OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi GOD OVER ALL OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi God Over All Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism WILLIAM LANE CRAIG 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©WilliamLaneCraig2016 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2016 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016941882 ISBN 978–0–19–878688–7 PrintedinGreatBritainby ClaysLtd,StIvesplc LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi To Richard Swinburne Thank you OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi Preface This book is an expansion of my 2015 Cadbury Lectures at the Universityof Birmingham,England, which themselves were a distil- lation of a much longer study on God and abstract objects. I am grateful to Professors Yujin Nagasawa and David Cheetham and to theJohnHickCentreforPhilosophyofReligionfortheinvitationto delivertheselectures. TheinvitationcamejustasIwaswrappinguparesearchprojecton divine aseity and the challenge to it posed by contemporary Platon- ismthathadpreoccupiedmeforthepreviousdozenyearsorso.This happy coincidence gave me the opportunity to state my arguments succinctly and in a semi-popular form, so as to make the lectures profitablefornon-specialists. Philosophers of religion and theologians, to whom this book is primarilydirected,maybeunfamiliarwiththedebatescentraltoour topicwhichareraginginthephilosophyofmathematics,philosophy of language, metaphysics, and logic. To aid understanding, I have compiled a Glossary of specialist terminology offering elementary definitions or explanations of key terms. I have also included a Figure1 as part of the front matter of the book, to which I shall have occasion to recur, in order to provide at a glance a visual taxonomyofthevariousalternativeviewsdiscussedinthisbook. Havinglabouredforoveradozenyearstounderstandhowbestto respondtoPlatonism’schallengetodivineaseity,Ihave,asonemight expect, been greatly helped by the interaction of many colleagues in a wide range of fields on various questions. I wish to thank in particularfortheirstimulusandinput:RobertAdams,JodyAzzouni, Mark Balaguer, J. T. Bridges, Jeffery Brower, Charles Chihara, Paul Copan, Thomas Crisp, Trent Dougherty, Mark Edwards, Thomas Flint,PaulGould,DorothyGrover,GeoffreyHellman,PaulHorwich, Ross Inman, Peter van Inwagen, Dennis Jowers, Brian Leftow, Mary Leng,ChristopherMenzel,J.P.Moreland,ThomasMorris,Kenneth Perszyck, Michael Rea, Maria Reicher-Marek, Theodore Sider, Peter Simons, Alvin Plantinga, Joshua Rasmussen, Elliott Sober, Robert Thomas,AchilleVarzi,GregWelty,EdwardWierenga,DallasWillard, Stephen Yablo, Takashi Yagisawa, and Dean Zimmerman. I am also OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi viii Preface grateful for the comments of three anonymous referees of Oxford University Press. My research assistant Timothy Bayless deserves grateful mention for his procuring research materials, hunting down references, compiling the bibliography, and carrying out other related tasks for me. Thanks, too, to Kevin Whitehead for his proofreading the penultimate draft of the typescript! Finally, as always, I am grateful to my wife Jan, not only for her help with earlyportionsofthetypescript,butevenmoreforherencouragement and interaction (‘Honey, what do you think? Does the number 2exist?’). Asmentioned,mylectureswereacondensationofamuchlonger, scholarlyworkonGodandAbstractObjectstoappear withSpringer Verlag.Readersdesiringamoreextensive,in-depthdiscussionofthe questionsandviewstreatedheremayconsultthatwork. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,8/9/2016,SPi Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. God:TheSoleUltimateReality 13 3. TheChallengeofPlatonism 44 4. AbsoluteCreation 54 5. DivineConceptualism 72 6. MakingOntologicalCommitments(1) 96 7. MakingOntologicalCommitments(2) 125 8. UsefulFictions 144 9. FigurativelySpeaking 167 10. Make-Believe 181 11. GodOverAll 206 Glossary 209 WorksCited 219 GeneralIndex 233 IndexofAncientSources 242