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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantastic Defense of Theism, November 15, 2009
God and Necessity by Dr. Stephen E. Parrish is one of those books that is definitely exactly what the title says it is: a defense of classical theism that applies logical necessity to the concept of God.
Dr. Parrish argues for the concept of God as the Greatest Possible Being (GPB). Because of this concept of God, one can draw a number of conclusions, including God's omnipotence, omniscience, omni-benevolence, etc. Dr. Parrish argues conclusively against the concept of a Factually Necessary God (FNG) as opposed to a Logically Necessary God (LNG) being the GPB. The FNG exists in many worlds as the GPB, but not in all possible worlds. Only the LNG exists in all possible worlds as the GPB.
He follows this with a form of the ontological argument unique to the work. Instead of grounding his version of the ontological argument on the premise that "Possibly, the GPB exists in some possible world" as most modal versions of the argument do, Parrish starts with "The concept of the GPB is coherent (82)." In this way, he avoids the problem that some versions of the argument don't address, which is that someone could simply deny that it is possible that the GPB exists in any possible world. Thus, Parrish's version is strengthened, for he bases it on concept of the GPB rather than on the modality of the GPB.
In each chapter, Parrish fairly presents counter-arguments and refutes them. His argumentation is always clear and as concise as possible. I would compare his style of arguing with Plantinga's in that they both have a very clear flow of their book from start to finish, with each point building on the last throughout the work. Further, Parrish injects a touch of humor here and there in his work.
My one criticism is that sometimes, in his efforts to refute as many counter-arguments as possible, Parrish dismisses them a little too easily. This was particularly evident in his discussion of the compatibility of omniscience with incompatibilist (I believe this is equivalent to libertarian) free will. I would love to see his style of systematic argumentation applied to this issue. Despite this, this discussion really wasn't all that relevant to the rest of his work, which may be part of the reason he didn't dwell on it.
After presenting the case for the ontological argument, Parrish discusses the teleological and cosmological arguments, concluding that they may hold weight depending on one's own plausibility structure. This point is quite interesting: everyone has his or her own plausibility structure from which he or she judges everything, including other plausibility structures. Thus, an argument like the teleological argument may hold some weight in one structure, but not as much in another.
Because of this, Parrish presents what he calls the "Transcendental Argument." This argument, in my own words, essentially states that God's existence is necessary for any kind of logical thought. The rest of the book focuses on this argument. Essentially, Parrish argues for this by presenting three possibilities for the universe: Brute Fact (the universe is chance), Necessary Universe (the universe exists for intrinsic reasons), and Necessary Deity (the universe exists because of an external, necessary being). He refutes the first two worldviews and provides support for the Necessary Deity (the GPB). This constitutes about half the book and is extremely useful, not just for its applicability in regards to the argument Parrish is making, but in that it helps refute various alternatives to theism.
God and Necessity is a philosophical masterpiece. It has a broad scope, it is tightly argued, and it is extremely relevant. Despite very few minor flaws, Dr. Stephen E. Parrish's book, God and Necessity is an essential part of any Christian apologist's library.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for the apologist., March 3, 2008
Dr. Parrish does an outstanding job on discussing the logical need of a necessary God and his defense of the ontological argument is very well done.
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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
One Damaging Flaw: Argument from Ignorance, August 21, 2008
This book suffers from one major flaw: the argument from ignorance. From this flaw, all others are exposed...
Mr. Parrish presupposes the divine attributes of some deity; however, the truth of something is not only presupposed. Something else must confirm the presupposition as true. If I tell you that I had a million dollars, it is not necessarily true that I did. You would have to verify my word some other way (unless you are gullible). Presupposition is only appropriate when the parties involved know the truth outside of the statement, utterance or definition.
The author is merely assuming that there is a deity with these attributes. Yet, without any confirmation outside of this definition, the definition of a deity is groundless. Thus the author is assuming what he is trying to prove.
The first half of the book fails in coherence. The second half fails as well; it has three chapters: Brute Fact (the universe just is by chance), Necessary Universe (the universe just is) and Necessary Deity (God just is). However, there is no Brute Deity chapter (God just is by chance), which would be the complete his logical analysis, despite the apparent incoherency of that position. The author will explain that the former two positions are incoherent. So why does he stop short of Brute Deity, if that too is incoherent? The author's analysis, therefore, is incomplete.
While the author dismisses Brute Fact as incoherent, he offers no explanation for how a Necessary Deity could bypass the former's objections. For example: The author assumes that, under a Brute Fact worldview, no explanation exists for things to not be in a constant flux. This oddly assumes that it is possible for things to be in flux, much so under Brute Fact worldview, but not at all under a Necessary Deity worldview. Yet, he fails to account for why or how this could be possible.
Mr. Parrish assumes that since things do not pop in and out of existence in this world, we must be in a universe with a logical Necessary Deity. Then the author assumes that because the Deity is logical, he would not make things pop in and out of existence (this begs the question of why he would not pop things in and out of existence, since anything this Deity can do is logical and doing so would possible). The author cannot know this with certainty, but argues with this sort of circular reasoning throughout the entire book.
Thus, the Mr. Parrish's book is not the only possible explanation for the universe's existence, but a foil for other explanations. The book "God and Necessity" is nothing but assumptions, upon assumptions, upon presuppositions.
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