This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Findlay, J.N. J. N. Findlay comes close to the argument of this paper, at one point, in his essay “Can God's Existence be Disproved”? (p.51–2). Findlay, however, like Aquinas, sees the principal issue to do with the question of a necessary being, and the responses to his paper also focus on the question of necessity. But that need not lead to the conclusions of my argument for it, is not at all obvius that a “necessary being” must be infinite. Findlay's essay and two responses, from G.E. Hughes and A.C.A. Rainer, are published inNew Essays in Philosophical Theology (S.C.M. London, 1969), p. 47–75.
Spinoza, B.Ethics (Everyman: London, 1910) Trans. A Boyle. Part I, proposition 15.
Aquinas, T.Summa Theologica inIntroduction to St. Thomas Quinas. ed. A.C. Pegis (Random House; New York, 1948), p. 53–61.
For a useful discussion of the problems here see Karl Barth'sAnselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum (Meridian: Cleveland, 1962), p. 73–89.
Scotus, J.D.Commentary on the Sentences, Book I. Distinction 2, Part I, Question 2. inA Scholatic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, Edited and trans. by. E.R. Fairweather. (S.C.M. London, 1956), p. 428.
Wolfson, H.,The Philosophy of Spinoza, (Meridian: Cleveland, 1965), pp. 133–141, pp. 262–295.
Bettinson, H.The Early Christian Fathers (O.U.P.; London, 1956). For Clement see p. 233; for Irenaeus see pp. 90–91.
Ibid.,, p. 262.
Gilson, E.History of Christian Philosophy in The Middle Ages (Random House, New York, 1955), p. 571, n.26.
The terminology used here is a little clumsy, but the argument is not new. I think Koyré is making a similar point when he writes about Henry More; What he wants is just to avoid the Cartesian geometrization of being, and to maintain the old distinction betweenspace and the things that are inspace; that are movingin space not relatively to each other; that occupyspace in virtue of a special and proper quality or force—impenetrability—by which they resist each other and exclude each other from their places. Koyré, A.From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1968), p. 114. Koyré's book is a fascinating account of one particular chapter in the development of the concept of ‘infinity’. Amongst other interesting matters, it can be read as an account of the secularization of a “religious” concept (in so far as the concept of “infinity” is a religious concept), that is, the transference of divine attributes to the secular.
Ibid.,. I say “extended” here bearing in mind the remarks of Gilson quoted earlier. Gilson draws an interesting distinction between God's potency, or will-power, and God's being. Perhaps Origen does not draw that distinction, however, in order not to infer God's infinity. Essentially the same point about the possibility of limitation is made by G.P. Grant in hisPhilosophy in the Mass Age (Copp Clarke; Toronto, 1966), p.81, when he remarks, “But the idea of limit is unavoidably the idea of God”. It is interesting as well to notice J.H. Randall's brief comments on a passage in Aristotle'sPhysics III, ch.6: 206b 35-207a 10. See Randall'sAristotle (Columbia University Press, New York, 1967), p. 194. These brief references, ancient and modern, are included only to show the possibility of another view and some of the very complicated problems that its statement have involved.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weeks, I. A disproof of the existence of God. SOPH 29, 21–28 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02789879
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02789879