Nagasawa - Maximal God: a new defence of perfect being theism

I read parts of this book, at various stages of development, at conferences and workshops, including: the Belief and Metaphysics Conference in Granada; the Eighth Biannual Conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the Fourth Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference at Baylor University; the Metaphysics and Philosophy of Religion Workshop at the University of Texas at San Antonio; the Ontological Proofs Today Conference at Kazimierz Wielki University; and the Philosophical Theology Workshop at Kings College, London. They were also read at seminars at many universities including the University of Barcelona; the University of Birmingham; the University of Cambridge; the University of Edinburgh; the University of Heidelberg; Heythrop College, the University of London; the University of Liverpool; the University of Nottingham; Oriel College, the University of Oxford; Oxford Brookes University; the University of Reading; the State University of New York at Stony Brook; the University of Texas, Austin; and the University of York.

I would like to thank the following people for helpful comments and suggestions: Robert Adams, Keith Allen, Michael Almeida, Nader Alsamaani, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Helen Beebee, Toby Betenson, John Bishop, Einar Bohn, Lisa Bortolotti, Joshua Brown, Andrei Buckareff, Elizabeth Burns, Darragh Byrne, David Cheetham, Sarah Coakley, John Cottingham, Ben Curtis, Dorothea Debus, Jamie Dew, Petr Dvok, Eric Eck, John Edge, Nikk Effingham, David Efird, Marius Felderhof, Peter Forrest, Philip Goff, Tyron Goldschmidt, John Haldane, Douglas Hedley, John Hick, Daniel Hill, Robert Koons, Klaas Kraay, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Jonathan Kvanvig, Iain Law, Brian Leftow, Gary Mar, Tim Mawson, Chad Meister, Thaddeus Metz, Peter Millican, Dan OBrien, David Oderberg, Graham Oppy, Ken Perszyk, Alexander Pruss, Michael Rea, Michael Ridge, Constantine Sandis, Martin Smith, Eric Steinhart, Tom Stoneham, Bart Streumer, Scott Sturgeon, Richard Swinburne, Emily Thomas, Patrick Todd, Nick Trakakis, Joss Walker, and Ed Wierenga. I am particularly indebted to the following people for detailed written comments: William Barnett, Tom Flint, Joseph Jedwab, Ian Logan, Peter Millican, Graham Oppy, James Orr, Edward Wierenga, and anonymous readers for Oxford University Press. Apologies to those I may have omitted.

This book project was supported by a summer stipend offered by the Classical Theism Project at the University of St. Thomas directed by Gloria Frost and Tim Pawl and funded by the John Templeton Foundation. I am grateful for their generous support. I would also like to thank the University of Birmingham for allowing me to complete this book on my sabbatical. I am also grateful to Matthias Butler, Peter Momtchiloff, and their team at the Oxford University Press for their impeccable editorial support.

Several parts of this book draw upon previously published material of mine: Millican on the Ontological Argument, Mind 116, 2007, pp. 102740; A New Defence of Anselmian Theism, Philosophical Quarterly 58, 2008, pp. 57796; The Ontological Argument and the Devil, Philosophical Quarterly 60, 2010, pp. 7291; Anselmian Theism, Philosophy Compass 6, 2011, pp. 56471; Is There a Shallow Logical Refutation of the Ontological Argument?, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4, 2012, pp. 8799; and Models of Anselmian Theism, Faith and Philosophy 30, 2013, pp. 325. I would like to thank the publishers of these journals for allowing me to use the material here.

Finally, a word of thanks should also go to my family and friends for their love and support.