On Monday 2 August at the University of Auckland Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Dr Raymond Bradley and Dr Matthew Flannagan (of this blog) debated the topic “Is God the Source of Morality? Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?” For the benefit of those who could not be there, who [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Robert Adams'
Matthew Flannagan’s Opening Statement: Bradley v Flannagan Debate
August 7th, 2010 10 Comments
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Capital Punishment · Chris Tucker · Debates · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · J J Finkelstein · Joe M Sprinkle · K Lawson Younger · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Philip Quinn · Raymond Bradley · Raymond Westbrook · Robert Adams · Walter Kaiser
There’s Probably No God? Fisking Atheist Billboards
July 12th, 2010 304 Comments
On the way back from Bloggers drinks we drove past one of the controversial atheist advertising billboards, put up by NZ Atheist Campaign, The Humanist Society and NZARH, which have appeared around Auckland. This appears to have come on the back of the Richard Dawkins inspired bus advertising that made headlines earlier this year. It [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Bad Reasoning · Christopher Hitchens · John Hare · NZ Atheist Campaign · NZARH · Paul Kurtz · Philip Quinn · Richard Dawkins · Robert Adams · Stephen Layman · The Humanist Society · William Lane Craig
Sunday Study: Abraham and Isaac – Did God Command the Killing of an Innocent?
July 26th, 2009 12 Comments
Perhaps the most infamous passage in the Hebrew scriptures occurs in Genesis 22:2, Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Of course, as anyone who [...]
Tags: Abraham · Abram · Ethics · Genesis · Isaac · John Hare · Kant · Kenneth Kitchen · Killing Innocents · Louise Anthony · Philip Quinn · Robert Adams · Stephen Evans · Sunday Study
John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part II
May 8th, 2009 2 Comments
In my previous post, John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I, I argued that Loftus’ position was based on a confusion between ontological and epistemological foundations. I will now address his arguments against divine command theory. Loftus’ Arguments Against a Divine Command Theory After misconstruing the divine command theory as [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atheism · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · John Loftus · Robert Adams · William Wrainwright
John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I
May 7th, 2009 12 Comments
Several Christian thinkers, most notably, C S Lewis, John Hare, Robert Adams and William Lane Craig have argued that Theism provides a superior foundation for moral obligation than Naturalism does. Most of these thinkers defend this notion by developing and defending a divine command theory.[1] John W Loftus is aware of this and in The [...]
Tags: Atheism · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · John Loftus · Philip Quinn · Robert Adams · Stephen Evans · William Alston
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I
December 2nd, 2008 17 Comments
Suppose you asked me what today’s date was and I answered that the Maori Electorate seats in Parliament should be scrapped. You would quite rightly wonder what I was on. The question of what the date is is a completely different question as to whether a particular social policy is just. Oddly enough, however, when [...]
Tags: Ethics · Frances Howard-Snyder · Philosophy of Religion · Relativism · Robert Adams
The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen
October 28th, 2007 2 Comments
Perhaps the most common argument against an appeal to divine commands in ethical reasoning is the Euthyphro dilemma, first articulated by Plato and utilised by numerous critics of divine commands ever since. A representative example of this line of argument occurs in Peter Singer’s widely-acclaimed monograph Practical Ethics. In the first chapter of Practical Ethics, [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Edward Weirenga · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · John Hare · Peter Singer · Philip Quinn · Philosophy of Religion · Robert Adams · William Alston
The Meta-Ethical Argument for Christian Theism: A Response to Richard Chappell
July 3rd, 2007 15 Comments
if we ask what God would have commanded in counterfactual situations we will get contradictory answers.
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Richard Chappell · Robert Adams · Thomas Carson
