Free EBook Samples: Free ebook sample of "Ontology: Studies in Christian Thought and Apologetic Applications" by Michael Robinson

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Section 1 Ontology: What Is Is Important

Section 2 Ontology and Language

Section 3 The True God Exists

Section 4 The One and The Many: Unity Continuously Connected with Diversity

Section 5 The Ontological Trinity: The Biblical Support

Section 6 God: A Crutch?

Section 7 Jesus the Great Logos Saves

Section 8 Truth and Realism: True Truth Exists

Appendix I Plantinga’s Modal Argument for Mind/Body Dualism

Appendix II Glossary

Suggested Reading

1. Online Resources: Books, Blogs, and Website

2. Copyright Notice

3. New Volumes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The temptation par excellence for man is to see himself as more exalted, or at least to desire such a thing, all the while seeking to place God on a par with his human creatures. The temptation, “You will be like God,” was the undoing of humanity, and its infection continues to spread through human hearts in the course of history (K. Scott Oliphint).

I acknowledge that various arguments I present were influenced by the work of outstanding disparate scholars: William Lane Craig, K. Scott Oliphint, Peter van Inwagen, James Anderson, David Chalmers, C.S. Lewis, Cornelius Van Til, Don Collect, Stephen T. Davis, Charles Taliaferro, Saul Kripke, William Alston, Irving Copi, Paul Helm, Greg Bahnsen, Esther Meek, Michael Polanyi, John Frame, Jonathan Edwards, Michael Rea, Steve R. Scrivener, Paul Moser, Theodore Sider, J.P. Moreland, Alvin Plantinga, Eleanor Stump, Bernard Lonergan, C.I. Lewis, Douglas Kelley and countless additional scholars. Without their insights this volume would not have been viable. Nonetheless, any theological or philosophical inaccuracies and flawed exertions within this treatise should be ascribed to me alone.

I. Ontology

What Is Is Important

I would say much of religious heresy is the result of a misunderstanding of the basic nature of God. And once we have a proper understanding of God, then usually most of the areas of our life coincide with who God is and what He desires for each one of us (Josh McDowell; italics mine).

God is not merely a possibility, not merely a conclusion, but the starting point for any understanding at all (John Frame).

Without presupposing the ontological Trinity, one has no basis for predication (William Edgar: Speaking the Truth in Love; emphasis mine).

In the wake of the philosophically naïve and often incongruous attacks by the New Atheists, in an epistemic self-rebuke for the ages, atheism has a new feature of their dogma: atheism is merely the absence of belief in God. This novel atheistic article of faith may seem outlandish and implausible to those who listen to the belligerent rants of countless modern e-atheists, but they give comfort to the atheist in these times of philosophical combat. Yet this implicit atheism, a simple lack of theistic belief, is not enough to protect the disbeliever in the face of the reality of God’s necessary existence. And herein I seek to demonstrate that for all their sound and fury, all their epistemic hijinks and philosophical credulity, non-believing men, including devout atheists, are reduced to absurdity since God exists and must exist. He is necessary and it’s impossible for Him not to exist. God’s existence is not so much the most vital ontological problem, nay; it’s the most essential ontological solution. Thus the importance of ontology.

• Ontology: The study of the nature of being; from the Greek word “ontos.” Ontology is the study and analysis of “existence,” or reality in general, in fundamental categories as well as relations thereof.

Ontology is the theory of the nature of things (John Frame: DKG).

The view of universals (an ontological issue) I utilize in this volume is connected to my position on ontic reality, of being (ontic: pertaining to ontology; relating to real or factual existence). My concept of being is comparatively univocal as I affirm that being is a broad category.

General ontology is the most basic aspect of metaphysics, and there are three main tasks that make up this branch of metaphysical study. First, general ontology focuses on the nature of existence itself. What is it to be or exist? Is existence a property that something has? Does nothingness itself exist in some sense? Is there a sense of being such that fictional objects like the unicorn Pegasus have being even though they do not exist?

Second, in general ontology we study general principles of being, general features that are true of all things whatsoever. Medieval philosophers use the term transcendental to stand for all those features that characterize all the different kind of entities that exist. The notion of existence, unity, truth and goodness have been taken by some to be examples of a transcendental. Third, general ontology includes what is called categorical analysis. It is possible to classify or group things that exist in various ways ranging from very specific to very broad types of classification. These ten categories for Aristotle can, in turn, be understood as taking the category of substance as fundamental or basic and the other nine categories as different ways that a substance can be modified or qualified. For example, the substance, Spot, can be 25 pounds, brown and so forth.