In recent years, a number of works have appeared with important implications for the age-old question of the existence of a god. These writings, many of which are not by theologians, strengthen the rational case for the existence of a god, even as this god may not be exactly the Christian God of history. This book brings together for the first time such recent diverse contributions from fields such as physics, the philosophy of human consciousness, evolutionary biology, (...) mathematics, the history of religion, and theology. Based on such new materials as well as older ones from the twentieth century, it develops five rational arguments that point strongly to the (very probable) existence of a god. They do not make use of the scientific method, which is inapplicable to the question of a god. Rather, they are in an older tradition of rational argument dating back at least to the ancient Greeks. For those who are already believers, the book will offer additional rational reasons that may strengthen their belief. Those who do not believe in the existence of a god at present will encounter new rational arguments that may cause them to reconsider their opinion. --back cover. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of “psychological” argument for the existence of God of Viktor Nesmelov, professor of Kazan Theological Academy, represented in his fundamental work “Science of Man”. The main interpretations of this argument, formulated both contemporaries of Nesmelov ) and modern researchers of his legacy are considered. The basic prerequisites and origins of Nesmelov’s anthropological doctrine are analyzed. The main of them were V. Snegiryov’s psychological doctrine and anthropological ideas of St. Gregory of Nyssa. The (...) main ideas of Nesmelov’s Christian anthropology, related directly to his formulation of “the idea of God”, etc.) are revealed. Besides that, Nesmelov’s criticism of the main existing arguments for the existence of God is analyzed. The main conclusion based on the analysis of Nesmelov’s anthropological system is made: his argument for the existence of God represents rather a methodological program for creating such argument in the future. The base of this argument should be made of not only by an “ abstract knowledge”, but the “living worldview” and the “living unity of God and man”. (shrink)

These original essays offer evidence that a growing number of Anglo-American philosophers are finding in the classical discussion of God's existence and nature fertile sources for critical reflection on issues in the philosophy of religion. Nelson Pike challenges Aquinas' claim that God is not responsible for evil and shows how the rejection of this claim bears on the problem of evil. Richard Swinburne defends the classical Christian understanding of heaven and hell, arguing that it is both philosophically plausible (...) and compatible with the Christian conception of God's goodness. Philip Quinn proposes a defensible version of the classical assertion that God's conserving a creature in existence is tantamount to his continuously creating that creature. Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso present an analysis of omnipotence which they claim to be both philosophically adequate and consonant with the orthodox Christian belief that God is both omnipotent and incapable of sinning. James Ross's main purpose is to dislodge the assumption that God's power is properly and adequately thought of as the power to cause (or bring about or actualize) states of affairs. Clement Dore reinterprets and defends Descartes' often maligned Fifth Meditation argument for God's existence. Finally, Mark Jordan explicates the metaphysical foundations of Aquinas' doctrine of divine names. (shrink)

Granted that God may exist, how may God be defined in our time? Addressing this issue Benjamin Farley explores a variety of belief systems, Western and Eastern, religious and skeptical. Taking an approach that is both critical of religion as well as sympathetic, Farley refuses to shy away from hard questions or to dismiss constructive answers that speak to the human condition. He distinguishes human "intellectual ascent" towards God from humankind's "innate and inner sense" to know and relate to (...) the living God, demonstrating the efforts and rewards of both approaches in Christianity, as well as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen. Alongside these more obviously "religious" approaches, Farley reviews the methodologies and findings of today's greatest scientific minds, including skeptics such as Hawking, Dawkins, and Wilson, as well as their skeptical forerunners of the past. He argues that belief in God can no more ignore the scientific truth about the universe than science can dismiss the spiritual yearnings and hunger of humanity for purpose, meaning, and its inescapable sense of the presence of God. (shrink)

DOES GOD HAVE A FUTURE? A learning tool for those who wonder about the existence of God, this book offers images of God as androgynous parent, authoritative teacher, liberator, & partner. The author, Carl M. Schmitthausler, has provided compelling images of the still-evolving God. CREATED CREATOR is a "must-read" for those concerned with personal spiritual growth, religious diversity, civility & personal virtues. The author, Carl M. Schmitthausler, traces various God-images of mainline religious systems using extensive quotes from prominent philosophers (...) & theologians. He presents the search for God's true identity as an almost universal human quest. However, unlike writers who question the existence of God, Dr. Schmitthausler suggests that, although God exists in the minds of people of faith, God remains essentially unknowable. "Questions to Ponder" which follow each chapter are guides for self-examination of spiritual beliefs & attitudes helpful for either individual or adult class study. The author says that whether humans need God to reduce the ambiguities of life is not the issue. Our real need is to rethink God's nature, to free God from traditional constraints, especially human traits & characteristics. Readers are urged to accept a more complex God evolving along with more complex cultures. Alpha * Omega Publishers of Lincoln, 811 Mulder Dr., Lincoln, NE 68510. 402-483-0314. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, few topics are so relevant to today's cultural and political landscape as philosophy in the Islamic world. Yet, this remains one of the lesser-known philosophical traditions. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Adamson explores the history of philosophy among Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in Islamic lands, from its historical background to thinkers in the twentieth century.Introducing the main philosophical themes of the Islamic world, Adamson integrates ideas from the Islamic and Abrahamic faiths to consider (...) the broad philosophical questions that continue to invite debate: What is the relationship between reason and religious belief? What is the possibility of proving God's existence? What is the nature of knowledge? Drawing on the most recent research in the field, this book challenges the assumption of the cultural decline of philosophy and science in the Islamic world by demonstrating its rich heritage and overlap with other faiths and philosophies. (shrink)

In this narrative, we explore the story of Ananias and Sapphira from the book of Acts in the Christian scriptures. We examine the story in the light of a recent book by Dominic Johnson, God Is Watching You, and other related research. The idea of a punitive God and/or the belief in a punitive God may have significant effects on group functioning. The troubling story of Ananias and Sapphira may be seen as a central cog in the cooperative (...) coming together of what became the Christian Church. In our modern world, a punitive God is an idea we seek to avoid but it may be the one that is essential for a peaceful cooperative world. (shrink)

The classical secularization thesis that emerged during the European Enlightenment held that all expressions of belief would gradually weaken and fade away under the pressure of scientific and technological rationality. Yet religious belief has persisted and thrived under the conditions of modernity. In After the Death of God, philosopher Espen Hammer reconstructs and analyzes a discourse of secularization that accounts for this incongruity. Starting from Immanuel Kant, Hammer explores how philosophers have responded to the death of God, focusing (...) on the idealist and anti-idealist aftermath of Kant's thinking in Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. For these philosophers, the Enlightenment critique of rational metaphysics was either articulated, affirmed, or simply taken for granted. However, the absence of God, or at least the impossibility of knowing whether a divine power exists, was not simply a mere fact. Rather than searching for reasons to reject religion, Hammer finds, these thinkers have called for a diagnostic and interpretive account of religion's ultimate significance and role within the context of modernity. Unlike today's New Atheists, who see religion as fundamentally anti-modern, the thinkers in this book all see religion as being either transformed into, or replaced by, a renewed ethical life. For them, the claim that "God is dead" implies the beginning of a secular age in which humans attain dignity and moral authority as a self-actualizing, self-creating being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:347 THE ROLE OF PART XII IN HUME'S DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION Anyone appreciative of Hume's greatness as a philosopher will want to suppose that the Dialogues both form a coherent whole and express Hume's own views on natural religion or religion based on reason (as opposed to religion based on revelation). In the last connection, given what we know of Hume's epistemology, life, and correspondence, one would be (...) inclined to suppose that he would reject out of hand the claims of revealed religion and contend that if there existed an acceptable religion it would have to be some form of natural religion. But insofar as natural religion claimed to establish scientifically the existence and nature of God one would envisage Hume dissenting. Now as long as we restrict our gaze to Parts I-XI of the Dialogues we seem to be able, easily enough, to satisfy all these suppositions. In Part IV, under the name of 'mysticism, ' revealed religion is summarily and facetiously dismissed as 2 indistinguishable from atheism. Demea's apparently permanent departure from the discussion at the conclusion of Part XI as much as says, symbolically, that revealed religion is not a serious contender for one's belief. Its a priori arguments -- the argument from sufficient reason and the ontological argument -- are almost as shortly attacked and dismissed (D 188-192). Also quite in keeping with Hume's philosophical view on knowledge of matters of fact is, on the other hand, the lengthy and detailed examination he bestows on the empiricist argument from design. That Philo, ostensibly his spokesman, is however able to uncover all kinds of logical short-comings in its claims to scientifically 348 establish the existence and nature of God does not surprise us; it coheres perfectly with our preconceived picture of Hume the skeptic, and his system as restricting science to numbers and quantities or, in the term's looser sense, to human nature and its more immediate surroundings. In short, Parts I-XI seem to be all of one Humean whole. But at first and even second glance Part XII notoriously seems to tear our hopes to find coherence and a plausible representation of Hume to tatters. There are, for one thing, those mocking sentences that seem to paint Hume in the colors of a devout, believing Christian, 'avid' for revelation. Thus, at the end of Part XII, apparently expressing Hume's deepest convictions, Philo says that "a person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity" and immediately afterwards, "To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian" (D 227, 228). For another thing, in Part XII Hume seems to be completely reversing his refutations in Parts I-XI of the argument from design's claims to establish the existence and nature of God. Thus, where in Part II he had Philo reject the use of causal reasoning in the establishment of a Mind as the first cause of the universe on the relevantly Humean grounds that, to do so, "it were requisite, that we had experience of the origin of worlds" (D 150), in Part XII he has Philo, apparently speaking for himself (Hume), argue that "as there are also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the causes; and in particular ought to attribute a much higher degree of power and energy to the supreme cause than any we have ever observed in mankind. 349 Here then the existence of a DEITY is plainly ascertained by reason" (D 217). Indeed, all forms of the argument of design, purely analogical as well as causal, seem resurrected in Part XII, although they were one and all hanged and buried in Parts I-XI. Moreover, it seems that in Part XII Hume via Philo is saying that science itself leads us "to acknowledge a first intelligent Author" (D 214-215). Before proceeding to deal with certain other incoherencies with which Part XII seems to confront us let us address ourselves to the two that I have so far... (shrink)

This study considers the hiddenness of God, and the problems it raises for belief and trust in GOd. Talk of divine hiddenness evokes a variety of phenomena--the relative paucity and ambiguity of the available evidence for God's existence, the elusiveness of God's comforting presence when we are afraid and in pain, the palpable and devastating experience of divine absence and abandonment, and more. Many of these phenomena are hard to reconcile with the idea, central to the Jewish and (...) Christian scriptures, that God is deeply lovingly concerned with the lives and emotional and spiritual well-being of human creatures; and the philosophical problem of divine hiddenness ranks alongside the problem of evil as one of the two most important and widely discussed reasons for disbelieving in God. -/- The central argument of the book is that the hiddenness problem, construed as an argument against the existence of God, rests on unwarranted assumptions and expectations about God's love and goodness. In challenging these assumptions, however, Michael C Rea also considers the question of why we should accept traditional positive characterizations of God's love rather than the negative ones suggested by the phenomena of divine hiddenness. In the final four chapters, Rea aims to address this question through discussion of God's widespread experiential availability, God's loving authorization of lament and protest, and the surprising ease of seeking and participating in a relationship with God. (shrink)

Following the lead of Kant more fully than the master himself, Muyskens defends the thesis that so-called "religious beliefs," or at least fundamental ones like the beliefs in the existence of God and life after death, should be construed more on the model of hope than on the model of belief, as we find the latter in more mundane contexts. He is not so hardy as to claim that religious believers generally hold their beliefs as hopes. On the (...) contrary, he recognizes that in much of the Christian tradition there is a stress on certainty and confidence that God exists and that our life will continue beyond the grave, and on the cosmic security provided by Christian faith. Muyskens's position is that religious belief can be justifiably held only if it takes something like the form of hope. To undergird this position he provides an analysis of hope as a propositional attitude, hoping that p, with some glances at treatments of hope by Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and Gabriel Marcel. S hopes that p if and only if: S desires that p; It is not the case that p is not preferred by S on balance, or that S believes that q, which he prefers on balance, is incompatible with p; Neither p nor not-p is certain for S; S is disposed to act as if p. (shrink)

John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as (...) well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in Empiricism can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviors of one's self.Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation. We have been "sent into the World by order, and about his business, are his Property, whose Workmanship are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure." Like the two other very influential natural-law philosophers, Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation, since in their view both had originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other. "As a philosopher, Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus.". (shrink)

This chapter presents a theistic proof called the Generic Cosmological Argument. In outline form, the GCA runs as follows: if the universe can be explained, then God exists; everything can be explained; the universe is a thing; therefore the universe can be explained; therefore, God exists. The GCA is also defended against objections.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the 12th Century, volume two of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. By BERNARD MCGINN. New York: Crossroad, 1994. Pp. xv + 630. $49.50. This second volume of the History of Western Mysticism covers the period from the sixth through the twelfth century, from Gregory the Great to the Victorines. It fully lives up (...) to the high expectations raised by the first part and displays the same skill in presenting the fruit of enormous learning in a clear, comprehensible manner. The compact section of notes, occupying onethird of the volume, shows how well the author has succeeded in mastering the abundance of sources, primary and secondary, the current Renaissance of medieval studies has rendered available. Undaunted by the mass of recent literature McGinn's established and constantly renewed acquaintance with the original texts enables him judiciously and critically to compare interpretations and judgments. Method and balance mark this work as much as learning and erudition. Its unadorned but easy style, the language of the lectern, renders his work accessible to a wider public, even if the casual tone does not always reflect the intensity of its subject. The author has structured his study around four major figures: Gregory the Great (sixth century), Scottus Eriugena (ninth), Bernard and William of Saint-Thierry (twelfth). They form the centers of three spiritual epochs of the early Middle Ages. Each one of these periods is introduced by informative chapters on the general conditions of spiritual life. The study concludes with a chapter on visionaries who belong to none of the schools represented by the key figures and a chapter on Victorine writers that already prepares for the next volume on the high season of Christian mysticism. The simple structure allows each of the great ones to be given a full chapter. Rather than drowning his survey in an abundance of forgettable names as encyclopedic histories tend to do, McGinn has accommodated the minor figures in his transition chapters where general headings dominate individual characteristics. By devoting so much space to the great ones, the author has transformed much of what could have remained a mere survey into a series of monographs. It enabled him to highlight the unique significance of at least two previously neglected figures in the rather arid span of time that separates the patristic period from the flowering of the twelfth century: Scottus Eriugena and William of Saint-Thierry. Eriugena's intellectual importance has been established for some time, yet mainly with historians of philosophy and Neoplatonist thinkers. Here he appears as the key thinker who transmits 475 476 BOOK REVIEWS Dionysius's negative theology to the Latin West and who prepares the new mysticism of the divine image that was to culminate in Eckhart and Ruusbroec. Was Eriugena a mystic? The question returns us to the provisional definition given in the general Introduction and consistently maintained throughout volume one and most of volume two. There we learned that "mystical" refers to any belief, system, or practice conducive to the experience of God's presence (vol. I, p. xvii). This definition happily replaces the one adopted through much of the modem period of exclusively private, mostly exceptional, experiences and the unusual expressions (visions, raptures, etc.) that often accompany them. Professor McGinn presents a more objective and more controllable criterion. He extends the mystical to a more or less direct consciousness of the divine presence as evident in texts that witness of, or are conducive to, such a consciousness. This sensible change enables him to include a great many theological texts of the first millennium without having to worry about the degree of their authors' subjective awareness of God's presence and to avoid the predicament to which all attempts to ascertain another person's private experience lead. Before the twelfth century almost no reports of private experiences exist and the ones that do exist, such as Augustine's "vision" of Ostia, so closely follow an established Neoplatonic pattern that they leave us wondering about their private nature. His more objective approach also dispensed the author from having to be overly concerned about the fine, in the early... (shrink)

Traditional Christian belief in the existence of human life after death within a transformed material universe should be capable of rational justification if one chooses carefully the philosophical scheme underlying those claims. One should not have to appeal simply to the power of a loving God to justify one's beliefs. A revision of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme is proposed that allows one to render these classical Christian beliefs at least plausible to a broad range of contemporary thinkers (...) as a consequence of a cosmology based on the principle of universal intersubjectivity and the need for a common ground between opposing subjectivities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Coherence of a Mind: John Locke and the Law of Nature*Alex Tucknessit is almost thirty years since John Dunn’s book, The Political Thought of John Locke, argued that a more coherent understanding of Locke was possible if his religious beliefs were taken to play a crucial role in his political theory.1 Since that time many scholars have expanded our historical knowledge of the role of religion in Locke’s (...) political thought.2 This article will not use a historical methodology, but will rather take the claim that religion is crucial to Locke’s thought as a starting point. When one combines this assumption with a careful reading of the Two Treatises of Government (Two Treatises), The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in Scripture (The Reasonableness), and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Essay), significant progress in resolving many of the long-standing difficulties in Locke’s theory of natural law is possible.The difficulties are indeed serious. Prior to Locke there was a long standing theological debate about whether the laws of nature were binding because they were the command of God (voluntarism) or binding because of their intrinsic compatibility with reason (“rationalism” or “intellectualism”). There has been much dispute about whether Locke was consistently a voluntarist or not.3 Second, Locke argues in the Essay that the principles of morality are [End Page 73] capable of proof just like principles of geometry, yet Locke never produced a proof of the law of nature. In the Second Treatise the laws of nature are more asserted than defended, as if they were self-evident, yet in The Reasonableness Locke says that it is exceedingly difficult to discover the moral law through reason alone and says that no one has ever discovered the complete law of nature through unaided reason. It appears that Locke “… went on believing the arguments of the Second Treatise were plainly true even after he knew he could not properly ground them in natural law….”4Third, Straussians have been quick to point out that Locke adopted a hedonistic theory of human motivation and of good and evil, a position which seems to sit poorly with a Christian theory of natural law. Locke claimed that men5 were motivated to obey the law of nature by their perception of future pleasure or pain and that divine sanctions in the next life were necessary for the law of nature to be a proper law, yet later in life Locke admitted his inability to prove the existence of an afterlife.6 Fourth, the account of moral knowledge in the Essay seems to sit poorly with Locke’s account of natural law in the Two Treatises; his commitment in the latter to empiricism is questionable and the law of nature is presented with little argument as if it were obvious. Laslett has argued that the difficulties are so severe that Locke the philosopher of knowledge and Locke the political thinker should be kept very separate.7 This article will respond to each of these difficulties in order to show that Locke’s theory of natural law is more coherent than his critics have allowed.1. the ground of natural law: rationalism and voluntarismThe early Essays on the Law of Nature of Locke link morality to conformity with the rule of a superior; it is the will of God which provides the essential binding force of the law of nature. (ELN 183–185)8 In the Essay Concerning Human [End Page 74] Understanding, this theme continues. “I grant the existence of God, is so many ways manifest, and the Obedience we owe him, so congruous to the Light of Reason, that a great part of Mankind give Testimony to the Law of Nature”: But nonetheless many affirm these principles not “admitting the true ground of Morality; which can only be the Will and Law of a God, who sees Men in the dark, has in his Hand Rewards and Punishments, and Power enough to call to account the Proudest Offender” (Essay 1.3.6).There are, however, passages which seem to point to a more rationalist account of morality. When Locke writes in the Two Treatises that... (shrink)

In this article I show that Dostoevskij criticized traditional Christianity, and that for him the authentic teaching of Christianity concerned the unity of man and God, the existence in man of a divine “dimension,” the opening of which allows man to become an absolute being. In the context of this understanding of man and God the concept of “joy” is an important one. This concept includes, on the one hand, the fullness of earthly human life and, on the other (...) hand, the transformation of man and of all earthly being into an absolute and divine state. Dostoevskij’s philosophical outlook appears to be a development of a well known philosophical tradition, mystical pantheism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"ALL EXISTING IS THE ACTION OF GOD": THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY OF DAVID BRAINE DAVID BRADSHAW University ofTexas at Austin Austin, Texas Thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated il And how could any thing have endured, if it had not been thy will? or been preserved, if not called by (...) thee? But thou sparest all: for they are thine, 0 Lord, thou lover of souls. Wisdom 11:24-26 He is not far from every one of us; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being. Acts 17:27-28 I T HAS long been traditional to regard God as upholding all things in existence. This belief is known as the doctrine of continuous creation; it is a doctrine widely shared by Jews, Christians, and Moslems, and was first clearly articulated by St. Augustine.1 The phrase "continuous creation" can be misleading, for there is more to the doctrine than simply the extension of God's creative act through time. If that were all that is at stake, we would not need to revise our ordinary notion of the creator as craftsman or artist; we might think of God as like a painter who 1 Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram iv.12. The history of the development of this doctrine has yet to be written, but important sources include Timaeus 4lab; Philo of Alexandria, De Providentia i.7; Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3; John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa i.3; Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 104, a. 1. See also David Winston, Philo of Alexandria (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 14-17; G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1964), 31-36; Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation,-and the Continuum (Ithaca: Cornell, 1983), 303-304. 379 380 DAVID BRADSHAW never stops adding new scenes, or a writer continually elaborating his story. That picture will not do. Ifthe painter were to cease painting, what he has made up to that point would remain in existence, whereas it is precisely the ability to stand on its own that the doctrine of continuous creation seeks to deny of what is made. Nor does anything in the relation of artisan to artifact properly convey the special intimacy and presence that the act of continuous creation is supposed to establish between God and creatures. A painting or a story does not "live and move and have its being" in the one who fashions it-nor would even a living and thinking creature, if the manner of its making were solely that of an artisan. These shortcomings raise the question of whether we should seek to replace the image of artisan and artifact with one that is more dynamic. We might think of God as like a singer and of what is made as His song, or of God as like a dancer and of what is made as His dance. By envisioning the act of creation as a "doing" rather than a "making," analogies of this type more adequately indicate the continuing ontological dependence ofcreation on Creator. They also draw our attention to a mode of presence radically different from that of one body to another, the presence of an agent "within" his own actions. They may thus bring us closer to what St. Paul presumably has in mind in the passage quoted from Acts. On the other hand, they have faults of their own, for they are hard to reconcile with creaturely freedom and the reality of secondary causation. How could any kind of "doing" act contrary to the will of its doer? Indeed, how could it act at all? Actions are not causal agents; a song does not act in its own right, but is at best an instrument of the one who sings it. So it would seem that, taken to their logical conclusion, analogies such as that of the singer and his song lead to the denial of both creatures' freedom and their causal efficacy. There have been thinkers in each of the religious traditions mentioned who have been willing to accept these... (shrink)

Many “pro-life” or anti-abortion advocates are Christians who believe that (1) there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect god who created our universe; (2) restricting abortion ought to be a top social and political priority; and (3) embryos and fetuses that die all go to hell or they all go to heaven. This paper seeks to establish that Christian pro-life advocates with these beliefs face the Afterlife Dilemma. On the one hand, if all embryos and fetuses that die (...) go to hell, they need to abandon their belief in the morally perfect god of traditional Christianity. On the other hand, if all embryos and fetuses that die go to heaven, a plausible triage principle suggests that they must abandon their view that restricting abortions ought to be a top priority. Either way, this popular Christian pro-life view is untenable. The Afterlife Dilemma implies that many pro-life Christians must abandon some aspect of their current beliefs about God, the afterlife, or the comparative moral importance of abortion. (shrink)

"Every culture needs to appropriate the universal truth of human suffering," says Fernando Escalante, ". . . to give its own meaning to this suffering, so that human existence is bearable." Originally published in Spanish as La mirada de Dios: Estudios sobre la cultura del sufrimiento, this book is a remarkable study of the evolution of the culture of suffering and the different elements that constitute it, beginning with a reading of Rousseau and ending with the appearance of the (...) Shoah in the Western consciousness--"The memory endures, and this constitutes a fundamental transition for the Western conscience: we have witnessed." Drawing on writings from the Greeks to Cervantes, Voltaire to Nietzsche, and Freud to William James, Escalante combines his considerable knowledge of politics and political theory with a vast array of literary examples to arrive at an intellectual understanding of the history and meaning of suffering. His investigation encompasses the rise of popular politics, the role of messianism in modern nationalism, and the contemporary implications of the Shoah. This book will appeal to a wide audience: students of political theory, humanism, and philosophy, as well as the general reader interested in a glimpse into the mind of a highly original Latin American thinker. (shrink)

For Derrida, the ‘‘as if’’, as a regulative principle directly appropriated and modified from its Kantian context, becomes the central lynchpin for understanding, not only Derrida's philosophical system as a whole, but also his numerous seemingly enigmatic references to his ‘‘jewishness’’. Through an analysis of the function of the ‘‘as if’’ within the history of thought, from Greek tragedy to the poetry of Wallace Stevens, I hope to show how Derrida can only appropriate his Judaic roots as an act of (...) mourning that seeks to render the lost object as present, ‘‘as if’’ it were incorporated by the subject for whom this act nevertheless remains an impossibility. As Derrida discerns within the poetry of Paul Celan, bringing a sense of presence/presentness to our experiences, and as a confirmation of the subject which the human being struggles to assert, is the poetic task par excellence. It is seemingly also, if Derrida is to be understood on this point, the only option left to a humanity wherein poetry comes to express what religious formulations can no longer justify. (shrink)

This article will argue that the church is the mystic body of Christ that believers must guard from purveyors bend on twisting the truth. There is no doubt that the Catholic social teaching on medical and moral matters has proven to be pertinent and applicable to the ever-changing circumstances of health care and its delivery. In response to today’s challenges, these same moral principles of Catholic teaching provide the rationale and direction for the community of faith. In times of coronavirus (...) characterized by falsehoods, the truth is a virtue the church must strive for: “… If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”(John 8: 31-32). The truth is Christ; it is Christological. Christians must understand the clash of worldviews that is changing the face of Zimbabwean society. A worldview is simply the sum total of our beliefs about the world; Christianity is a worldview that directs our daily decisions and actions. Worldviews affect the way we think. A worldview is a well-reasoned framework of beliefs and convictions that gives a true and unified perspective on the meaning of human existence. To paraphrase from the book of First Samuel (16: 7) – to see as God sees and not how the world sees. Beliefs are not simple propositions held inside us which drive our outward behaviour in predictable ways, they are more of acts of commitment than anything else. There is no doubt that the future of Catholicism lies in the hands of the church’s leadership and the believing Christians. Catholics look to their faith leaders for guidance on big decisions as regards COVID-19 issues. Conspiracy theories around COVID-19 deny that the COVID-19 pandemic is a biological virus. Catholics require direction from the Pope down to the episcopal leadership to chart the way forward. A worldview not only impacts how one understands and makes sense of the world but also influences how one expresses oneself in the world. The constellation of personal values, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and ideas that make up our worldview have an effect on our understanding of reality. Coronavirus has caused uncertainty among believers and confusion as to how to cope with the complex problems that arise in COVID-19 related issues. This article will aver that the nature of drawing the contours of catholicity regarding the biblical foundations of the health falls in the hands of orthodox Catholic teachings. (shrink)

This article investigates the proof of God’s existence within Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical framework, particularly addressing the concepts of divine simplicity and the problem of modal collapse. It commences by positioning Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics in contrast to Aristotle’s, emphasizing the dynamic and evolutionary nature of Ibn Sīnā’s engagement with metaphysical inquiry. The article highlights Ibn Sīnā’s distinctiveness in redefining metaphysical exploration beyond physicalist presuppositions and establishing metaphysics as foundational for other scientific disciplines. Central to this exploration is the elucidation of (...) Ibn Sīnā’s arguments for God’s existence, primarily through his concept of modality—encompassing the necessary, contingent, and impossible—and his unique argument known as The Proof of the Sincere (Burhān al-Siddiqīn). These arguments demonstrate Ibn Sīnā’s belief in the necessity of a being whose existence and essence are identical, countering Kantian critiques by emphasizing an ontological foundation rather than rational judgments alone. However, the assertion of the identity of existence and essence in the Necessary Being introduces the issue of divine simplicity and the potential for modal collapse—a challenge whereby distinctions between possible states of affairs are nullified. The article proposes that Ibn Sīnā’s distinction between general and special existence, alongside his theory of tashkīk al-wujūd (gradation of existence), offers avenues to navigate this philosophical challenge. Additionally, it suggests that Frege’s distinction between meaning and reference could further elucidate the discussion. The conclusion posits that while Ibn Sīnā’s arguments for God’s existence exhibit significant persuasive power, they also prompt further inquiries into divine simplicity and modal collapse. The exploration of these themes underscores the relevance of Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical contributions to contemporary philosophical debates, advocating for a nuanced understanding of his work beyond traditional Aristotelian or Cartesian interpretations. (shrink)

If the desire to see God in Himself belongs to human nature, but the attainment of that vision can be affected only by supernatural grace, how is it that this desire remaining unfulfilled is not a frustration of the nature? How is it that nature is aiming at a good in vain, at an object that it cannot achieve? Even though the elicited natural desire to see God is not fulfilled in this life, and even though there is no demonstrative (...) proof that can be provided by natural reason alone of its being fulfilled after death, the natural human desire is nevertheless not frustrated by a natural deficiency. Rather than being contrary to human nature, this lack of fulfillment exists because of that nature, inasmuch as every human is by nature a limited intellector of being. (shrink)

Is it reasonable to believe in God even in the absence of strong evidence that God exists? Pragmatic arguments for theism are designed to support belief even if one lacks evidence that theism is more likely than not. Jeff Jordan proposes that there is a sound version of the most well-known argument of this kind, Pascal's Wager, and explores the issues involved - in epistemology, the ethics of belief, decision theory, and theology.

Does God exist? What are the various arguments that seek to prove the existence of God? Can atheists refute these arguments? The Existence of God: A Philosophical Introduction assesses classical and contemporary arguments concerning the existence of God: the ontological argument, introducing the nature of existence, possible worlds, parody objections, and the evolutionary origin of the concept of God the cosmological argument, discussing metaphysical paradoxes of infinity, scientific models of the universe, and philosophers’ discussions about ultimate (...) reality and the meaning of life the design argument, addressing Aquinas’s Fifth Way, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the concept of irreducible complexity, and the current controversy over intelligent design and school education. Bringing the subject fully up to date, Yujin Nagasawa explains these arguments in relation to recent research in cognitive science, the mathematics of infinity, big bang cosmology, and debates about ethics and morality in light of contemporary political and social events. The book also includes fascinating insights into the passions, beliefs and struggles of the philosophers and scientists who have tackled the challenge of proving the existence of God, including Thomas Aquinas, and Kurt Gödel - who at the end of his career as a famous mathematician worked on a secret project to prove the existence of God. The Existence of God: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal gateway to the philosophy of religion and an excellent starting point for anyone interested in arguments about the existence of God. (shrink)

Two major obstacles to belief in God in the twenty-first century are the idea that science is incompatible with religious faith, and the idea that the diversity of religions undermines the credibility of belief that any one religion could be truer than the others. This book addresses both of these challenges to belief in God and explores a connection between them. It argues that science and religion are not only compatible, but that some recent scientific discoveries actually (...) support belief in the existence of the Creator God. The diversity of religions is widely believed to undermine the credibility of religious truth claims because of the assumed lack of any way to settle disagreements between different religions. This book argues that one rational way to adjudicate disagreements between the claims of diverse religions is to assess their consistency with contemporary science. The book considers how Christian theism and Buddhism fare in harmonizing their metaphysical frameworks with contemporary scientific cosmology. Although both theistic and Buddhist worldviews resonate with many recent scientific discoveries, the Big Bang theory and cosmic fine-tuning favor the Christian doctrine of creation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology by R. Jared StaudtD. C. SchindlerThe Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology. By R. Jared Staudt. Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2022. Pp. xii + 409. $49.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-64585-167-7.Echoing and amplifying a theme from his predecessor, Benedict XVI was known for insisting that the deepest problem of our age, which has not only (...) distorted the culture of the West but has indeed in some ways infected the life of the Church itself, is the forgottenness of God. Recalling the “memory of God” is arguably what Benedict conceived to be the central mission of his papacy, and by that he meant recovering a sense of the primacy of God, not just in matters of private faith, but as a fundamental principle ordering the whole of human existence. In this respect, one can imagine that Benedict would have been heartened to see the new book by R. Jared Staudt, The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology, which draws not only on Joseph Ratzinger, but also Hans Urs von Balthasar, Christopher Dawson, and, most fundamentally, Thomas Aquinas, to show, indeed, that there is nothing more fundamental than religion.What prompts the need for such an effort is the pervasive sociological reduction of religion in the contemporary imagination to a culturally conditioned set of beliefs and practices that concern God, the divine, or in any event the “afterlife.” In other words, religion is wholly immanentized, understood as an essentially human contrivance, by which man attempts to relate himself to what he takes to be God. It is just this interpretation that lies behind the general assumption of the phenomenon of “religious pluralism”: the world is made up of a potentially infinite number of “different religions,” all of which must be “tolerated” (i.e., must be relegated to a circumscribed social space that renders them more or less politically innocuous) because they offer no rational basis for any sort of arbitration. In contrast to the more typically Protestant response to this “humanistic” reduction of religion, exemplified by Karl Barth, which would insist that Christianity is not “a religion,” Staudt attempts to recover a more robust tradition that recognizes both the deep natural roots of religion and the supernatural distinctiveness of Christianity. To do so, he wisely adopts what he calls a “ressourcement Thomist” approach, but what we might call a genuinely Catholic—and catholic—perspective, namely, one that affirms Thomas Aquinas as a culminating figure of the classical Christian tradition, rather than as one [End Page 685] current of that tradition that defines itself principally in contrast to other currents. In other words, Staudt reads Aquinas in light of Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and classical philosophy, on the one hand, and in positively disposed engagement with more recent thinkers, such as Ratzinger and Balthasar, on the other. In treating such a fundamental theme as religion, it is especially fitting to attempt to take a fundamental, rather than a “partisan,” approach.The book falls into three basic parts. The first part seeks, in three chapters, to lay out the basic principles of the argument. In chapter 1, Staudt contrasts the opposition Barth presents between religion and the revelation of Scripture, to Aquinas’s interpretation of religion, which integrates philosophy—in this case, Cicero—with Scripture. Chapter 2 considers another objection to Christian religion, this time from the other side, namely, Kant’s attempt to rethink religion from within the limits of reason, and therefore in separation from God. The third chapter sets up the book’s second part by considering religion “as an unfolding of law” (11), specifically, as a matter that, while rooted in natural law, must contend, in its historical enactment, with the distorting reality of sin and the redemption of grace. In other words, religion must be considered in its fundamental expression in the Old Law, and in its fulfillment in the New.The second part of the book investigates in more depth the specifically Christian reality of religion, again in three chapters. Chapter 4 presents religion as exemplified in the... (shrink)

In this book, Gavin Rae analyses the foundations of political life by undertaking a critical comparative analysis of the political theologies of Carl Schmitt and Emmanuel Levinas. In so doing, Rae contributes to key debates in contemporary political philosophy, specifically those relating to the nature of, and the relationship between, the theological, the political, and the ethical, as well as those questioning the existence of ahistoric metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological foundations. While the theological is often associated with belief (...) in a fixed foundation such as God or the truth of a religion, Rae identifies another sense rooted in epistemology. On this understanding, the ontological limitations of human cognition mean that, ultimately, human truth is based in faith and so can never be certain. The argument developed suggests that Levinas’ conception of the political is grounded in theology in the sense of religion, particularly the revelations of Judaism. For this reason, Levinas claims that the political decision is based on how to implement a prior religiously-inspired norm: justice. Schmitt, in contrast, develops a conception of the political rooted in epistemic faith to claim that the political decision is normless. While sympathetic to Schmitt’s conception of theology and its relationship to the political, Rae concludes by arguing that the emphasis Levinas places on responsibility is crucial to understanding the implications of this. The continuing relevance of Schmitt’s and Levinas’ political theologies is that they teach us that, while the political decision is ultimately normless, we bear an infinite responsibility for the consequences of this normless decision. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of Malebranche in Ernest Renan's Philosophical Development BENJAMIN ROUNTREE RENANHASBEENCALLEDwith some justification the "Malebranche du dix-neuvi~me si~cle." 1 In his praise of the seventeenth-century philosopher, Renan was unconciously inclined to call attention to the similarities between himself and Malebranche by pointing out qualities which they were apt to share. A thinker as sinuous as Renan was bound to appreciate the power of subtle reasoning in such a (...) work as the admirable Recherche de la V~rit6. In a certain sense Renan is even the heir of a spirit to which Malebranche gave fresh impetus. Like Malebranche, he inveighed against pedants, dilettantes, and idolators of antiquity; he turned his back on tradition to favor modem thought over ancient, and placed his faith in a world governed by knowledge and reason in which progress and human perfectibility promise man happiness. In his basic optimism, in his belief that man is capable of knowing truth, in his somewhat pantheistic mysticism, Renan joins hands with Malebranche across the eighteenth century. How well did Renan know Malebranche? What did he think of him? Did his opinion of him undergo any evolution? To find the answers to these questions one must go back to about 1840, when Renan, a.t seventeen, began his study of Malebranche. By the time he was twenty, Renan, under the guidance of M. Gosselin, who little suspected how great a contribution Malebranche would make to Renan's decision to leave the Church, was reading the philosopher with enthusiastic regularity. Indeed, the Oratorian had become "l'objet perp6tuel" of his reflections, he tells us. The speculative terminology of the Entretiens sur la M6taphysique and the M6ditations chrgtiennes echoed through his class compositions and notebooks. His ideas on the general action of Providence in the universe were already similar to those of this philosopher, who, "illustre" and "saint," soon became for him a kind of spiritual hero, a hero whose exemplary intellectual zeal drew Renan instinctively ever more deeply into the contemplative life, into.the fervent and determined quest for "Truth." This "penseur hardi" was destined to excite Renan's own paradoxical mind as "le plus beau r~veur et le plus terrible logicien" ever to exist.~ 1L. L~vy-Bruhl, "La Religion de Renan," Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique (A~pril,1923), p. 344. Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d'en]ance et de ieunesse, in Les Oeuvres completes d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann=L~vy, 1947), II, 843-846. All future references to Renan will be made from this edition unless otherwise specified. See also Lewis F. Mott, Ernest Renan (New York: D. Appleton, 1921), pp. 15-16; Jean Pommier, Renan (Paris: Perrin, 1923), p. 37; La Jeunesse clSricale d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1933), p. 138; "Les Lectures de Renan au sSminaire,"La Revue d'histoire litt6raire de la France (1934), p. 93. [47] 48 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY For a moment Malebranche, like Pascal, even helped delay Renan's loss of faith. The attempt of a Christian to satisfy the intelligence through vigorous application of Cartesian rationalism to theology and science fascinated the young student in 1843 as he read the Conversations chr~tiennes and the Recherche de la Vdritd. He eagerly believed that reason leads one to knowledge of God, that the search for Truth is the search for God. Thus, equating the Diety to Truth and retaining his belief in a providence evident in immutable natural law, Renan continued to accept the Catholic dogma, the Bible and revealed truth in a "general sense," as he says in his Souvenirs. After Renan's first soul-shattering year of philosophy Malebranche still stood alongside Pascal and Bossuet as a model of piety, as a "grand esprit," a profound intelligence capable of remaining genuinely Christian, a powerful thinker "qui dit sa messe route sa vie." a He appeared as one solution to Renan's own growing spiritual problem, for Malebranche's example seemed a way of retaining intellectual independence without leaving the Church. Here was a priest, Renan thought, who, in a time of steadily increasing ecclesiastical authority, had been able to live "peacefully" even as a member of a religious congregation without... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:What Does It Mean to Believe? Faith in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger by Daniel CardóJean-Paul JugeWhat Does It Mean to Believe? Faith in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger by Daniel Cardó (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020), xv + 116 pp.Father Daniel Cardó's book What Does It Mean to Believe? is a concise and penetrating synopsis of Joseph Ratzinger's theology of faith, especially "faith as an act" (7). (...) As any reader familiar with Ratzinger knows, the subject of faith or belief is the very axis on which his theology turns. Ratzinger identifies this question of belief as the impetus of his theological research: "I chose fundamental theology as my field because I wanted first and foremost to examine thoroughly the question: Why do we believe?" (13). Cardó has thus chosen the perfect topic to introduce readers to Ratzinger who might otherwise be too intimidated by the Pope emeritus's countless homilies, lectures, and writings. Yet, Cardó has not merely provided us with another introduction to Ratzinger; rather, we may justly apply the author's words regarding Ratzinger to this book and say that its "simplicity almost hides [its] erudition" (3). In this book, Cardó assembles what might be compared to a medieval catena or florilegium, as he gathers excerpts from a wide variety of Ratzinger's works and conveniently organizes them for the reader.From the outset, Cardó contextualizes his book by presenting faith in God as the only adequate response to the contemporary scandals within the Church. In this way, he aligns his position with Ratzinger's 2019 essay on the sexual abuse scandal, wherein the Pontiff writes: "Only where faith no longer determines the actions of man are such offenses possible.... Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God" (5). Thus, the origin of this book, explains Cardó, is his conviction that "understanding more deeply the richness of the act of believing can help renew our faith" (6). Following his introduction, Cardó divides his book intro three parts, each a different angle of approach to the act of faith.The first part situates the act of belief in the context of two contemporary challenges, agnosticism and relativism, and explains how doubt (not as an act of defiance but as the experience of uncertainty) is a necessary, rather than incompatible, component to trust in God. In this section, Cardó draws heavily from Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, which remains an accurate assessment of faith's place in a secular society a half-century after it was first delivered as a series of university lectures. Moreover, Cardó summarizes Ratzinger's argument that we must reclaim a notion of faith not as a subjective feeling or opinion, but as a mode of accessing and entrusting oneself to a reality that transcends the human [End Page 979] capacity to examine empirically or recreate it and is for this reason the only sure ground on which to base one's life. Agnosticism and relativism, the twin diseases of our era, deprive humans of their only reliable existential footing. Cardó writes: "Without truth, it is impossible to believe with certainty in anyone or anything. The common inability to trust and to have deep interpersonal relationships... are some of the characteristics of a society that believes that one cannot believe anymore" (34).In the second part of his book, Cardó considers the act of faith both as given by God and as received by humans. Just as God cannot be confined to human techne or faciens, neither can the act of faith be reduced to human effort; rather, Cardó writes, "faith is a gift that God gives to us,... [and] God's giving of the gift takes precedence over human initiative" (36). Faith, according to Cardó, is an "act that has the character of an answer: that is, it is a response to the initiative of God" (35). Cardó characterizes this response as encompassing the entirety of one's daily existence, which is carried out on the foundation of a logos that both causes and transcends human reason.The third and final section of the book describes faith as personal, integral, and ecclesial. In short... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AFTER VATICAN II INTRODUCTION IT HAS BECOME commonplace to observe that the doctrine of God is in crisis, an acknowledgement that is softened somewhat in discerning that this is less a crisis of faith itself than of the cultural mediation of faith. For some this is theological disaster, marking the loss of the traditional concept of God to the forces of atheism and secularism. To (...) others it is a liberating factor in that it signals the displacement of an alienating idea of God that clears the way for a long overdue theological reconstruction. One undeniable benefit has been a return of the doctrine of God to its rightful place of centrality in theological discourse--a privileged position it occupied in the 13th century thought of Aquinas and Bonaventure, in the 16th century thought of Luther and Calvin, one retained by Schleiermacher in the 19th century and regained by Karl Barth in the 20th century. Once again, God has become the focus of theological questioning. The difference lies in the way the question has shifted: now the burning issue is the absence or silence of God. THE NEW WAY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD Heretofore the starting point for religion and theology was Credo in unum Deum, the creedal distillate of the Christian Gospel. This was the Archimedian point of belief upon which depended anthropology, christology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, etc. Such is no longer the case due to the success of the atheist critique beginning with Feuerbach. The atheist challenge remains, either in the negative form of a massive indifference (here the very question of God's existence pales into insignificance, Sartre tells us, because it makes no difference 395 396 WILLIAM J, HILL, O.P. whatsoever to the quality of life: believers kill one another just as do unbelievers, and even do so in the name of God), or in the positive form of a religious humanism, even in some quarters of a theology without God. More radical still is what has been called " semantic atheism ", i.e. the contention that the very word "God" is without meaning, any meaning, that is, that can be validated in the public forum. Nietzsche's cry " God is dead " gives way now to the assertion that the very term "God" has no referent other than that arbitrarily given to it by believers; no objectively real referent, that is. What has occurred, in a spontaneous dialectic of history, whether for good or for bad, is the overthrow of classical theism, i.e. of that understanding in which God is the Supreme Being explaining the existence of everything else-a preunderstanding that precedes revelation and makes the latter credible. This Hellenic and Medieval notion of God was called into question when the cultural world that gave it birth ceased to exist. What was rejected was an objectifying of God, cognitively, by way of metaphysics. This could no longer be the point de depart for the doctrine of God; it was no longer possible to begin with an idea that was then subsequently given content from the sources of revelation. This rendered suspect any demonstrating or verification of God's existence-though it must be said that the atheist premise was equally incapable of validation. This precipitated a radical shift in the question about God. No longer was the concern "Does God exist? ", "Is he real? '', but rather now "Is God present and operative in human life?", and" Does that presence make a difference?". This was in fact a return to the biblical question concerning God's role in human history both individual and social, a question especially urgent in the post-exilic period. God now meant, not" He who is" (lpsum Esse Subsistens), nor even "He who is with us" (mit- Sein), but" He who will be who he will towards mankind", "He who will be the God of our future". The new note being sounded is that of futurity; somewhat muted is the note of divine transcendence, at least in the sense that transcendence was being deferred. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AFTER VATICAN II 397 The shift then was to the God of revelation, more concretely to the God encountered... (shrink)

This study is an attempt to examine the relationships between religious belief and the humanism of the Enlightenment in the philosophy of Hegel and of a group of thinkers who related to his thought in various ways during the 1840's. It begins with a study of the ways in which Hegel attempted to evolve a genuinely Christian humanism by his demonstration that the modern understanding of man as a free and rational subject derived its strength and validity from (...) the union of God and human existence in the incarnation. The rest of this study is con cerned with two different forms of opposition to Hegel: first, the criti cal discipleship of the Young Hegelians and Moses Hess, who insisted that Hegel's notion of Christian humanism was false because religious belief was necessarily inimical to a clear consciousness of social evil and the determination to abolish it; second, the religious opposition to the Enlightenment in the thought of Schelling and Kierkegaard, which emphasized God's transcendence to human reason and the insig nificance of secular history. In the years leading up to the revolution of 1848, Hegel's synthesis was rejected in favour of the assertion of atheistic humanism or religious otherworldliness. Chapter One, after discussing the young Hegel's critique of the social and political effects of Christianity, examines the union of religi ous belief, speculative philosophy and the rational state in Hegel's mature system. (shrink)

Herman Philipse puts forward a powerful new critique of belief in God. He examines the strategies that have been used for the philosophical defence of religious belief, and by careful reasoning casts doubt on the legitimacy of relying on faith instead of evidence, and on probabilistic arguments for the existence of God.

This is a follow-up to The Future of Belief, and it resumes and develops all the main themes of that very controversial book: the dehellenisation of philosophy and theology, the rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, the identification of man and consciousness, the radical mutability of dogma, the assertion that God does not exist since He is beyond being, and the attendant distinction between being and reality. There is, in fact, little or nothing that is new in the (...) way of thesis or conclusion; Professor Dewart is concerned rather with re-examining and strengthening the foundations of his position. The Future of Belief was a kind of manifesto addressed to the world at large; the present book is more technical, and seems to be addressed to philosophers and theologians: at least it is doubtful whether anybody else will have the patience and mental equipment to read it through. Even at that the book is heavy going, and the task of reading it is not sufficiently lightened by the realisation that something important is being said. This, however, is a personal judgment : a very competent Catholic scholar has already hailed the Foundations as the book that will dominate Christian thinking for the next decade or so. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious experience. He claims that (...) while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The secular ideals have impacted on the many aspects of our modern human life but the challenge of secularization is very much felt in the realm of religion especially in Christianity. We can observe that the more society modernizes the level of its religiosity lessens. With the dominance of science, politics and economics in rational discourses and the relevance of technology, the ideology of globalization and the attitude of consumerism and materialism, religious beliefs, practices, values and institutions are losing their (...) relevance to human life and society. Societies whose religious values are historically embedded in their social institutions are continuously moving away from their religious roots towards a nonreligious orientation. In this paper I focus on the challenge of secularization and secularism to religion specifically to the Christian belief in God. First, I show that although secularization is a recent phenomenon its philosophical roots can be traced back to the modern times where some Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers challenged the theocentric discourse of medieval thinkers. This set the stage for secularism as a counter discourse to the medieval belief in God. Second, that out of this modern thinking about God emerged two distinct attitudes towards the question of God – the attitude of the philosophers who although did not totally dismiss the notion of God reduce God to a mere idea or a product of human imagination, and on the other hand the attitude of the believers who continue to believe in the living God. Third, that although one can argue against the position of the non-believing philosophers and counter the position of secularism one appropriate response is self-criticism, that is, for the believers to take a hard look on themselves and see if God and religion are still relevant in their personal and social affairs. (shrink)

Meyer Cornelis Smit taught history and philosophy in the Free University at Amsterdam for a quarter century. Toward a Christian Conception of History presents the harvest of his scholarly output. The relation between God and history and the problems inherent in articulating that relation in a manner consistent with historic Christian belief and modern ideas of historical existence is the central theme of Smit's writing. Smit discusses the influence of one's world view on the practice and (...) appreciation of history, the significance of the question of the meaning of history as an answer to the a-historical-mindedness of our time, and the fundamental flaw of the modernist theory of knowledge and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Meyer Cornelis Smit taught history and philosophy in the Free University at Amsterdam for a quarter century. Toward a Christian Conception of History presents the harvest of his scholarly output. The relation between God and history and the problems inherent in articulating that relation in a manner consistent with historic Christian belief and modern ideas of historical existence is the central theme of Smit's writing. Smit discusses the influence of one's world view on the practice and (...) appreciation of history, the significance of the question of the meaning of history as an answer to the a-historical-mindedness of our time, and the fundamental flaw of the modernist theory of knowledge and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Judaism was a mythical, strongly tribal religion with anthropomorphic God in which the leading element was the concept of a covenant between God and the exceptional “chosen people.” Such views produced a strong emphasis on tribal unity and attitude of election and moral superiority vis-à-vis the rest of humanity. Philo must have felt inadequacy of the ancient Judaism and its limitations to compete for the minds of Hellenes with their universalistic philosophical thought. Philo represented a trend in Jewish ideology which (...) attempted, in confrontation with the Greek culture, to assert itself as a valid cosmic view to support the existence of a community. He attempted to reevaluate Hebrew ideology found in the scriptures adopting Greek metaphysical, ethical, and religious doctrines to Judaism.The focus of this article is on Philo’s introduction of the Greek concept of Logos, in the modified version of Xenocrates into Judaism. Philo developed this concept further and transformed from a metaphysical entity into an extension of a divine and transcendental anthropomorphic being and mediator between God and men. Thus Philo produced a synthesis of both Hebrew and Greek traditions developing concepts that were used for future Hellenistic interpretation of messianic Hebrew thought by providing foundations for Christianity. (shrink)

With the emergence of modern physics a conflict became apparent between the Principle of Sufficient Cause and the Principle of Physical Causal Closure. Though these principles are not logically incompatible, they could no longer be considered to be both true; one of them had to be false. The present paper makes use of this seldom noticed conflict to argue on the basis of considerations of comparative rationality for the truth of causal statements that have at least some degree of philosophico-theological (...) relevance and can be taken to indicate ( not prove) the existence of God. The paper’s comparatively modest aim is to establish belief in the existence of God as a rational metaphysical option, not as a rational obligation. In its final section, enriched causal considerations lead to an indication ( not proof) of God as that which guarantees the unified continuance of the physical world. (shrink)

Reconciliation is a biblical concept, wherein God reconciled himself with humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The concept of reconciliation remains complicated in nature, and for the church to be an agent of reconciliation, prescriptive elements such as confession, repentance, forgiveness, restoration, restitution, mercy, truth, justice, peace and reconciliation will be discussed. The elements needed for the church to be an agent of change are action-driven and include a vision for change, the acceptance of responsibility, the acceptance (...) of failure, repentance, confession, forgiveness, action towards change justice, peace and mercy, and reconciliation. The aim of this article is to describe a possible process for reconciliation through change agency by using the biblical perspective of the concept as a foundation. The research will then focus on different perspectives of change and the church’s role as a change agent to bring about positive change in the transformation of existing and persistent forms of injustice that are problematic in society. Many theories of change exist; I will briefly refer to some theories of change and will then move on to sketching the elements that are necessary for the church to fulfil its calling as a change agent towards reconciliation as a core biblical principle. (shrink)

This essay introduces central features of classical Hindu reflection on the existence and nature of God by examining arguments presented in the Nyāyamañjarī of Jayanta Bhatta (9th century CE), and the Nyāyasiddhāñjana of Vedānta Deśika (14th century CE). Jayanta represents the Nyāya school of Hindu logic and philosophical theology, which argued that God’s existence could be known by a form of the cosmological argument. Vedānta Deśika represents the Vedånta theological tradition, which denied that God’s existencecould be known by (...) reason, gave primacy to the revelatory texts known as the Upanisads, and firmly subordinated theological reasoning to the acceptance of revelation. Jayanta and Deśika are respected representatives of their traditions whose clear, systematic positions illumine traditional Hindu understandings of “God” and the traditional Hindu debates about God’s existence and nature. Attention to their positions highlights striking common features shared by Hindu and Christian theologies, and offers a substantial basis for comparative reflection on the Christian understanding of God’s existence and nature, and the roles of reason and revelation in knowledge of God. (shrink)

Over the last 50 years, the English philosopher Richard Swinburne (b. 1934) has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God (natural theology). His major philosophical contributions lie in the areas of philosophy of science and philosophy of religion. From a general philosophical point of view, Swinburne stimulated much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion. He has also played a role (a) in the recent debate over the mind-body problem, and (...) (b) in the debate on libertarian free will. Swinburne is also noted as one of the foremost current Christian apologists, arguing that faith in Christian God is rational and coherent in a rigorous philosophical sense. My discussion with Richard Swinburne revisits the analytic and non-analytic philosophy of religion. Above all, however, it aims at shedding light on Swinburne’s thought regarding some important philosophical issues, such as the Kantian arguments on the existence of God, the relationship between ratio and one’s immediate experience of God (empireia), “strong possibilities” the problem of the existence of evil in the world, but also the theological significance and value of Orthodoxy in contrast to other Christian creeds or even religions. (shrink)

In philosophy of religion, there are few more frequently visited topics than the problem of evil, which has attracted considerable interest since the time of Epicurus. It is well known that the problem of evil involves responding to the apparent tension between 1) belief in the existence of a good, all powerful, all knowing God and 2) the existence of evil—such as personal suffering embodied in the experience of cancer. While a great deal has been written concerning (...) abstract philosophical theories that academics use to explain the existence of evil, much less has been written about how religious lay people make sense of evil and suffering. What explanations, meanings, and perceptions do they hold concerning the religious significance of evil? What can theologians and philosophers learn from these lay experiences? Our interdisciplinary team designed an experiment to identify the religious significance that personal suffering held for a group of religious cancer sufferers. We interviewed twenty-nine self-identified evangelical Christians who had received a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lives for our experiment. Since all interviewees identified as Christians, it was expected that they would assent to belief in a theistic God. It was also expected that each interviewee would assent the existence of evil and see their cancer experience as a dramatic and personal instance of an evil event. The explicit existential threat of cancer guarantees that the individual has much at stake in the experience. Furthermore, the pain and suffering that typically accompanies either the cancer itself or cancer treatments make it a compelling example of evil experienced in a very personal way. Finally, even when successfully treated, the ongoing threat of potentially fatal recurrence looms over the sufferer for years to come. We asked 17 questions related to the religious significance of their cancer experience in each interview and coded these interviews looking for five distinct types of explanations for/meaning of evil: trusting God in mystery, free will, moral development, spiritual growth, and growth in human relationships/community. These categories were meant to correspond loosely to five philosophical responses to the existence of evil.Our interviews included several important results. First, 79% of interviewees had at least one answer that fit into the ‘trust God in mystery’ category of responses with 48% using this category of responses as their most frequently cited theme. This result could be interpreted as a kind of generic theodical response: God has a good, but unknown reason for allowing evil/suffering. Alternatively, another possible interpretation is that at least some of these interviewees intuited something similar to skeptical theism, since it claims that if one understands the type of God proposed by theism and possesses an accurate view of human cognitive capacities, it is apparent that there is no real tension to be resolved between theism and the existence of evil. Some of our interviewees seemed to believe not only that the answer to why evil exists is mysterious, but that they simply could not have the necessary perspective to judge what kinds of purposes God might have for allowing this painful episode in their lives.While it was unsurprising that religious sufferers would find it important to trust God in ambiguous difficult circumstances, more surprisingly, we found that 52% of our respondents did not judge that their cancer experience was at all in tension with their religious beliefs. Whereas a broad range of philosophers and theologians acknowledge that there is at least an apparent conflict between the existence of a good, all-powerful God and the existence of evil, most of our interviewees did not even perceive an apparent tension between theistic beliefs and their painful cancer experiences that would be in need of additional reconciliation.There are at least two ways this result might be interpreted. First, our interviewees might hold additional beliefs that make the existence of evil easier for them to accept. After all, these interviewees were not ‘bare theists’ who held only to the existence of God, but presumably held a broad range of religious beliefs which may already serve to reconcile the existence of evil: that growing closer to God is more important than earthly life itself, that in evil in this life allows us a greater appreciation of a blessed eternity, or simply that ‘God works for our good in mysterious ways.’ Thus, a fully developed Christian worldview may already accommodate the existence of evil in a way not fully appreciated by philosophers.Another possible interpretation is that at least some of our interviewees were not adequately reflective to perceive the tension between their religious beliefs and their experience of suffering. There is at least some reason to doubt this explanation as an overarching interpretation of this result since our interviewees were generally well educated with the median participant holding at least a Bachelor’s degree, and most were ongoing participants in a cancer support group ensuring long-term ongoing engagement with their cancer experience.A final significant finding is that a high portion of our interviewees, 83% reported specific examples of beneficial personal growth—moral, spiritual, or relational— that resulted from their cancer experience. When asked about their cancer experience’s broad effect upon their lives in these areas they volunteered at least one example of a benefit they received in these areas. Depending on one’s accompanying value theory and whether such benefits might have been otherwise achieved, they might provide a morally sufficient reason for the existence of suffering. Our interviewees frequently described experiencing the kind of benefits at the heart of John Hick’s soul making theodicy and Eleonore Stump’s ‘spiritual growth’ theodicy, providing at least some corroborating evidence for such views. Experiences common to our interviewees were similar to what such theodicies would predict. (shrink)

One of the theological disagreements in Christianity is the legitimacy of infant baptism. It was not discussed in the early period of Christianity. Nevertheless, it is one of the problems that have been debated especially since the post-reform period. Debates about infant baptism create differences in Christianity. Churches accepting infant baptism, espe¬cially the Catholic Church, acknowledge it as a tradition that has been practiced for thou¬sands of years. According to them, children were baptized by Jesus and the Church Fathers kept (...) doing this ritual. However, most of the Protestant Churches, like Anabaptists, criticize infant baptism as it does not happen based on free will. They claim that such people should get baptized again. According to them, Jesus did not baptize infants and the biblical texts, which are shown as a source of infant baptism, indicate that either Jesus blessed babies or baptized adults. Therefore, theological debates about infant baptism have continued in Christianity. The article discusses the historical process of infant baptism and the arguments presented by different groups about this discussion. The main framework of the article is the discussions between groups about biblical texts and religious identification, especially the post-reform period. Infant baptism is an important issue because it includes modern discussions about differences among churches, Bible interpretation, will, and mind. Since there is no specific study on infant baptism in our country, we can say that the article will contribute to the studies of the history of religions.Summary: The sacrament is one of the controversial topics among Christian churches. It has been discussed structure of the sacraments as well as the legitimacy of these practices throughout the history. Infant baptism is another example over legitimacy debate about the sacraments. Infant baptism is a key topic because it involves fundamental doctrines like salvation, faith, and original sin and conflicts among churches.This study addresses the historical process of infant baptism and the arguments presented by different groups regarding the debates of its legitimacy. It aims to shed light on one of the current debates of various groups in the post-reform period, especially among the Protestants. Initially, we discuss the value of baptism in Christian theology, then the histori¬cal process of infant baptism, and finally the arguments of groups that accept and do not accept infant baptism. Although there are various studies about baptism in our country, there is no specific study assessing infant baptism. Therefore, we think that this paper will augment the existing literature in the field.Baptism is the most meaningful sacrament in Christianity as it is an indicator of being a Christian and the first step of the way to salvation for Christians. It is also a unifying sacra¬ment because it is accepted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Churches. Catholics and Orthodox Churches agree on the seven sacraments (baptism, con¬firmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, marriage, and holy orders) with a few exceptions. However, since the Protestants adopt an understanding of religion based upon the Bible, they only accept the baptism and Eucharist mentioned in the Bible as a sacrament. Although the Protestants agree on baptism, they have opposing views about infant baptism. The only source between the Protestant Churches about infant baptism is the Bible. These groups accept only Biblical texts as a legitimate source, not the Church fathers. However, the debate on whether the references in the Bible refer to the baptism of babies or the baptism of adults has reached to today. Since adults were baptized during the spread of Christianity, there was no significant debate about infant baptism in the early period. Generally, Church Fathers did not state infant bap¬tism as a systematic sacrament, but rather as a spiritual blessing. Therefore, baptism was accepted as a ritual that involves the infant, adult, and patient baptism in Christian litera¬ture. However, with the emergence of some heretic groups against infant baptism, the meaning of infant baptism and adult baptism has been used differently by Christians. As a result of the first discussions between heretic groups and the Church Fathers, some defense attempts of infant baptism have started in the Christian world. On the one hand, theologians struggled against those who are against infant baptism; on the other hand, the Church de¬cided to support infant baptism in councils. It was accepted that babies should be baptized even if they cannot speak during the sacrament and cannot answer questions about faith. It became widespread after Christianity was accepted as an official religion by Rome, and it was officially accepted by the Catholic church in the 13th century. Infant baptism discus¬sions have increased again after the Reform. While Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congressional churches accept infant baptism; groups such as Baptists, Pentecostalists, Anabaptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Last-Day Saints are against infant baptism.According to churches practicing infant baptism, babies should be baptized as soon as pos¬sible for God's divine grace and salvation. However, the churches that oppose infant baptism claim that this is a meaningless reason. According to them, baptism was only performed at Easter and Pentecost in the early period and even a candidate who wanted to be Christian was tested for a length of time. This practice reveals the connection of baptism with wisdom and faith. They claim that baptism is a meaningful and dogmatic action, not an ordinary practiceç Therefore, infant baptism, which is not based on reason, weakens faith. These churches point out that this ritual is deceptive, and it will lose children's faith over time since it is not supported by faith. They also criticize the idea that this baptism will make the person a member of the public. In this regard, they emphasize that members of the current society no longer live in villages and do not consist of groups recognizing each other. Thereby, It is clear that the membership of the current society has lost its sociological meaning in the modern society.Criticisms of these churches refusing infant baptismhave become more noteworthy in the recent period by the contributions of authors, Karl Barth (b. 1966) and Emil Brunner (d. 1966). All these criticisms focus on the fact that infant baptism is not based on the essential references of religion, but rather on the practices of church fathers. Therefore, they argue that families, who believe but not investigate, baptized babies only for the tradition. In other words, people care about society, not religious beliefs, but according to these groups, this is meaningless anxiety. These discussions reveal infant baptism is not only theological debate, but also socio-cultural.In our opinion, most of the references in the texts shown as evidence for infant baptism point to the inseparable bond between God and children, like in the Old Testament. We think that claim of these groups that faith requires a level of consciousness is a consistent criticism. In this context, it can be stated that the criticisms of the infant baptism in the post-reform period are effective and that groups who believe in this baptism could not respond to these criticisms through sacred texts and rational proofs. (shrink)

A recent development in the philosophy of religion has been the attempt to justify belief in God using Bayesian confirmation theory. My dissertation critically discusses two prominent spokesmen for this approach--Richard Swinburne and J. L. Mackie. Using probabilistic confirmation theory, these philosophers come to wildly divergent conclusions with respect to the hypothesis of theism; Swinburne contends that the evidence raises the overall probability of the hypothesis of theism, whereas Mackie argues that the evidence disconfirms the existence of God. (...) After a careful analysis of the individual authors, this dissertation critically examines the assumptions of the project. The authors consider arguments for the existence of God separately--the cosmological argument, the argument from design, apparent miracles, the problem of evil, and arguments from religious experience--and then conjoin them to assess the cumulative effect of the arguments. The assumptions are that the probability calculus may be interpreted for a successful inductive argument for or against the existence of God, that inference to best explanation is applicable to the justification of religious belief, that the justification of belief in God is analogous to the justification of a scientific theory, and that a classical foundationalist conception of rationality is correct. It is the contention of this dissertation that all of these assumptions are incorrect. All of the major interpretations of the probability calculus are examined and it is argued that there are either no interpretations for the probability assignments or no interpretations which will advance an argument for or against the existence of God. It is also argued that the usual methods for interpreting the explanatory power of theism will not determine any non-zero probabilities; however, density measuring will provide a non-zero interpretation. In the final chapter it is argued that a subjective Bayesian conception of rationality is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of rationality and that classical foundationalism is self-referentially inconsistent. An alternative approach to the rationality of religious belief is offered that proceeds along Reidian and Plantingan lines, belief in God is properly basic. (shrink)

The first half of the 20th century witnessed the development of the classic eugenics. Some countries in Europe and the USA of different historical past, cultures and degree of development were universally attracted by the eugenic ideology. This raises few questions concerning the basis of its universal attractiveness for masses and its success. This article answers those questions indicating strong religious-like belief in the myth which served as a base for the eugenical way of thinking being older than this (...) thought. This myth narrates a story about the existence of “real people” who lived in the past, yet unfavourable circumstances caused their degradation, but who—with the assistance of physicians technocrats of the new society and through medical procedures—may be reborn. This paper aims at the reconstruction of the myth on the basis of the writings of Plato, Campanella and Nietzsche. As examples of its “realization” of the myth, I provide the activities of the institutions like Lebensborn houses in Germany and Nobel Sperm Bank in the USA. (shrink)

In this book, renowned philosopher Anthony Kenny focuses on one of the central questions in the philosophy of religion: is the belief in God and faith in the divine word rational? Surveying what has been said on the topic by such major recent thinkers as Wittgenstein and Platinga, Kenny contructs his own account of what he calls "the intellectual virtue of reasonable belief which stands between skepticism and credulity," which he then applies to the Christian doctrine of (...) faith. Kenny also addresses related questions such as the existence and nature of God and the problem of evil in a world created by an omnipotent being. A fascinating exploration of a subject presented in clear, accessible language, What is Faith? is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand a debate that has now raged for two thousand years. (shrink)