Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Notes 185
91. I am grateful to George Couvalis for this insight.
92. Lyell, Life, Letters, and Journals, 1.234.
93. Rudwick, “Introduction,” ix.
94. Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, §141 (148).
95. Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1.86.
96. Ibid., 3.3.
97. Ibid., 1.75.
98. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a 2.3.
99. Ibid.
100. Lipton, Inference to Best Explanation, 118.
101. One of Thomson’s reasons for preferring the electron hypothesis over the
aether hypothesis was that the former was “defi nite and its consequences can
be predicted” (“Cathode Rays,” 293).
102. Galileo, The Assayer, 183–84.
103. Alston, “Speaking Literally of God,” 371.
104. Ibid., 379.
105. Ibid., 383–84.
106. Ibid., 383.
107. Once again, I note that God could, for precisely the same reason, achieve that
goal directly (4.3.3.1), but I am assuming that the theist can give some reason
why he does not do so.
108. Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense Psychology, 95.
109. Baillie, “Review” 173. For a similar example, see Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense
Psychology, 94.
110. See the introduction to the Appendix.
111. Dawes, “Paradigmatic Explanation,”64–77.
112. Lipton, Inference to Best Explanation, 118.
113. See, for instance, Plantinga, Warranted Christian Faith, 250. To call this
inner feeling “the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit” is, of course, to make
an explanatory claim, even if—like Plantinga—you are not justifying your
Christian faith by arguing that it is the best explanation. The theist cannot
escape offering theistic explanations merely by renouncing his dependence
on them.
114. Calvin, Institutes, 1.7.4 (78–79).
115. Not least among these is that it could be made by believers of differing persuasions
in support of radically incompatible claims—for instance, both that
the Bible is the Word of God and that the Qur’an is divinely revealed. In fact,
the Book of Mormon makes a very similar claim (Moroni 10:4) in support of
its authority, a fact which should make more orthodox Calvinist Christians
uncomfortable.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 8
1. Haack, “The Two Faces of Quine’s Naturalism,” 353.
2. Draper, “God, Science, and Naturalism,” 297.
NOTES TO THE APPENDIX
1. Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense Psychology, 150, citing Schutz, Phenomenology
of the Social World, 192–93. Schutz, it should be noted, is
here indicating the variety of ideal types which an individual can employ in
understanding a social situation.