Is There a Natural Knowledge of God?
C. Stephen Evans (Baylor University, Australian Catholic University)

June 25, 2014, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
School of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

Mercy Lecture Theatre
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne campus, 17-29 Young Street
Fitzroy 3065
Australia

Organisers:

Richard Colledge
Australian Catholic University

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In the last century some important theologians (such as Karl Barth) and some Christian philosophers (such as Paul Moser) have been unenthusiastic about traditional natural theology.  Although I take their worries seriously, I shall defend the claim that there is a natural knowledge of God that is rooted in “natural signs” for God, such as a global sense of wonder about the world and a global sense of gratitude for one’s own existence.  These signs satisfy two “Pascalian constraints” on evidence for God:  they are both widely available and easily resistible.  Such signs may not give us clear knowledge of the God of Christianity, with all the traditional theistic attributes,  but they do make reasonable what I call “anti-naturalism,” which is the view that the natural world points beyond itself to a mystery that that is its transcendent ground.  Contemporary cognitive psychology provides support for the claim that there is a natural tendency to form a belief in God on the basis of distinctive experiences.

Prof Evans is a leading philosopher of religion and an expert on the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, on whom he has published six books and a plentitude of articles over many years. He is a past curator of the renouned Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, and a past president of both the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Søren Kierkegaard Society. His recent books include: God and Moral Obligations (Oxford University Press, 2013); Natural Signs and Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments (Oxford University Press, 2010); and Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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June 24, 2014, 1:00pm +10:00

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