In this chapter: I distinguish the existential problem of divine hiddenness from the evidential problem of divine hiddenness. The former being primarily concerned with the apparent hiddenness of a personal God in the lives of believers amidst terrible suffering. The latter being primarily concerned with the apparent hiddenness of God being evidence against God’s existence. In the first section, I highlight the basic contours of the evidential problem of divine hiddenness, and suggested that the argument rests on two important assumptions: (...) the perfectly loving assumption and the no-fault assumption. In the second section, a few possible responses to the evidential problem of divine hiddenness were considered, which center on rejecting either the perfectly loving assumption or the no-fault assumption. (shrink)

I often tell my students that the only thing that is not controversial in philosophy is that everything else in it is controversial. While this might be a bit of an exaggeration, it does contain a kernel of truth, as many exaggerations do: philosophy is a highly contentious discipline. So it is remarkable the extent to which there is agreement in the philosophy of religion amongst theists, agnostics, and atheists alike that John Mackie’s argument for atheism is either invalid (...) or unsound. As a result, the focus has entirely shifted from the logical problem of evil to the so-called evidential one. But I think that this is a mistake, not necessarily because I think Mackie’s argument is sound, but rather because I reject an assumption made by apparently all parties to the debate, which is that there is only one logical problem of evil. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to defend a deductive argument that God* does not exist. As far as I can tell, the basic idea of this argument is a novel one: while Mackie’s argument has a more or less consequentialist framework, mine has a deontological one. The evil of which I will speak is that of our having been thrown into the world. (shrink)

Before arguing for the nonexistence of God let me say what kind of God I am denying. It is a God as broadly conceived in the Mosaic monotheistic tradition of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as supreme being. This God has two chief characteristics: supreme power and supreme goodness. As powerful, God is the agency responsible for creating and/or sustaining the world. As good, God is the source and supreme exemplar of positive value or goodness. It follows that as a good (...) creator God takes a parental or caring interest in its creations, especially those like ourselves that also have a sense of good and evil. God is therefore worthy of our reverence, worship, and love. (shrink)

In his account of Plato’s ideas in the first book of the “Transcendental Dialectic”, “On the concepts of pure reason”, Kant, in describing how for Plato ideas were “archetypes of things themselves”, adds that these ideas “flowed from the highest reason, through which human reason partakes in them”.1 Later, in the section of the Transcendental Dialectic treating the “ideals of pure reason”, he again attributes to Plato the notion of a “divine mind” within which the “ideas” exist. An “ideal”, Kant (...) says, “was to Plato, an idea in the divine understanding”.2 But as the editors of the Cambridge University Press translation of the Critique of Pure Reason point out, the idea of a divine mind as container of the ideas was not Plato’s and did not originate until the “syncretistic Platonism from the period of the Middle Academy”. From there it “was later adopted by Platonists as diverse as Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus and St Augustine, and became fundamental to later Christian interpretations of Platonism”. (shrink)

Paul Sheehy has argued that the modal realist cannot satisfactorily allow for the necessity of God's existence. In this short paper I show that she can, and that Sheehy only sees a problem because he has failed to appreciate all the resources available to the modal realist. God may be an abstract existent outside spacetime or He may not be: but either way, there is no problem for the modal realist to admit that He exists at every concrete possible (...) world. (shrink)

Is the existence of God a question of fact? To the majority of theists, both now and in the past, I think it has seemed clear that, if the phrase ‘God exists’ is to be meaningful, then it is a fact, either that God exists or that he does not. This assertion may even seem trivially true; and yet it has evidently been denied, in recent years, by many theologians. The reasons for such a denial are, in part, to (...) be found in the general reaction against metaphysical philosophy, which was characteristic of the early years of this century, and which is, in Britain, epitomised by A. J. Ayer's stipulation that no proposition can be factually significant unless it is verifiable; unless, in principle at least, some series of observations could conceivably show it to be true. By restricting ‘observation’ to the senses of the physical body, and by emphasising the fact that God, as transcendent by definition, was not a possible object of the senses, some philosophically sensitive theologians were startled into denying that ‘God’ was, even in principle, verifiable; and consequently into denying that propositions purporting to assert his existence were factual. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:364 BOOK REVIEWS opening of natural law into the Christian economy of salvation for which May argues. It should be noted that May displays an admirable openness to further development along these lines with his appreciation of some of the questions raised by Aurelio Ansaldo (see pp. 97-98, n. 135). In spite of some limitations, this is a significant work well-deserving of consideration by any student of moral (...) theology. It highlights the ongoing contribution of an authentic and well-grounded Thomism to current efforts toward the renewal of moral theology-a contribution also recommended by the Second Vatican Council (cf. Optatum Totius, n.16). The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. JOHN S. GRABOWSKI From Existence to God; A Contemporary Philosophical Argument. By BARRY MILLER. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. x +206. $42.50 (cloth). Can the existence of God be proved from the existence of any con· crete individual thing? Many religious thinkers-theists as well as atheists-might regard this as a vain project. The criticisms of Hume and Kant, as well as a certain suspicion of the validity of the principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility, appear to have demolished all grounds for such an argument. Many find no contradiction in affirming the existence of the whole universe while denying the existence of God. Barry Miller, on the contrary, does find a contradiction in affirming the existence of even one concrete individual unless the existence of God is also affirmed. His book is a sustained and intriguing attempt to show that contradiction. His argument is based not on the principles of sufficient reason or intelligibility, but strictly on the principle of non· contradiction (172-4). The concrete individual which serves as his starting point and remains his faithful companion throughout the book is a particular existing dog named " Fido," and the way to the existence of God begins with the simple question: " How ever can it be that Fido does exist? " Miller's first task is to establish that his question is not gratuitous by showing that Fido's existence is not a " brute fact" requiring no explanation. The argument given in chapters two and three shows that Fido's existence is very puzzling indeed, requiring conditions that are "apparently impossible to satisfy" (10). The argument begins with BOOK REVIEWS 365 the Fregean position that ontological categories are to he assigned in accordance with linguistic categories. (While Miller admits that this Fregean view is not the only legitimate one, he does not think that this limits the effectiveness of his argument [10, 87-88.]) Since the name "Fido" in the linguistic expression " Fido exists " is a complete expression, while the predicate " exists " is not (15, 23), Fido's existence is understood as " exemplifying two ontological categories, viz., a complete entity (Fido) and an incomplete entity (Fido's existence)" (Prop. 1.1, p. 10). It is then argued that "Fido's existing must he constructible conceptually from Fido and his existence" (Prop. 1.2, p. 10). This conceptual construction would he impossible, however, "if Fido were inconceivable except in terms of Fido's existing." The fact is, however, that Fido is inconceivable except in terms of Fido's existing : "Fido could neither he referred to nor conceived of before he existed" (Prop. 1.3, p. 11). Indeed, prior to its existing, "no concrete individual could be conceived of by anyone or in any way " (42). One is thus left with a dilemma that requires one conceptually to construct Fido's existing from Fido and Fido's existence, but prevents one from doing so since Fido is only conceivable in terms of Fido's existing. In chapter four and its appendix, Miller presents detailed arguments in response to C. J. F. Williams, B. Russell, W. V. Quine, and others to show that existence is a real property. He then goes on in chapter five to review the dilemma and to offer his solution. Fido's existing must he conceptually constructible from two ontological categories, "Fido" and "Fido's existence." But "Fido's existing" cannot he constructed from them since one of them, "Fido's existence," is not a complete entity and the other one... (shrink)

Can there be a global demos? The current debate about this topic is divided between two opposing camps: the “pessimist” or “impossibilist” camp, which holds that the emergence of a global demos is either conceptually or empirically impossible, and the “optimist” or “possibilist” camp, which holds that the emergence of a global demos is conceptually as well as empirically possible and an embryonic version of it already exists. However, the two camps agree neither on a common working definition of (...) a global demos, nor on the relevant empirical facts, so it is difficult to reconcile their conflicting outlooks. We seek to move the debate beyond this stalemate. We argue that existing conceptions of a demos are ill-suited for capturing what kind of a global demos is needed to facilitate good global governance, and we propose a new conception of a demos that is better suited for this purpose. We suggest that some of the most prominent conceptions of a demos have focused too much on who the members of a demos are and too little on what functional characteristics the demos must have in order to perform its role in facilitating governance within the relevant domain. Our new proposal shifts the emphasis from the first, “compositional” question to the second, “performative” one, and provides a more “agency-based” account of a global demos. The key criterion that a collection of individuals must meet in order to qualify as a demos is that it is not merely demarcated by an appropriate membership criterion, but that it can be organized, democratically, so as to function as a state-like agent. Compared to the existing, predominantly “compositional” approaches to thinking about the demos, this agency-based approach puts us into a much better position to assess the empirical prospects for the emergence of a global demos that can facilitate good global governance. (shrink)

The Church is commonly spoken of as an institutional reality, but much less frequently recognized as a spiritual and heavenly reality called by God " to make disciples of all nations." (Mt. 28:19) This modest work furthers the development of a structured and integrated Christian Orthodox political thought, whereby the Church is neither sidelined as having no relevance to this present life, nor dominated by temporal questions or popular movements at the expense of its eternal salvific mission. The author (...) seeks to ground the mission of the Church in the present world both on an understanding of God as Trinity and in Her mission to baptize diverse cultures. To do this effectively the Church must recognize and adapt to local and contemporary political and social trends and patterns. It must exemplify the Gospel as a way of communal and social life, not allowing itself to be reduced to an impersonal ideology manifest within the sphere of either imagination, ideology, or a private individualistic existence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology by Ramon HarveyArnold Yasin Mol (bio)Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology. By Ramon Harvey. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 280, Hardcover £90.00, isbn 978-1-4744-5164-2.When can it be claimed that a certain discipline is doing something so new and innovative, that it can be labeled as such? Or when is something so new and innovative that it can (...) no longer bear its original label? Either case signifies a level of discontinuity or rupture with the old ways of doing things. This is the fate of modern Islamic theology, which goes by the name kalām jadīd, New Theology.The discipline of Islamic philosophical or dialectical theology, ʿilm al-kalām, acquired its distinct methodology and themes in the first two centuries of Islam, becoming the defining intellectual voice of the Islamic worldview. Responding both to the developed theologies of Christianity and Zoroastrianism and other religions and philosophies, as well as responding to inner theological disputes, it combined comparative theology, philosophy of religion, and dogmatics. It developed its own indigenous rationalism, and integrated and adapted other philosophical ideas and methods, especially those of Aristotle and Neoplatonism. Islamicate civilization generated many native philosophers, like al-Kindī (d. 873) and al-Fārābī (d. 951), but it was Ibn Sīnā (Latin: Avicenna, d. 1037) who literally overturned metaphysical thought in such a radical way that theologians, including Jewish and Christian, speak of theology as before and after his influence.During the 750 years after the "Avicennian turn" many new philosophies have arisen, but none challenged the metaphysics of the Abrahamic theologies as much as Kant. Kalām can, similar to Christian Neo-Scholasticism, ignore the Kantian turn by restating their confidence in Peripatetic and Avicennian/Thomistic metaphysics, or it can integrate and adapt to it. The Muslim voices that have tried the latter are few but they have garnered more attention over the years. One of the biggest challenges of Kantian thought are towards retaining the classical proofs of God's existence, but also the possibility of speaking meaningfully of any type of metaphysical existence apart from empirical experience. The Ottoman theologian Muṣtafā Ṣabrī (d. 1954) emphasized that the Islamic ideas of prophethood and the unseen spiritual realm (ʿālam al-ghayb) would not fit the minimalistic metaphysics of Kant, as many Muslim modernists started to reject the idea of miracles, angels, and life after death. [End Page 1]Kalām jadīd, or (post-)Kantian kalām, has therefore the interesting challenge to either reconfigure Kantian metaphysics so that it can sustain traditional Islamic ideas to a certain degree, or the other way around. This challenge is not new as, although Peripatetic and Avicennian metaphysics provided the basis for proofs of God's existence, it also problematized Abrahamic theism, prophethood and resurrection of the body. Kalām jadīd can therefore learn much from its discursive tradition on how to deal with those challenges, if one's intent is to salvage the classical Islamic worldview.To this end, Ramon Harvey's Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology presents itself as a work of kalām jadīd but also as challenging important aspects of the discursive tradition it is using. When a discipline crystalizes into a certain epistemology and critical method, it attains a level of foundationalism whereby it becomes a tradition which is self-explanatory. This gives it a reasoning and stability which can be passed on over the centuries through certain core ideas and texts. Harvey sees this as the main problem explaining "why the kalām jadīd movement has been underwhelming." The Kantian turn upends the post-Avicennian foundationalism of kalam, forcing it to become an "open theology" that is "characterised by a receptiveness to diverse sources in its theological structure, prioritising meaning above systematic, foundationalist proof" (p. 5). The challenges for which a new theology has to be constructed are, according to Harvey, the developments in mathematics, logic, analytical philosophy, the phenomenological movement, and quantum mechanics (p. 2). Reality, and thinking about reality, are not the same anymore.The function of kalām is... (shrink)

For Aquinas, the preambles of faith, including the existence of God, play a crucial role in his view of faith because they are presupposed by the articles. However, the existing literature does not make it clear how exactly the preambles can be held. In particular, the existence of God seems to cause problems. Should it be held by demonstration or by faith? I think there are problems with both. A possible solution was suggested three decades ago. In this article (...) I argue that this solution follows from a view of faith, fully attributable to Aquinas, which includes three dimensions, the intellectual, the moral and the religious. Instead, to say that in order to believe in God one must first prove or believe by faith that God exists is based on a limited perspective that reduces faith to the purely intellectual dimension. (shrink)

This paper challenges the traditional notions of ‘Monophysitism’ and ‘Nestorianism’ or ‘The Nestorian Church’. With regard to ‘Monophysitism’, it argues that two interpretations of the basic ‘Alexandrian’ Christological formula of the ‘one nature of the God-Logos incarnate’ need to be distinguished. One, according to which the individual properties of the two ‘natures’ of Christ were lost and mixed, and which can, indeed, be referred to as ‘Monophysitism’ – in contrast to another interpretation which insisted that the individual characteristics of the (...) two ‘natures’ were preserved and the ‘God-Logos incarnate’ remained consubstantial with human beings (homoousios hēmin). This second approach might be better referred to as ‘Miaphysitism’. Similarly, this contribution suggests that it seems necessary to differentiate between what Nestorius of Constantinople himself taught and what his opponent Cyrill of Alexandria imputed to him. When analyzing Nestorius’ own writings, it becomes clear that Nestorius neither challenged the true union between the God-Logos and the ‘Man’ nor assumed a time in which the ‘Man’ existed prior to his unification with the God-Logos. Therefore, Nestorius taught no ‘Nestorianism’ in the sense in which Cyrill of Alexandria introduced it. Likewise, the Christology of the Apostolic Church of the East is based on the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia. It is not before the 6th century that representatives of this Church discovered Nestorius as a martyr for the ‘orthodox belief’ who was persecuted by the Egyptian ‘Pharaoh’, just as had been John Chrysostom before him. Because of its loyalty to the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, it seems rather fitting to abandon the inappropriate title ‘Nestorian Church’ – a polemical title that has been pinned on the ‘Church of the East’ by its theological opponents from the 6th century onwards. (shrink)

Whether God exists is a metaphysical question. But there is also a neglected evaluative question about God’s existence: Should we want God to exist? Very many, including many atheists and agnostics, appear to think we should. Theists claim that if God didn’t exist things would be far worse, and many atheists agree; they regret God’s inexistence. Some remarks by Thomas Nagel suggest an opposing view: that we should want God not to exist. I call this view anti-theism. I explain how (...) such view can be coherent, and why it might be correct. Anti-theism must be distinguished from the argument from evil or the denial of God’s goodness; it is a claim about the goodness of God’s existence. Anti-theists must claim that it’s a logical consequence of God’s existence that things are worse in certain respects. The problem is that God’s existence would also make things better in many ways. Given that God’s existence is likely to be impersonally better overall, anti-theists face a challenge similar to that facing nonconsequentialists. I explore two ways of meeting this challenge. (shrink)

Existence and uniqueness are standard questions in cases where definite descriptions are used. In his Proslogion Anselm of Canterbury uses definite and non-definite descriptions of God: He is “id/aliquid quo maius cogitari non potest” (and similar). While Anselm’s proof for the existence of God is widely discussed, including its relations to those famous descriptions, this is not the case for the question of uniqueness. Is there at most one perfect being or might there be more than one? ‘Of course there (...) can at most be one’, one might want to answer – but what reasons for this claim can be found in the Proslogion? In this celebrated work of philosophical theology, Anselm does not prove uniqueness explicitly. But one may try a proof “in the spirit of the Proslogion”. (shrink)

Recently a new question has emerged in the philosophy of religion: not whether God exists, but whether God’s existence is or would be preferable. The existing literature on the subject is sparse. The present essay, in dialogue form, is an attempt to marshal and evaluate arguments on both sides.

Human risk (the risk of people doing things they shouldn't, or not doing things they should') is the largest single risk facing all organisations -- when things go wrong, there's always a human component, either causing the problem or making it worse. Collectively, companies spend billions trying to manage human risk via functions like Compliance, InfoSec, Risk, Audit, Legal, Human Resources and Internal Comms -- it is people in these functions, as well as those tasked with managing people, that (...) is the target audience for the book. Technology exacerbates the problem by providing each of us with weapons of mass destruction' from a human risk perspective -- even the most junior employee can cause huge damage via their keyboard, either in the work environment or via their personal social media account -- and by taking over basic, repetitive tasks, which mean people are spending more time in human risk sensitive' activities. Traditional approaches to mitigating human risk rely heavily on the idealised presumption that because people are employed, they can simply be told what to do -- this works well in safety-critical environments, where the black & white' parameters of desired outcomes are easy to predict, but is much harder when it comes to grey', less codifiable, areas like ethics which are often difficult to monitor until it's too late and rely on employees being positively engaged. If we want to mitigate the risks posed by human decision-making, then we need to base our approach on an understanding of how humans actually make decisions, which is where Behavioural Science -- a discipline based on academic research and field-tested on real' humans by advertisers, governments and transport authorities -- can help achieve better outcomes. This book is designed to help all those involved in managing human risk to achieve compliance' with a small -- in other words, getting their desired outcome -- and explores how organisations can get the best out of their people by designing frameworks that work with, rather than against, the grain of human thinking. Readers will learn to challenge their existing presumptions about managing human risk and discover practical techniques and examples they can deploy in their work environment. (shrink)

1.Summary The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Sunyata’. Nagarjuna is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was Nagarjuna (...) denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realized that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna, we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalization. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalization might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. (Plato 424 – 348 Befor Current Era) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. 5. Key terms: Quantum Physics. Why quantum physics? European modes of thought had no idea of the space between two this. They were bound to the ideas of substance or subject, two main metaphysical traditions of European philosophical history, two main principles. These substances and these subjects are two immaterial bodies which were considered by traditional European metaphysics as lying, as a sort of core, inside the objects or underlying the empirical reality of our world. The first European scientist who saw with his inner eye the forces between two things had been Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism. Later physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and others followed his view in modern physics. This is a fifth point of my work. I compare Nagarjuna with European scientific modes of thought for a better understanding of Asia. I do not compare Nagarjuna with European philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. The principles and metaphysical foundations of physical sciences are more representative for European modes of thought than the ideas of Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and they are more precise. And slowly we are beginning to understand these principles. Let me take as an example the interpretation of quantum entanglement by the British mathematician Roger Penrose. Penrose discusses in the year of 2000 the experiences of quantum entanglement where light is separated over a distance of 100 kilometers and still remains connected in an unknown way. These are well known experiments in the last 30 years. Very strange for European modes of thought. The light should be either separated or connected. That is the expectation most European modes of thought tell us. Aristotle had been the first. Aristotle (384 - 322 Before Current Era) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He told us the following principle as a metaphysical foundation: Either a situation exists or not. There is not a third possibility. Now listen to Roger Penrose: “Quantum entanglement is a very strange type of thing. It is somewhere between objects being separate and being in communication with each other” (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press. 2000 page 66). This sentence of Roger Penrose is a first step of a philosophical generalization in a Whiteheadian sense. 6. Key terms: ‘The metaphysical foundations of modern science’ had been examined particularly by three European and American philosophers: E. A. Burtt, A.N. Whitehead and Hans-Georg Gadamer, by Gadamer eminently in his late writings on Heraclitus and Parmenides. I try to follow the approaches of these philosophers of relational views and of anti-substantialism. By ‘metaphysical foundations’ Edwin Arthur Burtt does not understand transcendental ideas but simply the principles that are underlying sciences. -/- 7. Key terms: ‘Complementarity’, ‘interactions’, ‘entanglements’. Since 1927 quantum physics has three key terms which give an indication to the fundamental physical reality: Complementarity, interactions and entanglement. These three notions are akin to Nagarjuna’s relational view of reality. They are akin and they are very precise, so that Buddhism might learn something from these descriptions and quantum physicists might learn from Nagarjuna’s examples and views of reality. They might learn to do a first step in a philosophical generalisation of quantum physical experiments. All of us we might learn how objects are entangled or going arm in arm. [The end of the summary.] -/- « Wenn du gerade das, wodurch auch immer du gefesselt bist, erkennst, wirst du zur Freiheit gelangen. Wenn du diesen speziellen Pfad verwirklichst, gelangst du in einem Leben zur Buddhaschaft. Deswegen verhält es sich folgendermaßen : Wenn plötzlich die Geistesregung « Begierde » enststeht, dann betrachte, ohne ihr zu folgen, direkt ihre Essenz und verweile in dieser Betrachtung, ohne Ablenkungen zuzulassen. Auf diese Weise reinigt Begierde sich selbst, ohne aufgegeben zu werden, da sie ohne Grundlage und Ursprung entsteht. Das wird « Befreiung in sich selbst », « unterscheidende ursprüngliche Weisheit » oder Buddha Amitabha » genannt ». Jigden Sumgön, Licht, das die Dunkelheit durchbricht, Otter Verlag, München 2006, Seite 47, 48 . (shrink)

There are three main ways to acquire the knowledge of the existence of God and the knowledge of His nature. These are either the arguments taking into account the nature of the world and our thinking about the world, or it is the argumentation trying to prove the authenticity of certain historical events, or it is a reference to particular types of experiences, called mystical experiences. In the case of Christian philosophy we will have to consider, firstly, the (...) cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God, and, secondly, the attempts to show the authenticity of reports of the events regarding Jesus of Nazareth and, thirdly, the arguments in favor of the objectivity of mystical experiences recorded in the history of Christian religion. In regard to all of the above-mentioned three sources of knowledge about God, I would like to ask the following questions. How do we know that all of them refer to the same object? On what basis can we say that even if these three 'ways to God' are correct, they refer us to the same being? Are they independent of each other, and if they depend on each other in some way, what are the relationships among them? If we were not able to demonstrate that the item referred to by the term 'God' in all of these three ways is the same object or being, it would represent a significant weakness in Christian theology and philosophy. I will try to outline what relationship may exist between these three sources of knowledge about God. Then I will attempt to describe the criteria connecting all these sources of knowledge. (shrink)

Morning Hours is the first English translation of Morgenstunden by Moses Mendelssohn, the foremost Jewish thinker of the German Enlightenment. Published six months before Mendelssohn's death on January 4, 1786, Morning Hours is the most sustained presentation of his mature epistemological and metaphysical views, all elaborated in the service of presenting his son with proofs for the existence of God. But Morning Hours is much more than a theoretical treatise. It also plays a central role in the drama of the (...) Pantheismusstreit, Mendelssohn's "dispute" with F. H. Jacobi over the nature and scope of Lessing's attitude toward Spinoza and "pantheism". In Morning Hours Mendelssohn attempts to set the record straight regarding his beloved Lessing in this connection, not least by demonstrating the absence of any practical difference between theism and a "purified pantheism". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christianity and Human Rights: Influences and IssuesJohn D’Arcy MayChristianity and human rights: Influences and issues. Edited by Frances S. AdeneyArvind Sharma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. xi + 228 pp.The existence of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions” (UDHRWR) deserves to be more widely known, and this book not only reproduces the text, drawn up for a conference in Montreal to (...) mark the fiftieth anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNUDHR, 1948), but offers a point-by-point comparison of the two documents by Frances Adeney and a series of papers that illuminate the issues raised by such declarations from very different points of view. The premise of the whole undertaking is that religious perspectives were not adequately represented in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though even this is questioned by some of the contributors. The UDHRWR explicitly mentions the right to change one’s religion, asserting in article 18 (1): “There shall be no compulsion in religion. It is a matter of choice,” and it includes “the rights of nature and the earth” (art. 29 [1]; see also 24 [2]). Article 12 (4 and 5) also asserts the duty and the corresponding right of not denigrating the religions of others. Article 16 (5) mentions monasticism as an institution worthy of protection alongside marriage. [End Page 172]In an extremely detailed examination of the work of the Third Committee, which brought the original UN document to the floor of the General Assembly, Sumner B. Twiss finds abundant evidence that religious issues were debated at great length, with great respect, and from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds. The committee included representatives of Christian, Confucian, Marxist, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim traditions, and Twiss claims that it is a mistake to regard the document they produced as either Western or secular in intent. The question of the relationship between rights and duties was thoroughly debated, as were the social dimensions of both and the underlying theological and ideological issues. Although religious terminology was eventually omitted, this was agreed in an atmosphere of exemplary tolerance and mutual understanding. Twiss concludes: “The UDHRWR is redressing a nonexistent problem presumably posed by the UDHR” (p. 69).Nevertheless, in the present context of the desecularization or resacralization of the world, a more explicit treatment of religious aspects of human rights seems appropriate, and the papers collected here raise problems that are still with us. Frances Adeney introduces several of them: the distinction between public and private spheres, the relative weighting given to creation and sin, and the relationship between rights and duties. The specifically Christian contribution to the debate, in her view, is the insistence on the universality of human rights derived from the biblical conception of the human as the “image of God,” so that “Christians through the ages have assigned a transcendent worth to human beings” (p. 20). The dimension of community is signaled by the extension of the covenant from ethnic group to faith community, thus linking the covenant family of God to the unity of humankind. Whether this link is strong enough to secure the universality of human rights, however, remains an open question.The Christian ethicist Max Stackhouse counterposes to this the “profound individualism” implicit in human rights thinking: it is this, rather than abstract or absolute universals, that lays the basis for civil society and, in its Christian variants, “provides the safest havens for non-Christian religions to flourish without political control” (p. 49). It is the rights of each individual, not of communitarian entities, that are to be respected. The religions tend to be particularistic, but this does not mean that the sources of human rights thinking are necessarily secular humanist. Stackhouse leaves us with two very significant questions: “... whether we can form a global civil society that does not have a theologically based inner moral architecture,” and whether “human rights principles become more effective without attention to their roots and justifying ultimate legitimations” (p. 50). Terry Muck also confronts us with the tensions between universality and cultural specificity, the individual and the communal, arguing that religions all... (shrink)

I do not think that the existence of God can be proved or even that the main justification for the belief can be found in argument in the ordinary sense of that term, but I think two of the three which have, since Kant at least, been classified as the traditional arguments of natural theology have some force and are worthy of serious consideration. This consideration I shall now proceed to give. I cannot say this of the remaining one of (...) the arguments, the ‘ontological proof’, which I shall therefore not discuss here. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with the expansions of algebraic structures and their fit in Shelah’s classification landscape.The first part deals with the expansion of a theory by a random predicate for a substructure model of a reduct of the theory. Let T be a theory in a language $\mathcal {L}$. Let $T_0$ be a reduct of T. Let $\mathcal {L}_S = \mathcal {L}\cup \{S\}$, for S a new unary predicate symbol, and $T_S$ be the $\mathcal {L}_S$ -theory that axiomatises the (...) following structures: $$ consist of a model $\mathscr {M}$ of T and S is a predicate for a model $\mathscr {M}_0$ of $T_0$ which is a substructure of $\mathscr {M}$. We present a setting for the existence of a model-companion $TS$ of $T_S$. As a consequence, we obtain the existence of the model-companion of the following theories, for $p>0$ a prime number: • $\mathrm {ACF}_p$, $\mathrm {SCF}_{e,p}$, $\mathrm {Psf}_p$, $\mathrm {ACFA}_p$, $\mathrm {ACVF}_{p,p}$ in appropriate languages expanded by arbitrarily many predicates for additive subgroups;• $\mathrm {ACF}_p$, $\mathrm {ACF}_0$ in the language of rings expanded by a single predicate for a multiplicative subgroup;• $\mathrm {PAC}_p$ -fields, in an appropriate language expanded by arbitrarily many predicates for additive subgroups.From an independence relation in T, we define independence relations in $TS$ and identify which properties of are transferred to those new independence relations in $TS$, and under which conditions. This allows us to exhibit hypotheses under which the expansion from T to $TS$ preserves $\mathrm {NSOP}_{1}$, simplicity, or stability. In particular, under some technical hypothesis on T, we may draw the following picture : Configuration $T_0\subseteq T$ Generic expansion $TS$ $T_0 = T$ Preserves stability $T_0\subseteq T$ Preserves $\mathrm {NSOP}_{1}$ $T_0 = \emptyset $ Preserves simplicityIn particular, this construction produces new examples of $\mathrm {NSOP}_{1}$ not simple theories, and we study in depth a particular example: the expansion of an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic by a generic additive subgroup. We give a full description of imaginaries, forking, and Kim-forking in this example.The second part studies expansions of the group of integers by p-adic valuations. We prove quantifier elimination in a natural language and compute the dp-rank of these expansions: it equals the number of independent p-adic valuations considered. Thus, the expansion of the integers by one p-adic valuation is a new dp-minimal expansion of the group of integers. Finally, we prove that the latter expansion does not admit intermediate structures: any definable set in the expansion is either definable in the group structure or is able to “reconstruct” the valuation using only the group operation.prepared by Christian d’Elbée.E-mail: delbee@math.univ-lyon1.frURL: https://choum.net/~chris/page_perso. (shrink)

Consider three widely shared claims that have not been discussed vis-à-vis one another. In his Proslogion, Saint Anselm argued that the claim “God exists” is true. If an intuition that a claim c is a useful a-priori justificatory resource, this can only be because such an intuition is a justification that c is true. And if an intuition that c is a justification that c is true, c can stand, not only for mathematical or logical claims, but also for controversial (...) philosophical ones, e.g., “God exists”. This essay addresses to while dialoguing with the literature on Anselm and intuition and articulating an alternative reading of the Proslogion. The alternative reading is that regardless of whether the Proslogion backs up or aims to back up the claim that “God exists” is true, it implicitly articulates the Meaning Argument whose conclusion is that all persons of faith are able to understand that the claim “God exists” is meaningful. This argument, it is argued, is evidence that an intuition that c may be a useful a-priori justificatory resource even if such intuition does not track truth, but merely meaning in being a justification for taking c to be meaningful. It is also supported that an intuition that “God exists” is not a justification that this claim is true. This is an indication that there may be reasons for thinking that the same applies to other controversial philosophical claims. (shrink)

Is it necessary for all Christians – including Christians who are metaphysicians with demonstrative knowledge of God’s existence – to hold by faith that God exists? I shall approach this apparently straightforward question by investigating two opposing lines of interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s own response to this question. I shall begin with two texts from Thomas that motivate two incompatible theses concerning Thomas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason with respect to the existence of God. Next, I shall (...) clarify the salient points of disagreement between these two interpretations of faith and reason in Thomas Aquinas before examining dialectically a number of arguments in favor and against the respective theses of these two interpretations. In the final section I shall argue that the results of our dialectical inquiry reveal that the initial disagreement between the two positions is not irresolvable. Accordingly, I shall conclude by proposing two revised versions of the initial theses that emphasize the compatibility of these two interpretations of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason. (shrink)

The question of whether or not God exists is endlessly fascinating and profoundly important. Now two articulate spokesmen--one a Christian, the other an atheist--duel over God's existence in a lively and illuminating battle of ideas. In God?, William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong bring to the printed page two debates they held before live audiences, preserving all the wit, clarity, and immediacy of their public exchanges. With none of the opaque discourse of academic logicians and divinity-school theologians, the authors (...) make claims and comebacks that cut with precision. Their arguments are sharp and humorous, as each philosopher strikes quickly to the heart of his opponent's case. For example, Craig claims that we must believe in God to explain objective moral values, such as why rape is wrong. Sinnott-Armstrong responds that what makes rape wrong is the harm to victims of rape, so rape is immoral even if there is no God. From arguments about the nature of infinity and the Big Bang, to religious experience and divine action, to the resurrection of Jesus and the problem of evil, the authors treat us to a remarkable display of intelligence and insight--a truly thought-provoking exploration of a classic issue that remains relevant to contemporary life. (shrink)

Philosopher and comedy writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory) Kaplan tackles a metaphysical paradox: there are some things we dearly believe in that are not universally acknowledged as real. Here, Kaplan shows how philosophy giants Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein strove to smooth over this uncomfortable meeting of the real and unreal--and failed. From there he turns to mysticism's attempts to resolve such paradoxes, surveying Buddhism, Taoism, early Christianity, Theosophy, and even the philosophers at UC Berkeley under whom he studied. Finally, (...) he alights on--surprise--comedy as the ultimate resolution of the fundamental paradoxes of life. Ultimately, Kaplan delves deeper into the implications of this deceptively simple revelation, from how our physical brains work to his own personal confrontations with life's biggest questions: If we're all going to die, what's the point of anything? What is a perfect moment? What can you say about God? Or Santa? The answers in this book will cheer the rest of your life.--Adapted from publisher description. (shrink)

Stanley Hauerwas begins this volume with a vigorous response to the charge of sectarianism leveled against his work by James Gustafson, among others. "Show me where I am wrong about God, Jesus, the limits of liberalism, the nature of the virtues, or the doctrine of the church," Hauerwas replies to his critics, "but do not shortcut that task by calling me a sectarian."The essays that follow explore in a lucid, compelling, firm, and provocative way the church's nature, message, and ministry (...) in the world. Hauerwas writes on the church as God's new language, on clerical character, on the pastor as prophet, on the ministry of the local congregation, on grace and public virtue, and on the relation of church and university.Underlying Hauerwas's argument is his conviction that "the most important knowledge Christian convictions involve, and there is much worth knowing for which Christians have no special claim, requires a transformation of the self. Christianity is no 'world view,' not a form of primitive metaphysics, that can be assessed in comparison to alternative 'world views.' Rather, Christians are people who remain convinced that the truthfulness of their beliefs must be demonstrated in their lives. There is a sense in which Christian convictions are self-referential, but the reference is not to propositions but to lives.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whose Buddhism? Whose Identity? Presenting and/or Misrepresenting Shin Buddhism for a Christian AudienceAAR Panel on Multiple Religious Belonging and Buddhist Identity November, 2013Kristin Johnston Largenmultiple religious belongingThe concept of multiple religious belonging has become much more popular in the past ten years, both in academic discourse and in public practice, particularly in the United States. One of the most common “pairings” in this regard is Buddhism and Christianity. (...) Perhaps this is not surprising: Since at least the 1900s Christians have been fascinated with “oriental” religions in general and Buddhism in particular.1 And yet, here at the close of 2013, we can conclude that this fascination has not been unproblematic.It is fair to say that from their first introduction, Christians have regarded Buddhism more as a humanistic philosophy than as a religion (as that term typically is understood in a Western context) and consequently as not putting forth any exclusive truth claims.2 This idea has led to the assumption that Buddhism can be easily mined for self-improvement techniques and attitudes that can be smoothly integrated into a Christian framework.So, for example, Christian congregations and individuals alike pursue with alacrity meditation, mindfulness, and mantra recitation without much, if any, awareness of what they mean and how they function within a particular Buddhist context.3This has had negative ramifications for Christians and Buddhists alike, and even though Shin Buddhism has not been a frequent dialogue partner with Christianity, it is particular vulnerable to these kind of distortions, given the apparent resemblances between them. Dennis Hirota notes that [End Page 29]similarities with Christian teachings have often led to fundamental difficulties in expressing and understanding Shin thought in the context of dialogue with other religions. Because Shin Buddhist statements about reality and human engagement with it have seemed so similar in certain respects to some Christian doctrines, it has been assumed that the conceptions of truth are the same, and therefore such problems as the nature of religious engagement or the ontological status of a supreme being are the same.4In the same vein, Gregory Gibbs writes that “We cannot escape the tendency that many scholars will have to elaborate Shinshū against the backdrop of Christian thought. Alfred Bloom and Unno Taitetsu have each expressed reservations about ‘the recourse to traditions other than Shin to explain its basic teachings.’”5So, we find ourselves in a situation in which well-meaning Christian practitioners and academics, with the best of intentions, often seek to interpret Shin Buddhism through a Christian lens, such that it can be better understood, approached, and experienced by Christians. However, the linguistic and conceptual bridges that are built in this way unfortunately can distort the very ground on which they stand, facilitating a fabricated sense of multiple religious belonging by asserting false parallels. In my view, these bridges function more effectively when they are designed to facilitate a going out and a returning home [rather than travel to a new destination entirely], with the goal of what I might call a “Buddhist-infused” Christianity, which may well be both more authentic and more constructive than any “multiple” permutation of either.In light of all this, then, my paper proceeds as follows. I first examine the portrayal of Amida, both as described by Shinran himself, and also as depicted in the three Pure Land sutras.6 I then explore how Amida has been characterized for a Christian audience, demonstrating how descriptions of Amida often are couched in Christian theistic language, resulting in the fact that Amida looks uncannily similar to “God,” particularly when the understanding of Amida’s relationship to those who invoke his name is defined using a christological and soteriological model.7 I then turn to the important concept of shinjin, arguing that the popular translation of shinjin as “faith” only furthers the assumption that Christianity and Shin Buddhism make the same basic claims about human existence.who is amida buddha?Beginning with Shinran and Shin Buddhism, the first thing that must be emphasized is that, according to The Larger Sutra on Amitāyus, Amida Buddha is not a “god,” as Christians understand the term, but originally, at... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Overcoming Greed:An Eastern Christian Perspective1Valerie A. KarrasAs an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I have chosen to approach the topic of "overcoming greed" from an Eastern Christian perspective, relying particularly on the writings of some of the early theologians of the Greek East. It is not coincidental either that laissez-faire capitalism arose in the Western Christian world, or that the first strongholds of communism developed in (...) Eastern European, traditionally Orthodox, countries. Both phenomena speak to an intrinsic difference in the way in which human beings are conceived as relating to the world and to each other, both personally and communally.The traditional Eastern Christian model of the human person as not simply caretaker of creation, but fundamentally as a mediator uniting all aspects of creation in humanity's own nature,2 has led historically to a general lack of interest in exploiting creation (in fact, the worst environmental problems in the Orthodox world occurred in countries after they came under totalitarian communist domination). Similarly, the Eastern Orthodox emphasis on the relational, and even communal, nature of salvation created an environment hostile to the individualist, exploitative model upon which modern Western economics has been founded (this has been rapidly changing in post-communist Eastern European countries and Russia, however).The Eastern Church identifies this phenomenon of exploitative and abusive relationships toward nature and other persons as a consequence of the fallen condition of humanity, that is, humanity as it currently exists, in a state where our natural communion with God has been ruptured. In this context, Christianity in general and Eastern Christianity in particular recognize greed as one of the passions (equivalent to what Buddhism describes as "cravings") that are part of our fallen human nature, a consequence of our separation from God. Some of the passions are primarily physical in nature, others emotional or psychic, but in fact virtually all passions are a combination of the two.Greed, a passion of both soul and body that is endemic to our current existence, is typical of this understanding. There are two aspects to the vice of greed: (1) the emotional or spiritual dimension, that is, the acquisitive lust that usually betokens either a deep-seated insecurity or, worse, a desire for power and control; and (2) the [End Page 47] external, physical manifestations of greed in the actual acquisition of things, often to the detriment or exploitation of others. Eastern Christian writings attempt to work on both dimensions of the passion of greed, especially the spiritual, while often distinguishing between greed (a moral vice) and wealth (an amoral condition).This article will focus on two early church theologians, Clement of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. In particular, it will focus on their biblical exegeses of two pertinent New Testament passages: Jesus' conversation with a young righteous scholar of the Mosaic Law and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, respectively. Finally, I will suggest that, for Orthodox Christians, an important key to overcoming greed is disciplined asceticism, to be practiced by all persons and not simply by monks and nuns. Asceticism—the exercise of control over the passions through fasting, prayer, chastity (understood differently for married and unmarried persons), and almsgiving—is the vehicle by which to cultivate an attitude of apatheia or passionlessness, the Christian equivalent of the Buddhist ideal of detachment.Clement was a philosopher-theologian who headed the great Christian catechetical school in Alexandria in the late second century C.E. In his treatise Who IstheRich ManWhoWill Be Saved? 3 Clement mused on the spiritual and soteriological dimensions of greed by reflecting on Jesus' encounter with the wealthy young "lawyer," that is, scholar of the Mosaic Law, who questioned Jesus on how to acquire eternal life. In his response, the young man showed himself righteous in his adherence to the demands of the law, but ultimately unwilling to commit all of himself by giving away his property, even though Jesus said that it was the price to inherit eternal life.Clement pondered whether it were therefore possible for anyone wealthy to be saved, given Jesus' declaration that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man... (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Kant's famous objection to the ontological argument: existence is not a determination. Previous commentators have not adequately explained what this claim means, how it undermines the ontological argument, or how Kant argues for it. I argue that the claim that existence is not a determination means that it is not possible for there to be non-existent objects; necessarily, there are only existent objects. I argue further that Kant's target is not merely ontological arguments as such (...) but the larger ‘ontotheist’ metaphysics they presuppose: the view that God necessarily exists in virtue of his essence being contained in, or logically entailed by, his essence. I show that the ontotheist explanation of divine necessity requires the assumption that existence is a determination, and I show that Descartes and Leibniz are implicitly committed to this in their published versions of the ontological argument. I consider the philosophical motivations for the claim that existence is a determination and then I examine Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason against it. (shrink)

It is widely held that the logical problem of evil, which alleges an inconsistency between the existence of evil and that of an omnipotent and morally perfect God, has been solved. D. Z. Phillips thinks this is a mistake. In The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, he argues that, within the generally assumed framework, “neither the proposition ’God is omnipotent’ nor the proposition ‘God is perfectly good’ can get off the ground.” Thus, the problem of evil leads (...) to the problem of God. Phillips goes on to provide an alternative response to the problem of evil, expounded by means of his Wittgensteinian analyses of various concepts drawn from the Christian tradition. I argue that his criticisms of the traditional conception of God either fail outright or are at best inconclusive. I also point out that the religious concepts analyzed by Phillips are not and cannot be the same concepts as those employed in the Christian tradition from which they are supposedly drawn. For the concepts as traditionally employed presuppose the actual existence and activity of precisely the sort of being that, according to Phillips, “God cannot be.”. (shrink)

The question of whether or not God exists is profoundly fascinating and important. Now two articulate spokesmen--one a Christian, the other an atheist--duel over God's existence in an illuminating battle of ideas. In God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist, William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong bring to the printed page two debates they held before live audiences, preserving all the wit, clarity, and immediacy of their public exchanges. Avoiding overly esoteric arguments, they directly address issues (...) such as religious experience, the Bible, evil, eternity, the origin of the universe, design, and the supposed connection between morality and the existence of God. Employing sharp and humorous arguments, each philosopher strikes quickly to the heart of his opponent's case. For example, Craig claims that we must believe in God in order to explain objective moral values, such as why rape is wrong. Sinnott-Armstrong responds that what makes rape wrong is the harm to victims of rape, so rape is immoral even if there is no God. By assuming a traditional concept of God in their discussion, the authors ensure that they are truly addressing each other's viewpoints and engaging in a disagreement over a unified issue. The book is composed of six chapters that alternate between Craig and Sinnott-Armstrong, so that each separate point can be discussed as it arises. Ideal for courses in the philosophy of religion and introduction to philosophy, this lively and direct dialogue will stimulate students and anyone interested in the existence of God, regardless of whether or not they believe in God. (shrink)

There is an ethics of blaming the person who deserves blame. The Christian scriptures imply the following no-vengeance condition: a person should not vengefully overtly blame a wrongdoer even if she gives the wrongdoer the exact negative treatment that he deserves. I explicate and defend this novel condition and argue that it demands a revolution in our blaming practices. First, I explain the no-vengeance condition. Second, I argue that the no-vengeance condition is often violated. The most common species of (...) blame involves anger; anger conceptually includes a desire for vengeance; and there are many pleasures in payback. Third, I clarify that it is possible to blame non-vengefully in anger and highlight three good uses for anger in non-vengeful blame. Fourth, I offer two reasons that justify the divine command prohibiting vengeance, and I note that the Christian God is merely sufficient to make non-vengeance morally obligatory. Fifth, I defend the no-vengeance condition against four biblical objections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Aspects of Christian Mystical Rhetoric, Philosophy, and PoetryRyan J. StarkThis is an article about poets and poetic philosophers who make spirited arguments. My purpose in particular is to clarify the nature of mystical rhetoric, which needs to be distinguished from secular rhetoric (i.e., “secular” as nonspiritual). As ways of existing in language, they are ontologically incommensurable, and we should treat them as such. Mystical rhetoric is (...) that into which Spirit enters, conveying to both writer and reader some aspect of providential kairos that cannot otherwise be attained. That is, God completes mystical inferences. God participates, illuminating the hearts of those who open themselves to grace through faith. Or, in other words, writers and readers who want to enter into numinous arguments must shelve the hermeneutics of suspicion. An overly critical stance actually diminishes the possibility of insight, even if it is well intended, much like nervous backseat driving, which—though aimed at producing safety—inevitably works against it. I am not suggesting, however, that skeptics are at a complete loss when approaching mystical rhetorical situations. Rather, they simply do not grasp the metaphysical, enchanted, or occult dimensions of the discourses at work, because they have closed themselves off to Spirit or—more commonly—have attempted to transmogrify Spirit into secular concepts, which distorts spirited language and leads to mischaracterizations of religious experience.1 In contrast, I provide a Christian approach to [End Page 260] mystical rhetoric, one that neither discounts nor sidesteps the real presence of the supernatural.Inspired Rhetoric and HermeneuticsFuror poeticus is a key element of mystical persuasion. The phrase literally means “poetical fury,” and the idea behind it in a Christian framework is that the Holy Spirit aids writers in creating imaginative texts (e.g., sonnets, sermons, essays, novels, blogs, etc.) or, in pernicious instances, demons aid writers.2 In either case, a mysterious force helps the author to compose. Moreover, furor touches readers or listeners, a point seldom emphasized but nonetheless central to this sublime practice of composition. Inspired writing requires inspired reading: furor poeticus needs furor lectoris.3 The Spirit aids readers in understanding mystical rhetoric, as long as those readers participate earnestly in the discourse. John Milton (1674, 7.31), for example, famously envisions such a “fit audience” in the third invocation to the Muse in Paradise Lost (i.e., the “great Argument”), where he calls on the reader for hermeneutical verve, a spirited reading to complement his enthusiastic writing. Søren Kierkegaard also writes to an audience capable of spiritually minded hermeneutics, allowing him to perform various edifying dissimulations through pseudonyms: the despairing aesthete, the unscrupulous seducer, the rigid moralist, and so forth. These inspired writers expect believing readers to contribute to their works, to complete their disputations, in fact, through spirited exegesis. Their methods of composition demand it, which is to say that writers touched by furor leave little room in their arguments for the sustainable disposition of the uninspired reader.Cicero explains spirited rhetoric and hermeneutics in De divinatione, where Quintus talks about how inspired readers experience the same type of furor as inspired writers, seers, and prophets: “Men capable of correctly interpreting all these signs of the future seem to approach very near the divine spirit of the gods whose will they interpret, just as scholars do when they interpret the poets” (1938, 226). Scholarship, in other words, is capable of tapping into mystical energy, making the scholars as prophetic as the vates on which they write. In the second book of On Christian Doctrine (1958, 75–78), Augustine also explains the importance of mystical exegesis as a form of prophecy, where sincere readers undergo the same type of inspiration as mystical writers. For Augustine, spirited reading begins with prayer and ends with revelation. In both accounts of furor, Cicero’s and Augustine’s, [End Page 261] the inspired audience and the inspired writer together experience rapture, a divine vision or illumination, which is precisely the type of communion that occurs during mystical discourses.4Still, the idea of seeking communion with God is potentially unsettling. The notion produces anxieties of psychosis, possession, and self-erasure. Plato famously expresses such concerns in Ion, for example... (shrink)

Logical reconstruction is a fundamental philosophical method for achieving clarity concerning the prerequisites, presuppositions and the logical structure of natural language arguments. The scope and limits of this method have become visible not least through its intense application to Anselm of Canterbury’s notorious proofs for the existence of God. This volume collects, on the one hand, reconstructions of Anselmian arguments that take account of the problems of reconstruction and, on the other hand, theoretical reflections on reconstruction with a view to (...) Anselm. We hope that this will allow the reader to critically assess the merits of the theoretical accounts in the light of the reconstructions and the merits of the reconstructions in the light of the theoretical accounts. In general, by considering the example of an outstanding thinker in one or the other way, this volume aims at advancing the methodology and the practice of logical reconstruction. The following remarks explain and motivate this undertaking: What purposes does logical reconstruction serve? What purposes does the reflection on logical reconstruction serve? In which ways can the practice and theory of reconstruction profit particularly from studying Anselm’s reasoning? How can the resulting problems be addressed? – Finally, a short overview over the contributions to this volume is offered. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Conversion and Religious Identity in Buddhism and ChristianityJohn D'Arcy MayA Benedictine abbey that has been involved in exchanges with Buddhist monks since 1979 was an appropriate setting for serious discussion of double identity and change of identity between Buddhists and Christians. The European Network holds its conferences every two years, and after experiencing the Benedictine hospitality of St.Ottilien once again it was decided that every second conference should be (...) held here in the future, with the intervening ones in different centers throughout Europe. Br.Josef Götz OSB introduced the conference by telling the story of the intermonastic encounters with monks of the Soto, Rinzai, and Shingon traditions over the last twenty-five years at St. Ottilien. Participants in these agreed that they had never learned so much about their own traditions as when they were engaged in dialogue at a spiritual and experiential level with their monastic "others." One Zen monk told the Benedictines, "Working with your carpenter, I understand Christianity," and another asked for baptism in order to participate more fully in the liturgy.The situation in the Buddhist countries of Asia, however, is not necessarily so harmonious, as reports by Fr. Thomas Timpte OSB from Korea and Dr. Elizabeth Harris from Sri Lanka made clear. Just to hear about the religious situation in South Korea, the "great unknown" of East Asian Buddhism, was worthwhile. Though four traditions—Shamanism, Buddhism with elements of Daoism, Confucianism, and Christianity—coexist largely peacefully, the advent of Christianity caused tensions arising from both persecutions and conversions. Though many Koreans would find no contradiction in being both Confucianist (at least in a cultural sense) and Christian, Buddhism itself is coming to be seen as a cultural phenomenon, and those earnestly seeking peace of heart turn to Christianity. Almost half the members of [End Page 189] parliament are either Catholic or Protestant, though there is little evidence of Christian ethics in political practice. Nevertheless, Buddhism is now the fastest-growing religion, as Catholics in particular find themselves attracted to the temple environment, which is experienced as "a kind of homecoming." "Christian in the head, Shamanist in the belly, Buddhist in the heart," though a simplification, sums up the situation.In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, things are considerably more fraught, and with the passage of anticonversion legislation the conference theme of conversion and identity is a charged topic. Elizabeth Harris illustrated the lengths to which certain Christians are prepared to go to win converts, such as working the camps of tsunami survivors. Though British evangelical missionaries had originally been afforded remarkable hospitality by the Buddhists—even being invited to preach in temples —their insistence that if Christianity is right, Buddhism must be wrong polarized relations, and the great public debate of 1815 still sets a precedent. Thus even for contemporary Christian inheritors of the fusion of the European Enlightenment with evangelical Christianity, both the conviction of sin and rational argument assure the superiority of Christianity. In the ethnic conflict presently raging, the religions are "not innocent," with Tamils and Christians being conflated into the "other" against which Sinhalese antipathy is directed. This is all the more tragic in that most Sri Lankan Buddhists accept the traditional ethic of tolerance.Jørgen Skov Sørensen and Kajsa Ahlstrand illuminated the religious situation in Scandinavia from different perspectives. Sørensen reflected on the "soft boundaries" that actually exist in many pluralistic societies, something that puzzled both civil servants and missionaries even in colonial India. There is a danger that contemporary Christians will try to impose the same unambiguous boundaries on postmodern Europe as they did in their former colonies. Ahlstrand's report on an empirical study done in Sweden showed how unrealistic this is. Dual identity as both Buddhist and Christian was more common than complete identification with either, and 42 percent of those who identified completely with Christianity said they did not believe in God!The centerpiece of the conference was a vigorous debate between Paul Williams, a prominent British Buddhist and professor of Indian and Tibetan philosophy who announced his conversion to Catholicism in a provocative book, The Unexpected Way, and two protagonists who disagreed with his reasoning from... (shrink)

A strict operational (i.e., informational) analysis of the meaning of preparing a system to realize the paradoxes of Loschmidt or Zermelo is made. Where reversal or recurrence are operationally realizable, no contradiction with the irreversible nature of macroscopic operations occurs. Paradox results either from neglecting irreversible phenomena in the means for preparing a reversed state, or from confusing elements or ensembles, which are meaningful in microstate language but meaningless operationally, with preparable macrostates, whoserepresentation in microstate language is an ensemble (...) whose very definition is incompatible with that of any paradox-generating element or ensemble. (shrink)

This paper is not going to offer any criticism of the way Gaven Kerr treats Aquinas’ argument. Instead, it offers an alternative way of reconstructing Aquinas’ argument, intending to strengthen especially those controversial aspects of it that Kerr’s reconstruction left untreated or in relative obscurity. Accordingly, although the paper’s treatment will have to have some overlaps with Kerr’s, it will deal with issues essential to adequate replies to certain competent criticisms of his argument untreated by Kerr. For the sake of (...) the “formally inclined” reader, the paper’s treatment will also include an Appendix offering a formal reconstruction of both the main argument and its sub-arguments to demonstrate the formal rigor of Aquinas’ original. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper, I respond to James Sterba’s recent book ‘Is a Good God Logically Possible?’ I show that Sterba concludes that God is not logically possible by ignoring three important issues: (a) the different functions of leeway indeterminism (and the political freedom presupposed by it) and autonomy (the two are very different things, even though both go under the name of freedom), (b) the differences in the conditions of agency in God and in creatures, (there is non-parity in (...) how each must apply the single moral law), and (c) the non-parity between our knowledge and God’s. I provide a brief summary of Sterba’s arguments, and I develop the following points: 1. Sterba’s argument against a Free-Will Defense hinges on his conflation of political freedom and autonomy; 2. Sterba’s crucial premise for his argument against soul-making theodicies (namely, that the “Pauline Principle” should be applied univocally across God and creatures) is false; 3. Sterba’s arguments against skeptical theism depend on his assumption that our knowledge is comparable to that of God. In each case, Sterba either does not recognize non-parity between God and creatures or does not recognize the difference between the profane (e.g., political matters) and the sacred, (e.g., spiritual matters having to do with the inner nature of the soul’s development). (shrink)

Does God exist? The question implies another: Who is God? This book is meant to give an answer to both questions and to give reasons for this answer. Does God exist? Yes or no? Many are at a loss between belief and unbelief; they are undecided, skeptical. They are doubtful about their belief, but they are also doubtful about their doubting. There are still others who are proud of their doubting. Yet there remains a longing for certainty. Certainty? Whether Christians (...) or Jews, believers in God or atheists, the discussion today runs right across old denominations and new ideologies - but the longing for certainty is unquenched. Does God exist? We are putting all our cards on the table here. The answer will be "Yes, God exists, " As human beings in the twentieth century, we certainly can reasonably believe in God - even more so in the Christian God - and perhaps even more easily today than a few decades or centuries ago. For, after so many crises, it is surprising how much has been clarified and how many difficulties in regard to belief in God have melted into the Light that no darkness has overcome. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese ReligionWhalen LaiBorrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion. By Eric Reinders. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 266 + xvi pp.For a long time, Sinology was dominated by scholars with direct or indirect missionary backgrounds, going all the way back to the founding of the discipline by James Legge. Legge occupied the first university (...) chair in the China field in Britain. Legge's vision of China has recently been placed into historical context by Norman Girardot (The Victorian Translation of China [2002]). There were other early figures whose records of Chinese beliefs and folk customs we still use. Beginning with Timothy Richard, more came around to seeing how China needed more than soul saving for the hereafter. China needed urgent sociopolitical reforms in the here and now. In time, the YMCA and the missionary schools would help chaperone in a whole generation of "modern Chinese"; some of them, though exposed to the Gospel, would, in the May Fourth Movement, pit science and democracy against any and all religions. For all that, scholars still do count on the missionary records for understanding the "old China." By exploring what the majority of these men of God saw in China—or thought they saw, since their perception could well be colored by cultural biases—this book by Eric Reinders proves quite refreshing. Instead of holding up those records as a mirror on a Chinese reality, Reinders (to wit) "reversed the light so that it would reflect upon" the Protestant missionaries themselves. For one thing, these Protestant evangelicals reported on China using rhetoric borrowed from their long-standing complaints against the Catholics. For another, they painted the Chinese "body language" in light of their own proud Victorian manners. These missionaries were no James Legge, who was tutored into classical Chinese by erudite Confucians and who then presented the Confucian Classics with appreciative classical (Latin and Greek) references. They were no Arthur Waley either, Waley being one who could "without leaving the door [as to live in China], know all the affairs of the (Chinese) world." By steeping himself in Chinese language and its written culture, Waley could render the Confucian "chun-tzu" into the familiar English "gentleman," and doing so with due sympathy for two land-owning gentry cultures. There is no such sympathy from the Protestant missionaries who lived among the common people. They purported to know the "real" (rural) China that was opened to the inland mission. The China they reported on was not found in library books, the Confucian classics, or some Mandarin's manicured garden. Theirs is not the Good Earth depicted later by Pearl Buck, either.These nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, flourishing in the heydays of the British Empire, held few illusions about the once fabled Cathay. Their reports sent home served, in the end, both God and country. As means for raising funds for their missionary efforts, the reports probably had to fan high hopes for the Gospel in relation to a very deprecating assessment of the pagan, heathen culture they encountered. The reports also reflected the hard times these zealous missionaries did have [End Page 226] to face. They were living in the backwater, among often illiterate peasants and in isolated enclaves surrounded by what they saw as a huddling mass of faceless humanity. Their frustration at learning the vernacular tongue well enough to communicate with the people led to the still popular joke about the inscrutable Chinese. But the conclusion the missionaries drew, about how the Chinese language is inherently "godless," is more theological than philological. That the many Chinese tongues (local dialects?) were deemed a living Babel assumes somehow that the Queen's English is divinely inspired. This book does not tell us often what China was really like, for so much of that reality is woefully "lost in translation."Above all, "Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies" is about how the Protestants transposed their endless bouts with Rome into seeing the errors of the Chinese way as copies of the Catholic way. The Chinese were mindless in their idolatry; they kept up blindly this ritualistic gesture with little or... (shrink)

Does the need to find a quantum theory of gravity imply that the gravitational field must be quantized? Physicists working in quantum gravity routinely assume an affirmative answer, often without being aware of the metaphysical commitments that tend to underlie this assumption. The ambition of this article is to probe these commitments and to analyze some recently adduced arguments pertinent to the issue of quantization. While there exist good reasons to quantize gravity, as this analysis will show, alternative approaches to (...) gravity challenge the received wisdom. These renegade approaches do not regard gravity as a fundamental force, but rather as effective, i.e. as merely supervening on fundamental physics. I will urge that these alternative accounts at least prove the tenability of an opposition to quantization. (shrink)

Causal finitism claims nothing can have an infinite causal history. An influential defense of this position uses infinity paradoxes to argue that, if causal finitism is false, several impossible scenarios would be possible. In this paper, I defend that theists should not be persuaded by this argument. If true, this is an important development, since causal finitism is often argued for by theists as a core premise in Kalam-style cosmological arguments for theism. I extend the same analysis to an argument (...) in favor of temporal finitism and conclude that my point may generalize to any reasoning of a similar structure. (shrink)

Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and (...) presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. -/- Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world. (shrink)

I argue that the following two claims provide us with sufficiently strong reason to conclude that God came into existence from nothing a finite time in the past: that God is omnitemporal; and that there is a first moment of time. After defending the possibility of God beginning to exist ex nihilo from various objections, I critique two alternative attempts at providing an account of the relationship between an omnitemporal God and the beginning of time. I show that these (...) class='Hi'>either fail to be an alternative to my own model or are less supported by the relevant evidence. (shrink)

Much of historic Christian philosophical theology has affirmed that God not only exists, but is Existence itself. Nowadays, this claim is widely rejected as unintelligible by theists and non-theists alike. I argue in contrast that if there is such a thing as Existence itself, that thing must be a maximally excellent being, which is what many philosophers call God. This is because Existence would itself need to exist, which is only possible if Existence exists in a paradigmatic way, that (...) is, as a perfect instance of existence. My argument thus offers both a defence of the coherence of the claim that God is Existence itself, and a new way of arguing for theism. (shrink)

Recent accounts support the existence of two distinct feelings of guilt: altruistic guilt (AG), arising from the appraisal of not having been altruistic toward a victim and deontological guilt (DG), emerging from the appraisal of having violated an intuitive moral rule. Neuroimaging data has shown that the two guilt feelings trigger different neural networks, with DG selectively activating the insula, a brain area involved in the processing of disgust and self-reproach. Thus, insula activation could reflect the major involvement of self-reproach (...) in DG rather than in AG. However, only a few studies have empirically tested whether and how DG and AG differently affect decision making and none have compared enhanced self-worth. Here we asked three groups of participants, respectively, induced with either pride, DG or AG, to participate in a third-party version of the ultimatum game in which they were asked to decide on behalf of others to accept or reject economic offers with several degrees of fairness. Results revealed that only deontological participants had higher median acceptances of Moderately Unfair offers as compared to proud participants. However fairness judgments were not different between groups, suggesting that deontological participants’ moral standards had not decreased. Crucially, a higher increase in DG was associated with an increase in the odds of accepting 30:70 offers. The opposite effects that DG and pride exert on self-worth can account for these results. Specifically, proud participants felt entitled enough to take action in order to restore equity, while deontological participants followed the “Do not play God” principle, which limited their decisional autonomy, not allowing them to decide on behalf of others. (shrink)

In this book's companion volumes (Warrant: The Current Debate and Warrant and Proper Function), I examined the nature of epistemic warrant, that quantity, enough of which distinguishes knowledge from mere true belief; in this book, I turn to the question of whether Christian belief can be justified, rational, and warranted. Among objections to Christian belief, we can distinguish between de facto objections and de jure objections, i.e., between those that claim that Christian belief is false (de facto (...) objections) and those that claim that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or in some other way rationally unacceptable (de jure objections). The main question of this book is the question of whether there are any viable de jure objections to Christian belief; I argue that there are not. In Part I (Chs. 1 and 2), I consider and address an initial objection to my project: the objection that there isn’t really any such thing as Christian belief (or at any rate that Christian belief is incoherent) since human concepts cannot apply to a transcendent God. In Part II, I explore, first, the question of whether a viable de jure objection to Christian belief can be developed in terms of justification or rationality (Chs. 3 and 4); after arguing for a negative answer to that question, I turn to the objections offered by Freud, Marx, and Nietzche, objections best understood as the claim that theistic and Christian belief lack warrant (Ch. 5). In Part III, Ch. 6, I address this claim, doing so by presenting a model of how it is that belief in God can have warrant, and even warrant sufficient for knowledge; I call this model the Aquinas/Calvin (or A/C) model, since it draws on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. In Ch. 7, I consider the noetic effects of sin, and the way in which the existence of sin throws a monkey wrench into the A/C model. In Chs. 8 and 9, I extend the A/C model in such a way as to deal both with sin and with the full panoply of Christian belief (trinity, incarnation, atonement, resurrection, etc.); the extended A/C model shows how full‐blooded Christian belief (not just theistic belief) can have warrant. After dealing with objections to the A/C model in Ch. 10, I turn in Part IV to potential or actual defeaters for Christian belief – possible reasons to give it up or hold it less firmly. The proposed defeaters I examine relate to projection theories of religious belief (Ch. 11), contemporary historical biblical criticism (Ch. 12), postmodernism and religious pluralism (Ch. 13), and the age‐old problem of evil (Ch. 14); none of these, I argue, presents a serious challenge to the warrant Christian belief can enjoy. (shrink)