Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy begins by presenting Plantingas essay, and the chapters that follow address issues in three traditional areas of interest to philosophers: epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.

Some facts about life on earth appear to support theism. For example, the complexity, value, and fragility of intelligent life on earth make its existence surprising on what many consider to be the most plausible atheistic hypotheses; yet it is just the sort of thing one would expect to exist if theism were true. Theism does not, however, appear to fit as well with certain other facts about life, especially facts about the history and condition of life (...) on earth. This chapter focuses on some of these other facts and examines their impact, not on the credibility of theism in general, but instead on the credibility of specifically Christian theism. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to bring to light two sources of tension for Christian theists who endorse the principle of unrestricted composition, that necessarily, for any objects, the xs, there exists an object, y, such that the xs compose y. In Value, we argue that a composite object made of wholly valuable parts is at least as valuable as its most valuable part, and so the mereological sum of God and a wholly valuable part would be at (...) least as valuable as God; but Christian theism arguably demands that no concrete object other than God can be as valuable as God. And in Creation, we argue that the conjunction of theism and unrestricted composition, together with the claim that every concrete entity that is numerically distinct from God is created by God, implies that God is created by God. We conclude by examining the prospects of restricting the thesis of unrestricted composition to the domain of material or spatiotemporal objects as a way to sidestep the above arguments against the conjunction of Christian theism and unrestricted composition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Introduction * Evolution * Flourishing and Floundering * Conclusion * Notes * References * Further Reading.

Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)

This book offers a compelling examination of the problem of evil and the doctrine of sin. It engages with and advances extant discussions on the topic by drawing together philosophical arguments, theological reflections, scientific evidence, Biblical exegesis, and real-life stories. The chapters provide a comprehensive evaluation of objections by anti-theodicists and atheists, and bring recent philosophical work concerning the arguments for Christian theism and advances in science and religion to bear on the discussion. The author defends the Cosmic (...) Conflict Theodicy against philosophical and theological objections, and uses it together with the Connection Building Theodicy, Adamic Fall Theodicy, arguments for divine hiddenness, and Afterlife Theodicy to address the vexing problem of horrendous evil. (shrink)

Constructivist positions in meta-ethics are on the rise in recent years. Similarly, there has been a flurry of activity amongst theistic philosophers examining the relationship between God and normative facts. But so far as I am aware, these two literatures have almost never intersected with each other. Constructivists have said very little about God, and theists working on religious ethics have said very little about constructivist views in meta-ethics. In this paper, I draw some connections between the two literatures, and (...) hopefully will inspire others to continue to investigate this sadly neglected area. My main conclusion will be that theists should be hesitant about accepting any of the leading versions of constructivism in the contemporary meta-ethics literature. (shrink)

MANY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEISTS CLAIM THAT THEY HAVE IDENTIFIED (OR AT LEAST HAVE THE CAPACITY TO IDENTIFY) OBSERVABLE PHENOMENA AS MIRACULOUS. I ARGUE THAT, ALTHOUGH THE CHRISTIAN THEIST CAN SUCCESSFULLY CIRCUMVENT THE STANDARD HUMEAN EPISTEMOLOGICAL BARRIER, HE CAN STIPULATE NO OBJECTIVE CRITERIA FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF A MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCE, EVEN IF IT IS GRANTED THAT THE CHRISTIAN GOD EXISTS AND THAT THE CHRISTIAN CANON ACCURATELY DESCRIBES HOW THIS BEING RELATES TO OUR PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. I CONCLUDE, ACCORDINGLY, (...) THAT ’MIRACLE’ MUST NECESSARILY REMAIN A SUBJECTIVE CONCEPT FOR THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEIST. (shrink)

I argue that Traditional Christian Theism is inconsistent with Truthmaker Maximalism, the thesis that all truths have truthmakers. Though this original formulation requires extensive revision, the gist of the argument is as follows. Suppose for reductio Traditional Christian Theism and the sort of Truthmaker Theory that embraces Truthmaker Maximalism are both true. By Traditional Christian Theism, there is a world in which God, and only God, exists. There are no animals in such a world. (...) Thus, it is true in such a world that there are no zebras. That there are no zebras must have a truthmaker, given Truthmaker Maximalism. God is the only existing object in such a world, and so God must be the truthmaker for this truth, given that it has a truthmaker. But truthmakers necessitate the truths they make true. So, for any world, at any time at which God exists, God makes that there are no zebras true. According to Traditional Christian Theism, God exists in our world. In our world, then, it is true: there are no zebras. But there are zebras. Contradiction! Thus, the conjunction of Traditional Christian Theism with Truthmaker Necessitation and Truthmaker Maximalism is inconsistent. (shrink)

This textbook chapter briefly introduces and defend a way of thinking about the relationship between God and morality. Section one explains how “God” is meant to be understood. Section two then introduces the position that morality depends in some way upon God. Section three turns to some of the leading arguments for this view. Finally, we will conclude with the most powerful challenge to this approach, namely what has come to be called the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Theism maintains that God is a moralagent. Classical Christian theism also maintains that God is unable tosin. The latter claim is entailed by the proposition that the being whois God is essentially God, and this proposition is one which would beendorsed by all or most classical theologians. It would thus appearthat the claim that God is unable to sin is an important, if notfundamental, part of classical Christian theism. It follows that, at acrucial point, classical (...) Christian theism is incompatible with theassumption that moral agency logically involves the ability to sin -an assumption which is an essential part of the free will defense asthat defense is normally presented. Since (as I suggested earlier) theuse of the free will defense also plays a very important role in clas-sical Christian theism, classical Christian theism would appear toexhibit a major incoherance. While the difficulty can be overcome byemploying a modified version of the free will defense, the modifiedversion is not as attractive as the original. (shrink)

These essays exhibit explanation and argument regarding some of the possible answers to these fundamental questions in moral philosophy.

InThe God of the Philosophers Anthony Kenny argues that the concept of God which has dominated Christian philosophical theology is incoherent. I don’t think he shows that it is incoherent, but he certainly raises a question worthy of our curiosity: is it in fact possible to demonstrate that this concept involves a contradiction?

The relation between morality and religion has often been discussed. However, it is not always recognized that the relation varies greatly according to the variety of religions. I shall here be concerned solely with Christian theism in its traditional form. I take the latter to signify, essentially, belief in a morally perfect Creator who exists in the threefold form of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and who, in the person of the Son, became man in Christ for our (...) salvation. I thus exclude from consideration all non-theistic accounts of God or the Absolute. Also I shall consider, not simply bare theism of the kind that Christians share with Jews and Muslims, but also the distinctively Christian form of theism that is generated by distinctively Christian revelation. Many otherwise sound descriptions of the relation between morality and theism are defective because they fail to consider the distinctively Christian contribution to the theistic concept of God and of his relation to the world. (shrink)

John Hare’s central objections to secular theories of motivation arise via his ‘hateful nephew’ example, which, I argue, obscures important issues of scope:Who must be motivated (some/all)?How frequently must they be motivated (most/all of the time)?What is the extent of their motivation (act/tend to act)?Hare must adopt the stronger readings of these questions if his case against secular accounts of motivation is to succeed. But holding any account of motivationto such standards is misguided. Furthermore, Hare’s own theistic account of motivation (...) cannot meet the standards he applies to his primary secular interlocutor. This study opens into wider terrain as I (i) identify which of myriad moral gaps an account of motivation is alleged to bridge; (ii) explain how the dialectic between Hare and Shelly Kagan depends upon unarticulated assumptions about judgment externalism and judgment internalism; and (iii) criticize appeals to motivational versions of ‘ought implies can’ principles. (shrink)

In this work, I argue for the overall explanatory superiority of philosophical naturalism to a theistic worldview. Pursuant to that, this piece develops and defends a functionalist theory of explanation, which is then used in addressing several particular topics in the philosophy of religion: the law-governed nature of the world, the intelligibility of the world, alleged "fine-tuning", reports of religious experiences and the occurrence of evils. In each case, I argue that a naturalistic explanation is as good or superior to (...) a theistic worldview in helping us to understand such phenomena. Some original parts of the work include developing out a naturalistic explanation of religious experiences grounded in normal human perceptual and cognitive fallacies, an explanatory critique of several traditional theodicies, and a rebuttal of contemporary fine-tuning arguments on the basis of their reliance on unestablished assumptions that add no explanatory improvement. (shrink)

Unchanging God -- Simple God -- Simple God lost -- Eternal creator -- One God, three persons.

H. P. Owen; VII—The Evidence for Christian Theism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1.

Explores the period of time when the doctrines of the Christian Church were finding their connection with and relation to the speculations of Greek philosophy.

After an opening chapter, in which he defends an objectivist theory of moral discourse against various forms of emotivism and pragmatism by locating the ordinary import of moral ascriptions in their reference to persons rather than situations, Owen proceeds to generalize this requirement so that moral imperatives are regarded as making sense only if they issue from a personal source. "Making sense" admittedly does not mean that there is any logical contradiction involved in denying that a relation of persons is (...) presupposed by moral conduct and implied by moral discourse; negatively put, stoicism is the only consistent alternative to theism: but stoicism neglects evidence for the existence of God that it need not. Thus, while there is a "gap" between the premisses and the conclusion of the moral argument which can only be bridged by a "leap," this "leap" of faith is far from being blind. While most of this book amounts simply to an incisive and extremely well-ordered restatement of the Kantian moral argument for the existence of God, the author's use of the notion of person and pari passu community as integral features of the argument revise it sufficiently to give it a prima facie better based cognitive appeal than Kant's.—E. A. R. (shrink)

TO BE A THEIST, THE AUTHOR ARGUES, IS TO CONSTRUE THE WORLD AS A WHOLE ON THE MODEL OF A RATIONAL AGENT’S ACTIVITIES. CHRISTIAN THEISM IS CHARACTERISED BY PARTICULAR CLAIMS AS TO MATTERS OF FACT: GOD IS (A) THAT WHICH IS SAID TO MAKE ALL THINGS, (B) THE OBJECT OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, (C) THAT WHICH WILL ULTIMATELY BRING ABOUT A STATE OF JUSTICE, (D) THAT WHICH BROUGHT IT ABOUT THAT JESUS LIVED, DIED AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD. MEYNELL (...) CONTENDS THAT THIS IS A LOGICALLY COHERENT IDEA AND SHOWS WITH REFERENCE TO THE DEPENDENT CONCEPTS OF GRACE, EVIL, PRAYER, PROVIDENCE, MIRACLE AND THE AFTER-LIFE THAT THE CHRISTIAN FAITH HAS ESCHATOLOGICAL TRUTH-CONDITIONS. (BP). (shrink)

The author claims to adopt a strictly empirical method, but he also claims that human experience is metaphysical. Christian thinkers, he holds, too often hesitate to admit that we have knowledge not just of God's effects, but of God himself in his effects. That God is indescribable is as it should be. There is too much talk about God -- whereas a knowledge of him can be assured only by bringing the mind to bear upon the transcendent elements in (...) our experience, the meeting place of God and man. From this point of view, the moral evidence for God (or rather of God) proves to be fundamental. This volume contains an outline of the traditional Christian metaphysics, overlaid by scholasticism and renewed for our time by (especially) Maurice Blondel, in which many theological emphases now current can be reconciled. What we need is not less metaphysics but more and better metaphysics. And the dividing line between metaphysics and mysticism, as Gabriel Marcel has said, is not easy to draw. Also this work contains detailed critiques of a good many recent writers. [Book jacket]. (shrink)

In this text, in discussion with J. L. Schellenberg, I develop a position that I call Christian ultimism. This position lies between Schellenberg’s simple ultimism and traditional Christian theism. Christian ultimism is more apophatic than personalistic, though it more clearly emphasizes the presence of a supra-personal and communicative element in the Ultimate Reality. The proposed position is resistant to a philosophical version of the hiddenness argument, but it must answer to the challenge of the theological problem (...) of the lack of universal access to Christian revelation. Schellenberg’s idea of deep time both magnifies this problem and provides the tools for solving it: the awareness of deep time does not allow us to judge the future, but it does allow us to hope for a revelation accessible to all at the eschatological end of time. (shrink)

What views are the primary target of Moore’s fallacy and his open question argument? A common answer, I suspect, would be naturalistic approaches to morality. It is the naturalistic fallacy, after all. But in fact both his fallacy and his argument apply just as straightforwardly to supernatural approaches to morality as well. In this chapter, I focus specifically on how philosophers of religion have tried to grounds morality in God in ways that are clearly relevant to Moore’s project.

This winsome and accessible apologetics book for a new generation makes the case that Christianity offers a compelling explanatory framework for making sense of our world.

After one has read for a while in the history of Western thought, one becomes cognizant of how many great intellects, believers and non-believers alike, have presented compelling examinations of Christian theism. And until recently, religious skeptics, following in the wake of David Hume, assumed that the ship of Christian philosophy of religion was too damaged to sail again. However, something unexpectedly emerged recently from the weathered ship, even after many pilots advised cautious hugging the shores, especially (...) in light of the ‘death of God’ storms of the 1960’s. Many abandoned the ancient mother ship, some escaping on rafts, lifeboats, or flotsam, transferring to modern vessels, such as SS Darwin, Freud, Marx, or Nietzsche. Still, a number of sailors stayed on board the ancient craft, and responded to the latter secularist fleet, honing their skills as navigators, first mates, and lookouts, so as to safeguard the ancient ship from secularist vessel forays.The anthology under re .. (shrink)