Questions about ‘Internal and external questions about God’

Abstract

AbstractThis article is an evaluation of Le Poidevin's use of Carnap's stance on ontology within the philosophy of religion. Le Poidevin claims that (1) theists need to take God to be a putative entity within space-time in order for their claim that God exists to be meaningful, and that (2) instrumentalism about theology is viable. I argue that although Le Poidevin's response to Carnap's argument is no less problematic than that argument itself, his position is in fact thoroughly un-Carnapian. The upshot is that his discussion provides some support to atheism, but none to either of his two official conclusions.