Reply to Robert Prevost:

Comments:

  1. I accept (as you note) what you call the  kalam principle to the effect that the concept of an actually infinite series (made up of determinate parts and having no first member) is self-contradictory;

    1. for the defence of this point I rest on my published statements of the argument in  The Resurrection of Theism and  The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim: I cannot improve on those formulations at present;

      1. these formulations do not rest on psychological inconceivability (as you seem to suggest), but on objective logical conceivability or possibility;

      2. your comments about conceivability and logical possibility (in relation especially to Plantinga's work) are too vague and imprecise for me to evaluate--at least they do not clearly establish the claim that a decision on logical possibility is unachievable on the issue;

    2. while you mention and comment briefly on the distinction between the concept of actually infinite series and the concept of a potentially infinite (or, as I prefer, an indefinitely extended) series, your critical arguments frequently blur this distinction;

      1. on my view, all so-called mathematically infinite series are (not actually infinite in the requisite sense, but only) potentially infinite or indefinitely extended.

      2. your claim (following Sorabji) that no mathematically infinite set contains everything (so that it can be easily added to) is both irrelevant and not very clear:

        1. the infinite set of natural numbers does not contain everything (no bananas or classical guitars, for example), but it does contain all natural numbers--it contains all logically possible numbers entailed by the definition of the set, and no other members are even logically possible in addition;

        2. the class of all actual events is quite analogous with that of natural numbers--by definition, there are no events that could be added to it, even though it does not contain 'everything'--no essences, concepts, numbers, etc.;

        3. the concept of an actually infinite series of actual events (as defined above) is self-contradictory, since every member of it both culminates a beginningless series and also extends that series by one event;

    3. On the question of whether God's omniscient knowledge involves an actually infinite series of the objectionable kind:

      1. this is essentially Lawhead's point in the previous chapter--if you mail me a request, I will send you my comments on that chapter also;

      2. but briefly, I hold that:

        1. God's omniscience embraces only what is a logically possible object of knowledge,

        2. but there are many statable (but not conceivable) things that are not logically possible objects of knowledge--for example, the highest natural number (since by definition the set has no highest member but is indefinitely extended);

        3. if we assume that the series of actual events had a first member, but no last member, then the member which completes that series is not a logically possible object of knowledge, since by definition the series has no completing member;

        4. it is no breach of God's omniscience (or his so-called foreknowledge either) that He does not know these statable but inconceivable things, since they are not logically possible objects of knowledge;

          1. does God therefore know all actual events

          2. the answer is:

            • no--if 'all actual events' is construed as a completed unity with a determined last member;

            • yes--if 'all actual events' is interpreted distributively as any particular member or other of the series as defined.

  2. On the question of what you call 'personalism' and God's relation to time:

    1. while you frequently refer to this view approvingly (in a vague sense), your comments provide no arguments for it, but you do acknowledge that if the  kalam argument is successful, then the idea involved in 'personalism', that God is a changing being whose nature is essentially temporal but everlasting will fail;

    2. be advised that on my view also God, though essentially changeless, is nevertheless personal and involved in temporal events: precisely because God transcends both space and time (both of which are relations among contingent things), He can be fully present and operative at every point in space and time--as otherwise He could not be;

      1. if God were a spatio-temporal being in your sense, how could He be omnipresent in every spatial location or omnipercipient with respect to every temorally successive state?

      2. are you really prepared to go with all the consequences of the 'personalism' you describe?

  3. In brief conclusion:

    1. I respect and appreciate your analysis greatly;

    2. but I regard your case as inconclusive in establishing its main thrust;

    3. I further think that my comments above are an appropriate response to your criticisms.