Once more to the hotel
William Lane Craig's defence of the so-called ‘Hilbert's Hotel Argument’ for the beginning of the universe seems to be in conflict with his own presentist views, as I argued in my earlier article ‘Heartbreak at Hilbert's Hotel’ (2014). In response, Andrew Loke (2014) has defended a mo...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2020
|
| In: |
Religious studies
Year: 2022, Volume: 58, Issue: 1, Pages: 18-29 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel
/ Cosmogony
/ Eternity
/ Temporality
/ Infinity
|
| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | William Lane Craig's defence of the so-called ‘Hilbert's Hotel Argument’ for the beginning of the universe seems to be in conflict with his own presentist views, as I argued in my earlier article ‘Heartbreak at Hilbert's Hotel’ (2014). In response, Andrew Loke (2014) has defended a modified version of the argument which avoids this problem, and this defence has been endorsed by Craig (2018). After clarifying the dialectic, I argue in this article that Loke's modification is not as straightforwardly successful as he and Craig seem to think, and that it in fact requires a controversial independent assumption - namely, that creation ex nihilo is possible. I show that some of the more obvious ways of supporting this assumption are either unsuccessful or unavailable to the proponent of the Hilbert's Hotel Argument. Moreover, I show that accepting this assumption conflicts with a key premise in the Hilbert's Hotel Argument. Hence, Loke's modified argument has not successfully established that the universe - including time itself - began to exist. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1469-901X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religious studies
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S003441252000013X |