Paper Abstract
Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood as the creator of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should not focus on the specific objects that God creates, for that requires that we think that God knows each finite thing as distinct from every other. Rather, we should recognize how God creates all things in creating the complex, infinite totality of finite perceivings, each of which exists in virtue of the distinctions and relations it expresses.
Notes
© 2020. Stephen H. Daniel. © 2020. Alberto Luis Lopez. These materials are presented under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International copyright license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). 
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Start Date
5-6-2020 11:30 AM
Time Zone
Pacific Daylight Time
End Date
5-6-2020 12:25 PM
Location
Day 2 Registration
(Link Not Available)
Author's Homepage
http://people.tamu.edu/~sdaniel
Keywords
Berkeley, God, infinity, a priori, a posteriori, arguments
Berkeley's A Priori Argument.pptx (97 kB)
Alberto Luis. Comments to Steve Daniel.pdf (91 kB)
Alberto Luis. Comments to Steve Daniel.mp4 (44840 kB)
Response to Alberto Luis 2 (1).pdf (66 kB)
Cancelled - Berkeley's A Priori Argument for God's Exstence
Day 2 Registration
(Link Not Available)
Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood as the creator of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should not focus on the specific objects that God creates, for that requires that we think that God knows each finite thing as distinct from every other. Rather, we should recognize how God creates all things in creating the complex, infinite totality of finite perceivings, each of which exists in virtue of the distinctions and relations it expresses.