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    A necessary and eternal divine mind is not required to gr... — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    A necessary and eternal divine mind is not required to ground necessary truths

    Against an attribute of God
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Necessary truths like mathematical facts obtain in all possible worlds by virtue of the logical structure of possibility itself, not any mind's activity.
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    • 2.Quine and Putnam's indispensability arguments ground mathematical necessity in structural features of reality that are ontologically prior to any conceiving subject.
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    • 3.A divine mind would itself require grounding in necessary truths (e.g., logical laws governing its own coherence), making God explanatorily posterior, not prior, to necessity.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Platonist accounts (Frege, Gödel) hold that abstract objects and their relations subsist independently of any mind, human or divine, as non-causal features of reality.
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    • 2.If abstract objects are causally inert and mind-independent, positing a divine mind adds no explanatory work to their necessity and violates Occam's razor.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.All necessary truths are analytic
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    • 2.Analytic truths are grounded solely in the structure of language or conceptual schemes
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    • 3.The structure of language or conceptual schemes does not require the existence of a divine mind
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    Topics

    Natural TheologyAgainst an attribute of God

    Connections

    3 topics

    Truth & Knowledge2 linkedModality & Possibility1 linked

    Related

    A divine mind would itself require grounding in necessary truths (e.g., logical ...All necessary truths are analyticAnalytic truths are grounded solely in the structure of language or conceptual s...If abstract objects are causally inert and mind-independent, positing a divine m...
    +4 moreShow less
    Necessary truths like mathematical facts obtain in all possible worlds by virtue...Platonist accounts (Frege, Gödel) hold that abstract objects and their relations...

    Similar

    The only remaining candidate for a truth-maker for necessary truths is...82%The reality of essences, possibles, and eternal truths must be grounde...79%Necessary truths are true in virtue of the ideas in an infinite and ne...79%A non-human mind capable of containing all things must be a divine min...78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: natural-theology
    View source passageHide passage
    Leibniz’s argument stakes out one position on the grounding of necessary truths, but there are many rival views that do not invoke the existence of a necessary and eternal divine mind. A Platonist might respond by claiming that it hasn’t been shown that abstract entities do not have mind-independent existence, while Humeans would argue that necessary truths are all analytic, and that therefore only the structure of language or of our conceptual schemes is required to ground their truth.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Quine and Putnam's indispensability arguments ground mathematical necessity in s...
    The structure of language or conceptual schemes does not require the existence o...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit