Table Of ContentOUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
GOD OVER ALL
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
God Over All
Divine Aseity and the Challenge
of Platonism
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
1
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
To Richard Swinburne
Thank you
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
Preface
This book is an expansion of my 2015 Cadbury Lectures at the
Universityof Birmingham,England, which themselves were a distil-
lation of a much longer study on God and abstract objects. I am
grateful to Professors Yujin Nagasawa and David Cheetham and to
theJohnHickCentreforPhilosophyofReligionfortheinvitationto
delivertheselectures.
TheinvitationcamejustasIwaswrappinguparesearchprojecton
divine aseity and the challenge to it posed by contemporary Platon-
ismthathadpreoccupiedmeforthepreviousdozenyearsorso.This
happy coincidence gave me the opportunity to state my arguments
succinctly and in a semi-popular form, so as to make the lectures
profitablefornon-specialists.
Philosophers of religion and theologians, to whom this book is
primarilydirected,maybeunfamiliarwiththedebatescentraltoour
topicwhichareraginginthephilosophyofmathematics,philosophy
of language, metaphysics, and logic. To aid understanding, I have
compiled a Glossary of specialist terminology offering elementary
definitions or explanations of key terms. I have also included a
Figure1 as part of the front matter of the book, to which I shall
have occasion to recur, in order to provide at a glance a visual
taxonomyofthevariousalternativeviewsdiscussedinthisbook.
Havinglabouredforoveradozenyearstounderstandhowbestto
respondtoPlatonism’schallengetodivineaseity,Ihave,asonemight
expect, been greatly helped by the interaction of many colleagues
in a wide range of fields on various questions. I wish to thank in
particularfortheirstimulusandinput:RobertAdams,JodyAzzouni,
Mark Balaguer, J. T. Bridges, Jeffery Brower, Charles Chihara, Paul
Copan, Thomas Crisp, Trent Dougherty, Mark Edwards, Thomas
Flint,PaulGould,DorothyGrover,GeoffreyHellman,PaulHorwich,
Ross Inman, Peter van Inwagen, Dennis Jowers, Brian Leftow, Mary
Leng,ChristopherMenzel,J.P.Moreland,ThomasMorris,Kenneth
Perszyck, Michael Rea, Maria Reicher-Marek, Theodore Sider, Peter
Simons, Alvin Plantinga, Joshua Rasmussen, Elliott Sober, Robert
Thomas,AchilleVarzi,GregWelty,EdwardWierenga,DallasWillard,
Stephen Yablo, Takashi Yagisawa, and Dean Zimmerman. I am also
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viii Preface
grateful for the comments of three anonymous referees of Oxford
University Press. My research assistant Timothy Bayless deserves
grateful mention for his procuring research materials, hunting
down references, compiling the bibliography, and carrying out
other related tasks for me. Thanks, too, to Kevin Whitehead for his
proofreading the penultimate draft of the typescript! Finally, as
always, I am grateful to my wife Jan, not only for her help with
earlyportionsofthetypescript,butevenmoreforherencouragement
and interaction (‘Honey, what do you think? Does the number
2exist?’).
Asmentioned,mylectureswereacondensationofamuchlonger,
scholarlyworkonGodandAbstractObjectstoappear withSpringer
Verlag.Readersdesiringamoreextensive,in-depthdiscussionofthe
questionsandviewstreatedheremayconsultthatwork.
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. God:TheSoleUltimateReality 13
3. TheChallengeofPlatonism 44
4. AbsoluteCreation 54
5. DivineConceptualism 72
6. MakingOntologicalCommitments(1) 96
7. MakingOntologicalCommitments(2) 125
8. UsefulFictions 144
9. FigurativelySpeaking 167
10. Make-Believe 181
11. GodOverAll 206
Glossary 209
WorksCited 219
GeneralIndex 233
IndexofAncientSources 242
