Theism and Ultimate Explanation

Timothy O'Connor is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has published widely in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Persons and Causes (2000), and the editor of Agents, Causes and Events (1995) and Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings (2003).

“This trim but highly technical volume is indisensable for scholars and graudate-level researchers in the field.  Summing Up:  Essential.  Graduate students and researchers/faculty.”  (Choice, 1 October 2012) "Despite these limitations, this book is worth reading. It will alert theologians to the philosophical strength of cosmological arguments and the superficial objections to them. It will also interest philosophers of religion and those working on modal logic." (The Journal of Religion, 2011) "It will alert theologians to the philosophical strength of cosmological arguments and the superficial objections to them. It will also interest philosophers of religion and those working on modal logic." (Journal of Religion, 1 April 2011)"O’Connor does not disappoint those who are used to the high levels of clarity, rigor, and originality that readers of his work on free will and emergence have come to expect from him.” (Mind, July 2009)“A breathtaking sweep from metaphysics through theology. This is a superb book in the philosophy of religion, the like of whose quality and originality is rare.”Alexander Pruss, Baylor University

• Preface ix Part I The Explanatory Role of Necessity 11. Modality and Explanation 3Relative and Absolute Necessity 3Scientifi cally Established Necessities 5An Epistemological Worry about Modality: Causal Contact with Modal Facts 7Modal Nihilism 10Modal Reductionism and Defl ationism 15Modal Anti-Realism and Quasi-Realism 27Conclusion 302. Modal Knowledge 32Conceivability As Our Guide? 32Modality a Matter of Principle? 36The Theoretical Roles of Modal Claims: Towards a Modal Epistemology 41The Spheres of Possibility 60Part II The Necessary Shape of Contingency 633. Ultimate Explanation and Necessary Being: The Existence Stage of the Cosmological Argument 65Necessary Being 68Two Objections to the Traditional Answer 73Necessary Being As the Explanatory Ground of Contingency? 794. The Identifi cation Stage 86From Necessary Being to God, I: Transcendent, Not Immanent 86Two Models of Transcendent Necessary Being: Logos and Chaos 93Varieties of Chaos 93Interlude: The Fine-Tuning Argument 97From Necessary Being to God, II: Logos, Not Random Chaos 1095. The Scope of Contingency 111How Many Universes Would Perfection Realize? 111Perfection and Freedom 121Some Applications of the Many-Universe-Creation Hypothesis 122Necessary Being and the Scope of Possibility 125Necessary Being and the Many Necessary Truths 1286. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Anselm? 130The Unity of the Divine Nature and Its Consequences 132Natural Theology in the Understanding of Revealed Theology 140Coda 143Notes 145Bibliography 162Index 172