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The Lord is God: There is No Other

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Robin Attfield
Robin Attfield
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University College,Cardiff
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Extract

As I shall be taking issue with Michael Durrant for the bulk of this paper, it is appropriate, as well as a good way to start, to register my endorsement of his arguments in chapter 4 of The Logical Status of Godl for the conclusion that sentences about God are typically used to express propositions, and that acts of thanksgiving and petition to God presuppose that some such propositions are true. The present paper is therefore a continuation of Mr Durrant's attempt to locate the status of the term ‘God’ in propositions expressed by sentences of the form ‘God is F’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 73 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 Durrant, Michael, The Logical Status of God and the Function of Theological Sentences (London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press, 1973). (Henceforth L.S.G.)Google Scholar

2 Ibid. p. 18; Attfield, Robin, ‘The Individuality of God’, Sophia x, 1 (04;1971), 20–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Though this paper is alluded to explicitly only at p. 18 and in note 43 to chapter on p. 113 (in which latter my mistake to the effect that proper names lack meanings is quite properly pointed out), a good deal of L.S.G. involves a reply to the positions there adopted as well as to those of others whose views are more explicitly challenged.

2 Durrant, Michael, Theology and Intelligibility (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973)Google Scholar (hence-forth T.I.), especially chapter 2 and Appendix B.

1 L.S.G. pp. 22–4: T.I. pp. 77 f.

2 Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970).Google Scholar

3 Sturch, R. L., ‘The Problem of the Divine Eternity’, Religious Studies 10, 4 (December 1974), Pp. 487–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

1 L.S.G. pp. 15–17.

2 L.S.G. p. 49.

1 T.I. p. 86.

2 L.S.G. p. 6g.

3 L.S.G. p. 46.

4 L.S.G. p. 55.

5 In chapter 3, objections 4 and 8 are waived, and objections 1 to 3 are resuscitated as parts of objection 5. In the above I have replied to objection 5 and part of 9: objections 7, 10 and the rest of 9 are dealt with in later sections.

1 The coherence of this notion has been ably defended in a counter-dilemma against its detractors by Plantinga, Alvin, Gad and Other Minds (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press), at Pp. 171–3.Google Scholar

2 L.S.G. pp. 41–55.

3 L.S.G. p. 41, T.I. pp. 75–86.

4 L.S.G. p. 41.

1 L.S.G. p. 27.

2 L.S.G. p. 27, 33 f., 55 and 56.

3 L.S.G. p. 51.

4 L.S.G. p. 109.

5 L.S.G. pp. 42, 55, 109: cf. Summa Theologica Ia, q3 a2, reply to objection 3.

1 Prior, A. N., ‘Can Religion be Discussed?’, in Flew, and Maclntyre, (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London: S.C.M., 1955), p. 5.Google Scholar

2 L.S.G. pp. 58–60.

3 L.S.G. pp. 61 f.; Summa Theologica Ia, 93, a3.

1 L.S.G. p. 108. Incidentally there is no problem over God failing to be F: it is true of all times that God fails to be changed.

2 L.S.G. p. I.

3 L.S.G. p. 35: but see sections I and II above.

4 Professor Strawson of course disagrees with the Russellian position he is quoted as describing at L.S.G. pp. 34–5. I do not understand Mr Durrant's claim at L.S.G. p. 29 that Strawson holds that expressions of the form ‘The one and only F’ cannot stand as introducing subjects of predication.

1 The New English Bible translators clearly took this view of John chapter I, verse I c.

2 L.S.G. pp. 12–28.

3 L.S.G. p. 15.

4 L.S.G. p. 12.

5 L.S.G. p. 17.

6 L.S.G. p. 18, point D. My remark also answers point G.

7 See p. 73 above, n.

8 L.S.G. 27 f.

1 Sodipo, Dr J. O., ‘The Universal and the Individual in Aristotle's Theory of Knowledge’, πλατων, 22 (1970), 181–Google ScholarRoss, James F, Philosophical Theology (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), Pp. 38–40.Google Scholar

5 L.S.G. p. 5.

1 Mr Durrant's distinction, at L.S.G. p. 6.

2 Kipling, Rudyard, The jungle Books (London: The Reprint Society, 1955), pp. 92 f.Google Scholar

3 Grahame, Kenneth, The Wind in the Willows (London: Methuen) (97th edition, 1950).Google Scholar