Array
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    [fullTitle] => From a Necessary Being to a Perfect Being: A Reply to Byerly
    [abstract] => 
Cosmological arguments for God typically have two stages. The first stage argues for a first cause or a necessary being, and the second stage argues from there to God. T. Ryan Byerly offers a simple, abductive argument for the second stage where the best explanation for why the being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. The reasoning behind this argument is that universal generalizations explain observations of their instances; for example, the universal generalization that all ravens are black explains why some particular raven is observed to be black. Similarly, the fact that a being has all perfections explains why we find the being to have necessary existence. I distinguish between two readings of Byerly’s proposed theistic explanation, and conclude that his explanation does not offer an advantage to the theist in either case.

    [authors] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [givenName] => Tina
                    [affiliation] => 
                )

        )

    [keywords] => Array
        (
        )

    [doi] => 10.24204/ejpr.2022.3446
    [datePublished] => 2022-03-31
    [pdf] => https://www.philosophy-of-religion.eu/menuscript/index.php/ejpr/article/view/3446/version/788/2879
)
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From a Necessary Being to a Perfect Being: A Reply to Byerly

Tina

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.2022.3446

Abstract

Cosmological arguments for God typically have two stages. The first stage argues for a first cause or a necessary being, and the second stage argues from there to God. T. Ryan Byerly offers a simple, abductive argument for the second stage where the best explanation for why the being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. The reasoning behind this argument is that universal generalizations explain observations of their instances; for example, the universal generalization that all ravens are black explains why some particular raven is observed to be black. Similarly, the fact that a being has all perfections explains why we find the being to have necessary existence. I distinguish between two readings of Byerly’s proposed theistic explanation, and conclude that his explanation does not offer an advantage to the theist in either case.

Keywords:

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