Abstract

In a recent article, Emanuel Rutten has presented a novel argument for the existence of God, defined as a personal being that is the first cause of reality. An interesting feature of the argument, which caused quite a stir, is that it does not fall within any of the traditional categories of arguments for God’s existence. Rutten calls his argument a modal-epistemic one, which reflects the fact that the first premise of his argument states that all possible truths are knowable. The main purpose of this article is a simple one: to point out that Rutten’s modal-epistemic argument is flawed.

Highlights

  • In a recent article, Emanuel Rutten has presented a novel argument for the existence of God, defined as a personal being that is the first cause of reality

  • In a recent article (Rutten 2014), Emanuel Rutten presents a novel argument for the existence of God, defined as a personal being that is the first cause of reality

  • Before we present our qualms with premise P2, we will first present an objection to the modal-epistemic argument that Rutten discusses and dismisses in his paper

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Summary

Introduction

In a recent article (Rutten 2014), Emanuel Rutten presents a novel argument for the existence of God, defined as a personal being that is the first cause of reality. If the simplified modal-epistemic argument is valid and sound, it establishes that the proposition that there is a unique personal first cause is necessarily true. Rutten argues that it is necessarily true that God exists He does not do so by invoking the simplified modal-epistemic argument, the reason being that premise P1, as stated, is unacceptable. As ‘there is no personal first cause’ is a first-order proposition, the conclusion that it is necessarily true that there is a personal first cause follows from P01 and P2 Be that as it may, there are counterexamples to premise P01 which necessitate a further restriction of the range of its quantifier. Is it sound, i.e. are its premises true?

The blunt denial objection
Worries about the second premise
Conclusion

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