What is the difference between a Philosophical Arguement and a Metaphysical arguement?

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One of my profs of philosophy of religion (an atheist, but really a pretty good guy and teacher) said that Plantinga “uses 20th-century methods to reach 12th-century conclusions.” I like the line, even though I don’t think it was meant kindly.
 
cpayne said:
One of my profs of philosophy of religion (an atheist, but really a pretty good guy and teacher) said that Plantinga “uses 20th-century methods to reach 12th-century conclusions.” I like the line, even though I don’t think it was meant kindly.
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i like it, too…

after all, there is nothing new under the sun: god was around in the 12th century, and he’s still around now.
 
tdgesq said:
As for a finite loop of causes, if it is finite then it must have a beginning. If what you mean is that it consists of the same causes happening over and over again endlessly, then it has no beginning and is an infinite number of causes, even though it may be the same set of causes happening repeatedly. The KCA doesn’t require that each cause be distinctly different.
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I believe what he was talking about was a circle of causes. For example, A causing B, B causing C and C causing A. Some philosophers say a circle of causes is metaphysically impossible. But if you believe it is possible, then the KCA does not seem to work.

To join in the discussion some have been having of the definition of “epistemology”. I would say that epistemology is the field that uses philosophical tools to study anything related to knowledge, including such things as what constitutes knowledge and what is the scope of knowable things. The online Stanford encyclopedia of epistemology defines it as:

“Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one’s own mind? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.”

plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Epistemology interacts a lot with Catholic theology (and Catholic doctrine). For instance, can we say that we know that Jesus rose from the dead. Are objects of divine and catholic faith objects of knowledge? Robert Adams (who is not Catholic) says that faith is a kind of knowledge (at least this is what I’ve been told). What does the Catholic tradition say? Interesting 🙂
 
Metaphysics is the study of being.

After that i struggle with the same things.

How can we prove the existence of God from an ontological stand point. Maybe that should be the topic of the post. In fact i will do that.
 
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