God and Dispositional Essentialism: An Account of the Laws of Nature

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (2):293-316 (2018)
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Abstract

It is common to appeal to governing laws of nature in order to explain the existence of natural regularities. Classical theism, however, maintains the sovereignty thesis: everything distinct from God is created by him and is under his guidance and control. It follows from this that God must somehow be responsible for natural laws and regularities. Therefore, theists need an account of the relation between regularities, laws, and God. I examine competing accounts of laws of nature and conclude that dispositional essentialism provides the most satisfactory explanation of the relation between, and

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Dani Adams
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Non‐Humean theories of natural necessity.Tyler Hildebrand - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (5):e12662.
Descartes on Necessity and the Laws of Nature.Nathan Rockwood - 2022 - Journal of Analytic Theology 10:277-292.
What is God's Power?Graham Renz - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 13 (3):87-112.

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
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Naming and necessity.Saul Kripke - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 431-433.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.

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