exist?

Feser correctly disagrees with Plantinga, though on a point which seems to me to be more about terminology than substance. Feser's mistake of course is in thinking that metaphysics (and hence ‘natural theology’) is somehow prior to science.

Estranged Notions: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will: A Review of Alfred Mele’s “Free”

Today's post:

Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will: A Review of Alfred Mele’s “Free”

Feser attacks a strawman here by focusing on Libet's original experiments only, and completely ignoring the subsequent investigations along similar lines; the Wikipedia article Neuroscience of free will gives a useful summary.

The other issue of course is that “free will” is not exactly a well-defined concept, and “do we have free will” appears to be a wrong question.

(I hadn't previously noticed that Feser had written for that odious organ the City Journal, which seems to exist to distill out the worst of allegedly-‘intellectual’ conservatism and concentrate it in one steaming pile.)

Estranged Notions: The 6 Varieties of Atheism (and Which Are Most Defensible)

Today's post:

The 6 Varieties of Atheism (and Which Are Most Defensible)

Unsurprisingly, Feser fails to avoid taking his usual potshots at his bêtes noires, the "New Atheists". Other than that his categorization is quite simplistic (and fascinating in that he doesn't seem to notice that he defines 9 varieties, not 6).

Estranged Notions: Can We Make Sense of the World?

Today's post:

Can We Make Sense of the World?

Estranged Notions: Causality and Radioactive Decay

And here we get Feser's actual account of radioactive decay:

Causality and Radioactive Decay

Estranged Notions: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

First half of a blog post by Feser from a month or so back, in which he tries to account for radioactive decay using Aristotelian causation and doesn't notice that he destroys the argument from motion in the process. (Though that doesn't show up until the second half.)

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

Estranged Notions: Monogenism or Polygenism?: The Question of Human Origins

So we get Feser's part 2, and it's just “Adam and Eve and Ted and Alice” over again:

Monogenism or Polygenism?: The Question of Human Origins

This insistence on an all-or-nothing model of rationality or sapience (a ‘rational soul’ which is either present or absent) is ridiculous.

Estranged Notions: Knowing an Ape from Adam

More from Feser:

Knowing an Ape from Adam

This part (1 of 2) is pretty vacuous; just skips over the awkward parts by asserting (via a broken link) that the immateriality of intellect is already “shown”, and then recites various dogmatic statements from popes and theologians. Nothing resembling either evidence or argument.

Estranged Notions: Scholasticism vs. Scientism: An Interview with Dr. Edward Feser

Today we have Feser plugging a new book:

Scholasticism vs. Scientism: An Interview with Dr. Edward Feser

Estranged Notions: Can We Know God’s Existence with Certainty?

Feser again:

Can We Know God’s Existence with Certainty?

That rule about questions in headlines seems to be holding up...

Estranged Notions: What is a Soul?

Oh dear, back to Thomism again in today's post:

What is a Soul?

(And angels? really?)

Estranged Notions: Debunking the “One God Further” Objection

Today's post:

Debunking the “One God Further” Objection

Estranged Notions: If Everything Requires a Cause, What Caused God?

And today's post is another Feser article, desperately trying to save the cosmological argument:

If Everything Requires a Cause, What Caused God?