The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God - Hardcover

Foster, The Late John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199250596 ISBN 13: 9780199250592

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2004

Synopsis

John Foster presents a clear and powerful discussion of a range of topics relating to our understanding of the universe: induction, laws of nature, and the existence of God. He begins by developing a solution to the problem of induction - a solution whose key idea is that the regularities in the workings of nature that have held in our experience hitherto are to be explained by appeal to the controlling influence of laws, as forms of natural necessity. His second line of argument focuses on the issue of what we should take such necessitational laws to be, and whether we can even make sense of them at all. Having considered and rejected various alternatives, Foster puts forward his own proposal: the obtaining of a law consists in the causal imposing of a regularity on the universe as a regularity. With this causal account of laws in place, he is now equipped to offer an argument for theism. His claim is that natural regularities call for explanation, and that, whatever explanatory role we may initially assign to laws, the only plausible ultimate explanation is in terms of the agency of God. Finally, he argues that, once we accept the existence of God, we need to think of him as creating the universe by a method which imposes regularities on it in the relevant law-yielding way. In this new perspective, the original nomological-explanatory solution to the problem of induction becomes a theological-explanatory solution.
The Divine Lawmaker is bold and original in its approach, and rich in argument. The issues on which it focuses are among the most important in the whole epistemological and metaphysical spectrum.

About this title

Review

A very clear and well-organized book, with regular summaries of the argument so far and virtually no distracting asides. It is incredibly easy to read. (The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science)

a very clear and well-organized book with regular summaries of the argument so far and virtually no distracting asides. It is incredibly easy to read (Helen Beebe, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science)

Extraordinarily lucid, and a joy to read. . . . the book treats some of the most interesting questions (to my mind) in epistemology and metaphysics. Even those who may not follow Foster in accepting the notion that laws of nature are divine creations will find of interest his terse discussion of the problem of induction, and his treatment of the metaphysics of nomic necessity. (Evan Fales, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)

About the Author

John Foster was tutorial Fellow of Brasenose College 1966-2005 and an Emeritus Fellow from 2005-2009. His research interests have been in the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, mind, and language. He was the author of The Case for Idealism (1982), Ayer (1985), The Immaterial Self (1991), and The Nature of Perception (2000).

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0199250596
• ISBN 13: 9780199250592
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 204