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Holm Tetens on the Moral-Existential Argument for Theism: Reasonable Hope and Wishful Thinking

  • Georg Gasser EMAIL logo

Summary

Holm Tetens develops in his book „Gott denken. Ein Versuch über rationale Theologie“ theoretical and practical arguments against a naturalistic and in favour of a theistic understanding of reality. In my paper I focus on Teten’s claim that we are rationally justified to hope for the truth of classical theism. I distinguish between rationally justified and unjustified forms of hope and argue that we are rationally justified to hope for the redemption of reality as promised by classical theism. However, this hope has a weaker basis of justification than Tetens seems to assume because serious objections to classical theism ought to be taken into consideration as well.

Zusammenfassung

Holm Tetens präsentiert in seinem Büchlein „Gott denken. Ein Versuch über rationale Theologie“ theoretische und praktische Argumente gegen eine naturalistische und zugunsten einer theistischen Deutung der Wirklichkeit. In meinem Aufsatz gehe ich auf Tetens Argumentation ein, dass wir rational gerechtfertigt sind, auf die Wahrheit des Theismus zu hoffen. Dabei unterscheide ich zwischen gerechtfertigten und nicht gerechtfertigten Formen des Hoffens. Ich argumentiere, dass wir als rationale Wesen zwar auf die Wahrheit des klassischen Theismus und somit die Erlösung der Welt durch Gott hoffen können. Allerdings dürfte diese Hoffnung eine schwächere Rechtfertigungsgrundlage haben als Tetens anzunehmen scheint, da gewichtige Einwände gegen den klassischen Theismus berücksichtigt werden müssen.

Keywords: theism; naturalism; hope
Schlüsselwörter: Theismus; Naturalismus; Hoffnung

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Published Online: 2017-11-24
Published in Print: 2017-11-23

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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