bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Christianity among the Religions in the Encyclopedia of Religion
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: October 2008

The place of Christianity in a work such as the Encyclopedia of Religion is an uncomfortable one. The work is, after all, largely the product of Western scholars operating in a culture now widely thought to have abandoned much of its Christian inheritance. How does one in such circumstances fulfil the editorial desire to be evenhanded, to treat all religious phenomena as far as possible ‘objectively’? By giving Fairies a longer entry than Cyril of Alexandria, for example? Or, to take a more serious example, by seeing to it that the Eastern church gains a fair proportion of space, thus giving Cyril I, patriarch, 1570/7–1638, more space than Cyril of Alexandria, theologian and bishop? Such points are an indication of the immense difficulty facing editors of a work such as this.
India and Beyond: The Religions of India in the Encyclopedia of Religion
Authors: Hardy Friedhelm
Published: October 2008

The religions of Indian origin occupy considerable space in the Encyclopedia. There are literally hundreds of articles, some quite extensive, that deal with the relevant material. Such a generous treatment need not come as a surprise. The editor in chief was the late Mircea Eliade, the author of a highly influential work on yoga; he himself honoured the Encyclopedia with the entry on the same subject. Moreover, in any global account of religion the Indian traditions ought to figure prominently, given their enormous influence all over Asia.
Islam and the Religions of Iran in the Encyclopedia of Religion
Authors: Baldick Julian
Published: October 2008

In the Encyclopedia of Religion the articles on Islam and the religions of Iran prompt very different reactions. On the Islamic side a third are good, a third bad, and the rest either of indifferent quality or merely straightforward, as is natural in a work of reference. But not only are the bad articles extremely misleading: they are cast in a framework which cannot fail to produce a seriously distorted overall perspective. For the religions of Iran, however, we are given an admirable series of contributions by Gherardo Gnoli, and it is a great pleasure for a British reader to find, in English, a balanced summary of the results of recent Continental scholarship in this field.
Christian Spirituality and Mysticism in the Encyclopedia of Religion
Authors: Jantzen Grace M.
Published: October 2008

The great increase of interest in the study of spirituality and mysticism is reflected in the large number of articles that the Encyclopedia of Religion devotes to various aspects of this topic. As one would expect, there are long entries for ‘Mysticism’ and ‘Christian Spirituality’ and ‘Religious Experience’. In addition to these broad categories, attention is given to more specific aspects of spirituality such as ‘Asceticism’, ‘Silence’, ‘Prayer’, ‘Meditation’, and so on. This is complemented by entries on many of the spiritual giants of the Christian tradition, both ancient and modern. I shall begin by discussing these articles on individuals, and go on to examine the more general articles later in the review. I shall suggest that, despite many merits, both sorts of entry display an editorial policy about which serious questions must be raised.
In Praise of Mindfulness
Authors: McGhee Michael
Published: October 2008

I have meditated regularly, following simple Buddhist procedures, for more than ten years, and that seems just about long enough for me to start to offer some preliminary account of it, despite the limitations of my progress and experience, and the difficulty of describing the more intimate and less explored reaches of the mind. I think I have learned enough to say that through prolonged spiritual practice one arrives at the springs of action and at root attitudes, and is in a position to be possessed of them in a purer, stronger form. It may seem difficult to see how the practice of philosophy can be reconciled with the practice of meditation, but I shall describe how I have tried to do so, and say how I think the one bears on the other. In fact all I can do in the present paper is to attempt a limited discussion of moral psychology, and its relation to the foundations of ethics, a discussion, I must concede now, in which I waver uncertainly in my expression of the key issues. But I think that I cannot delay indefinitely, and if I can sketch out the terrain even roughly, better work on it can come later. My references to mindfulness and to meditation will be elementary and not systematic, though adequate, I hope, to what I want to say about ethics. What I am writing in praise of is mindfulness, or awareness, which I take to be a virtue that is developed through the practice of meditation or some comparable contemplative activity. I am also concerned for the future direction of philosophy. It seems to me that our attaining to this virtue will transform its practice, so that it moves closer to traditional expectations, somewhat disappointed in recent years, though supposedly less so now. If I am not deluded, there is an interior route towards the great questions of metaphysics, and we shall be known for not having taken it. It is a task for a new generation of philosophers, and I for one still scan the horizon for their arrival.
Self and Suffering: Deconstruction and Reflexive Definition in Buddhism and Christianity
Authors: Mellor Philip A.
Published: October 2008

In a study of the religious significance of food to medieval woman, Caroline Walker Bynum argues that the ascetic practices embraced by these women are signs of a commitment to explore the religious potentialities of the body rather than being indications of a hostile attitude to the flesh. She comments that belief in the ‘salvific potential of suffering flesh (both our's and God's)’ differentiates Christianity from other world religions, since it is a ‘characteristically Christian idea that the bodily suffering of one person can be substituted for the suffering of another through prayer, purgatory, vicarious communion etc….’ In the discussion which follows I shall attempt to draw out this differentiating characteristic in a comparative study of Christian and Buddhist concepts of, and attitudes to, suffering. I shall suggest that the divergent orientations which structure the religious treatment of this issue are related not only to radically opposing conceptions of the religious ‘path’, but also to different understandings of ‘self’. Although the categories ‘self’ and ‘suffering’ are intimately related in each context, it is my contention that in the Christian context the religious meaning of life becomes apparent to the individual in so far as the content of self is defined progressively in the reflexive encounter with the ‘Other’ (God), an encounter which can be facilitated through suffering. In a Buddhist context, on the other hand, it is precisely such a reflexivity (between self and ‘others’ if notthe‘Other’) which is understood to create and reproduce both self and suffering, and from which the Buddhist desires liberation.
The Authorship of Faith
Authors: Sessions W. L.
Published: October 2008

Let us think of faith theistically, or at any rate Christianly, as an all-embracing personal relationship between a human person and the divine person, God. Such a relationship essentially involves some act ostensibly ‘by’ the human person and directed towards God – for example, an act of believing propositions about God because one believes God because one loves (‘believes unto’) God. Among many puzzles about this conception of faith, there is one which concerns the authorship of faith; this problem may be initially expressed as a question: Who is the agent-cause or ‘author’ of the essential act(s) of faith? There seem to be religiously compelling reasons for each of two diametrically opposed views.
The Overall Argument of Alston's Perceiving God
Authors: Gale Richard
Published: October 2008

Alston's overall aim in Perceiving God is to show that we are rationally justified in believing that our apparent direct perceptions of God's presence (called ‘M-experiences’) are reliable and thus for the most part veridical, the objective, existentially-committed beliefs based on these experiences thereby being prima facie justified, subject to defeat by certain overriders supplied by some background religion. It is argued that our rational justification for believing this is of both an epistemic and pragmatic (or practical) sort, in which an epistemic reason for believing a proposition is truth conducive, rendering the proposition probable, while a pragmatic one concerns the benefits which accrue from belief. We will begin by considering the pragmatic justification, since the case he makes out for epistemic justification is built on its back.
Religious Pluralism as a Problem for ‘Practical’ Religious Epistemology
Authors: Tilley Terrence W.
Published: October 2008

After being dismissed for decades in philosophical theology, experiential arguments for the justification of religious belief, including belief in God, have again come to centre stage. One of the most thorough of these is William Alston's recent study, Perceiving God. Alston's purpose is to show that it is rational for someone to participate in what he calls Christian Mystical Practice (CMP) because CMP ‘is a socially established doxastic practice that is not demonstrably unreliable or otherwise disqualified for rational acceptance’ and to hold beliefs which that participation reliably generates. The thesis of this essay is that his individuation of mystical practices is not sufficiently nuanced. Once his naturalistic approach is brought more closely into line with actual practices, what he calls CMP splinters into multiple practices. A more complete account requires a more pluralistic understanding of the Christian traditions than Alston acknowledges.
Response to Critics
Authors: Alston William
Published: October 2008

I greatly appreciate the kind words from Gale, Tilley, and Schellenberg, and I appreciate even more the care with which they have read and reacted to my book. But my task here is to give my reactions to their reactions.
Is the Notion of a Divine Basic Act a Necessary and Sufficient Way of Talking about God's Actions in the World?
Authors: Kirkpatrick Frank G.
Published: October 2008

It has seemed to a number of recent scholars that God's acts in the world must have the fundamental character of being ‘basic acts’. Grace Jantzen has argued that ‘a theist wants to say thatallof God's actions in the world are direct and basic…he does everything directly, without intervening apparatus…God can performanyphysical action, and any such action on God's part is direct, basic’. Robert Ellis has claimed that ‘if we limit “basic” action to action upon/within one's body then God's immediate action upon the physical universe may qualify under such a description whether or not one holds to a view of the world as the body of God [a view endorsed by Jantzen] … All God's actions would [therefore] seem to be “basic”. And William P. Alston has suggested that ‘it is a live possibility that all God's actions are basic’. The question to be addressed is what theological and/or philosophical reasons can be advanced to make the case for regarding all divine action as basic? Would there be any significant diminution in affirming divine power if most or many of God's actions were non-basic?
Is Transubstantiation without Substance?
Authors: Cassidy D. C.
Published: October 2008

The notion of transubstantiation has not fared well in analytic circles despite the revival of interest in scholastic philosophy. Common charges are that it leads to scepticism, does violence to the Aristotelian account of change and fails to achieve the purpose for which it was introduced by Catholic thinkers, namely, to account for the supposed real presence of Christ on the altar during the celebration of the Eucharist. In this paper I will argue that at least some of these objections rest on misconstruing the logical form of expressions like ‘There is bread on the altar’ and ‘…is the blood of Christ’.
Holy Argument: Some Reflections on the Jewish Piety of Argument, Process Theology and the Philosophy of Religion
Authors: Tidwell N. L.
Published: October 2008

Argument is the very life-blood of philosophy and, hence, prima facie one might expect that distinctive phenomenon of the Jewish religious tradition, ‘holy argument’, to be of special interest to philosophers, particularly philosophers of religion. However, there is little to suggest that those engaged in the philosophical approach to religion are even aware that such a phenomenon as a piety of argument exists. But it does. In the philosophical field rational argument conducted according to the established rules of logic is the fundamental tool in the pursuit of truth and understanding or for the clarification of problems, ideas and concepts; in Judaism, rational, legal argument pursued according to recognized principles and processes is the most highly commended path to encounter and engagement with God. Moreover, within this same religious tradition, ‘holy argument’ embraces not only argument about God, about His nature (theology), His ways (theodicy) and His will (halakhah), but also argument with God, putting God on trial and taking Him to task as One who is Himself bound and judged by that same Torah that Israel is obligated to obey. The high value placed upon study and the exercise of the intellect in the Jewish tradition is well known; it is not only amitzvahand an act of worship but a form ofimitatio Dei, for God Himself engages in the study of Torah. But the mode of study in Judaism and the form in which the intellect is exercised is characteristically that of argument and debate, the quintessential activity of philosophy and philosophers.
Bolstering the Argument from Non-Belief
Authors: Cosculluela Victor
Published: October 2008

Does widespread non-acceptance of Christianity constitute evidence for the non-existence of God? Theodore M. Drange has recently claimed that this question requires an affirmative answer if certain widely held views about God are presupposed; if God is construed in a certain way, an ‘Argument from Non-belief’ can be developed for the non-existence of God. I hope to show that a crucial premise of Drange's argument, one for which he provides only weak Biblical evidence, can be defended by means of an a priori argument.
The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Logic of Relative Identity
Authors: Cain James
Published: October 2008

The doctrine of the Trinity says that there is just one God and three distinct divine persons, each of whom is God. This would seem to imply that there are three divine persons, each a different person the other persons but the same God as the other persons. If we accept what I believe is the most popular account of identity current among logicians then we must hold that this apparent consequence is contradictory. We see this as follows (it will suffice to consider just the relation of Father and Son): logicians generally treat relativized identity expressions of the form ‘is the same A as’ (here ‘A’ stands in for a term which relativizes the identity) as being analysable in terms of absolute (or unrelativized) identity according to the following equivalence schema, (E):

(E) a is the same A as b if and only if a is identical to b and a is an A and b is an A.

The view under consideration affirms the following three sentences:

(1) The Father and the Son are persons.

(2) The Father is not the same person as the Son.

(3) The Father is the same God as the Son.
Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions
Authors: Habermas Gary R.
Published: October 2008

While Christian beliefs are presumably much more widely known, especially in the Western world, some adherents to the major non-Christian religions also make claims that some of their historical rabbis, prophets, gurus or ‘messiahs’ rose from the dead. Judging from the relevant religious literature, it appears that such non-Christian claims are often ignored, perhaps because there is little awareness of them. Even if the existence of such beliefs is recognized, almost never is there any in-depth answer to the question of whether such claims could possibly be grounded in supernatural events of history.
The Passibility of God
Authors: Taliaferro Charles
Published: October 2008

John Dewey once said of philosophical problems that they are quite different from old soldiers. Not only do they never die, but they do not even fade away. Something similar might be said about the unfavourable Divine attributes of the 1950s and 60s, timelessness or eternity, necessary existence, foreknowledge of creaturely free choices, and immutability. All have contemporary defenders. Even the puzzling, traditional tenet that God is metaphysically simple now has formidable apologists. Perhaps the least popular of the traditional theistic canon, the most likely to fade away, is the tenet that God is impassible. The recent appearance of Richard Creel's Divine Impassibility has shown that even this least popular of attributes can be powerfully articulated and defended. Roughly, the impassibility thesis is the claim that God does not undergo sensory experience including suffering and pain, nor is God subject to corruption, substantial essential change or to external agency. Creel's defence of Divine impassibilism is certainly the most balanced and sophisticated in the current literature. Any argument for passibilism must take Creel's work seriously. I intend to do just that in the course of defending the thesis that the God of Christian theism is passible in an important respect. There are substantive moral and religious reasons to believe God suffers.
Faith—and Faith in Hypotheses
Authors: King-Farlow John , Christensen William N.
Published: October 2008

Debate continues to rage among philosophers of religion over Anthony Flew's famous little paper ‘Theology and Falsification’ and the responses it provoked, most notably R. M. Hare's response that religious claims are in no way like scientific hypotheses. For now, twenty years later, we still find many theists taking a similar tack to Hare's. A particularly interesting example is J. F. Miller in Religious Studies, 1969, who replies to Flew that propositions like ‘God loves mankind’ cannot be subject to falsifiability conditions because they are used as claims expressing ‘religious first-order principles of the Judaeo-Christian Weltanschauung and as such are not amenable to falsification’ (p. 50). Miller seems to put his faith in some kind of great gulf fixed between what he would consider decently falsifiable scientific hypotheses and what he takes to be unfalsifiable first-order principles both of theology and of contemporary science. In what follows we will try to sketch a more rational strategy for modern believers of a liberal empiricist type, for those whose interest in appealing and deferring to experience includes but is not restricted to so-called ‘sense experience’. This will involve accepting analogies between theological statements and so-called hypotheses, insofar as the latter are propositions held and put forward in a somewhat tentative spirit with a view to explaining what we experience.
Buddhist Teaching about Illusion
Authors: Hudson H.
Published: October 2008

Buddhist teaching about illusion is, I think, generally considered difficult to understand. What I wish to do is to try to indicate some of its more general and prevalent features with the further aim of using them to throw some light on typical Buddhist method and procedure. I shall be concerned mainly with some of the teachings to be found in the Mahayana and will try to be as untechnical as possible. This latter is sure to be displeasing to some, but I have no wish to induce intellectual paralysis either in the reader or myself by a parade of technicalities most of which are not properly translatable into English. A great deal of scholarly and technical work has already been done and now it seems to me important to try as much as possible to express the general sense or pattern or at least some of its features in terms of our own more natural modes of thought and speech. This is what I have tried to do. I should point out that when dealing with the teaching about illusion we are concerned with only the more austere intellectual side of Buddhism. Nevertheless the religious philosophising which we encounter is as much a part of religious practice as meditation and expressing reverence and respect for the Buddha. I have confined myself throughout to exposition and have not attempted discussion and evaluation. References given are to books which are for the most part easily available in English. I will begin with three quotations.
Ian Ramsey on Talk about God
Authors: Evans Donald
Published: October 2008

The relation between I and my bodily behaviour does not provide an apt analogy for the relation between God and I, or between God and any of the many particular ‘mores’ of particular observables. The relation between the one divine ‘more’ and the many particular ‘mores’ needs another kind of analogy if it is to be at all intelligible. Ramsey seems to be hinting at another kind of analogy, another kind of approach to the use of the word ‘God’ as a unifying key word, in his essay ‘Paradox in Religion’:

‘The word “God” is a unique and ultimate keyword dominating the whole of a theistic language scheme, an “irreducible posit” to which the theist appeals as his end-point of explanation.’
Professor Geach and the Gods of the Heathen
Authors: Durrant Michael
Published: October 2008

In several essays published recently, Professor Geach argues against the thesis that ‘God’, in its Christian use, is a proper name and produces considerations in favour of ‘God’ being a ‘descriptive, predicable, term’; a nomen naturae in Aquinas's vocabulary: a ‘concept’ in Frege's sense (Begriffswort). I have no dispute with Geach concerning ‘God’ not being a proper name, but there seems to me to be a serious difficulty in one argument which he uses to establish his positive thesis. This argument appears in all the essays mentioned; I give the appropriate quotations:

(i) ‘Only because of this (i.e. “God” being a descriptive predicable term) can the heathen say that his idol is God and the Christian contradict him and both be using “God” in the same sense: if “God” were a proper name it would be a logically impossible, not a lying, wicked act, to predicate it of sticks and stones (Ia q 13 art. 10).’

(ii) ‘When St Augustine and his companions landed in England they found the English paying latria to Woden, Thor, and other imaginary beings to each of whom they applied the word “God” and the missionaries taught them not to apply this word any more to Woden and Thor and the rest, but solely to the Blessed Trinity.… This makes it clear that in the mind of the Church the word “God” is not a proper name, as the word “Woden” was meant to be, but a descriptive term, true of the blessed Trinity and not true of Woden.’

(iii) ‘The name “God” as thus introduced is regarded by Aquinas, not as a proper name, but as a general term (nomen naturae) so far as its mode of significance goes … Aquinas rejects the idea that “God” is necessarily used equivocally by polytheists and by monotheists: he holds the view that the polytheists may be using the word “God” in the same sense when he says his idol is God, as the missionary when he says that the idol is not God but a senseless block.’
Belief ‘In’ and Belief ‘That’
Authors: Price H. H.
Published: October 2008

Epistemologists have not usually had much to say about believing ‘in’, though ever since Plato's time they have been interested in believing ‘that’. Students of religion, on the other hand, have been greatly concerned with belief ‘in’, and many of them, I think, would maintain that it is something quite different from belief ‘that’. Surely belief ‘in’ is an attitude to a person, whether human or divine, while belief ‘that’ is just an attitude to a proposition? Could any difference be more obvious than this? And if we over-look it, shall we not be led into a quite mistaken analysis of religious belief, at any rate if it is religious belief of the theistic sort? On this view belief ‘in’ is not a propositional attitude at all.
Two ‘Proofs’ of God's Existence
Authors: Ewing A. C.
Published: October 2008

I do not think that the existence of God can be proved or even that the main justification for the belief can be found in argument in the ordinary sense of that term, but I think two of the three which have, since Kant at least, been classified as the traditional arguments of natural theology have some force and are worthy of serious consideration. This consideration I shall now proceed to give. I cannot say this of the remaining one of the arguments, the ‘ontological proof’, which I shall therefore not discuss here.
Interpretation and Mystical Experience
Authors: Smart Ninian
Published: October 2008

Professor R. C. Zaehner's distinction between panenhenic, monistic and theistic mysticism will be examined. It will be argued that there is no necessary reason to suppose that the latter two types involve different sorts of experience: the difference lies rather in the way the experience is interpreted. Likewise it will be argued that the Theravādin experience of nirvana, which is interpreted neither in a monistic nor in a theistic sense, may well be identical substantially with the foregoing two types. All this raises important methodological problems, in relation to the contrast between experience and interpretation. The fact that mysticism is substantially the same in different cultures and religions does not, however, entail that there is a ‘perennial philosophy’ common to mystics. Their doctrines are determined partly by factors other than mystical experience itself.
Religious Language as Symbolism
Authors: Thomas J. Heywood
Published: October 2008

The one clear insight which can be gleaned from the discussions of religious language by both theologians and philosophers is that its reference is to the transcendent. This is almost axiomatic in Philosophy of Religion nowadays, and we feel that the remarks of Milton's archangel to the first man are most appropriate when he insists that all the conceptions we have of God or of the spiritual world are but inadequate symbols. Though this view has a long history, it does not seem to have been at all general in antiquity. It may be said to have begun with Plato and then to have continued through later generations in Neo-Platonism till it mingled with the Christian tradition. We can see how easily such traditions were fused when we look at the fusion of Platonism and Judaism in Philo of Alexandria. This is how he expounds the Exodus passage where Moses is allowed to see the back, but not the face, of God:

Everything which is subsequent to God the virtuous man may apprehend: God alone is inapprehensible. That is to say, God is not apprehensible by direct frontal approach—for such approach would imply God's being disclosed such as He is: but He is apprehensible through the Powers which are consequent upon His being; for those Powers do not present His being, nature, essence but only His existence from the resultant effects.
Aristotle and Corruptibility
Authors: Williams C. J. F.
Published: October 2008

In a discussion-note inMind(July 1958), Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they mustbecorruptible andthey must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but anon sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility.
Recent Views of Indian Religion and Philosophy
Authors: Parrinder E. G.
Published: October 2008

The appearance of several important books on Indian religion and philosophy provides an opportunity for consideration of the attractions and obstacles to understanding that important world of thought. At the end of the British Raj it seemed as if there might be a slackening of interest in India, but nothing will stop Indians writing and many books arestill coming from European and American writers. But how reliable are they? ‘Indian philosophy is much bound up with theology’, remarks Ninian Smart, and ‘suspicions of Indian philosophy are not mitigated by the current Western enthusiasm for Oriental spirituality: travelling monks and yogis (though often innocent of pompous intentions) tend to speak of their “philosophy” rather than of religion, partly because the latter term is loaded in a special way in its Western use. Thus they give the impression that spiritual uplift, rather than analytic exactness, is the chief characteristic of Indian philosophy.’ On the other hand, ‘there is the prevalent suspicion, among English-speaking philosophers, that the theological bent of much Indian metaphysics means that Indian argumentation is neither rigorous nor realistic’. And in any case it may be held that ‘philosophy is either an international activity where national roots are irrelevant or it is mere history of ideas’, and so the complex Indian schools are only of incidental interest.
Questions about the Meaning of Life
Authors: Hepburn R. W.
Published: October 2008

Claims about ‘the meaning of life’ have tended to be made and discussed in conjunction with bold metaphysical and theological affirmations. For life to have meaning, there must (it is assumed) be a comprehensive divine plan to give it meaning, or there must be an intelligible cosmic process with a ‘telos’ that a man needs to know if his life is to be meaningfully orientated. Or, it is thought to be a condition of the meaningfulness of life, that values should be ultimately ‘conserved’ in some way, that no evil should be unredeemable and irrational. And it may be claimed that if death were to end our experience, meaninglessness would triumph.
Gospel Historicity: Some Philosophical Observations
Authors: Roberts T. A.
Published: October 2008

In this article I propose to discuss some recent theological contributions to the problem of the historicity of the Gospels, and I wish to suggest that philosophical issues may ultimately be relevant to its solution.
Aristotle and Corruptibility
Authors: Williams C. J. F.
Published: October 2008

(5) ἆρ' ∈ἰ kaì ⋯γ ∈´νητον (282 a 25) … πρòς τò ɸθαρτόν, ⋯ϕ' ᾧΘ (283 a 3). Aristotle claims so far to have proved that the eternal is incorruptible and that it is ungenerated. He has still to prove the converse of each of these propositions, namely, that whatever is incorruptible is eternal and that whatever is ungenerated is eternal also. After putting the thesis in question form he gives a further definition of ⋯γ∈´νητος and ἄɸθαρτος in the parenthesis of 282 a 27–30. Unfortunately in both cases he uses the assertoric form of the definiens, although in chapter 11 he had used a modal form in the relevant passages (cf. kυρίως 280 b 32 and 282 a 27); but this confusion does not seem to affect the immediate trend of the argument. He then (282 a 30—b 1) shows that his thesis follows necessarily from the convertibility of ⋯γ∈´νητος and ἄɸθαρτος. The additional premiss that is necessary in order to secure this inference, namely, that that which is both ungenerated and incorruptible is eternal, is clear from the definition of the terms. It is also clear from the convertibility of ɸθαρτóς and γ∈ νητóς, which itself is entailed by the supposed convertibility of their contradictories. This last inference seems too trivial to deserve a mention, but Aristotle devotes 282 b 2–5 to proving it. Then, having demonstrated to his satisfaction that the convertibility of ἄɸθαρτος and ⋯γ∈´νητος necessarily implies the eternity of both the incorruptible and the ungenerated, he adds, for good measure, that if the terms are not convertible the implication is no longer necessary (282 b 5–7).
On Believing
Authors: Sleeper R. W.
Published: October 2008

In an important article in the opening issue of Religious Studies, Professor H. H. Price states that: ‘Epistemologists have not usually had much to say about believing “in”, though ever since Plato's time they have been interested in believing “that”’ (loc. cit., vol. I, no. 1, p. 5). We are all considerably in debt to Professor Price for his extremely lucid analysis which will, I think, go a very long way towards filling the lacuna to which he points. As I find myself in agreement with almost every point which Price has made, my purpose here is not to make a ‘reply’ to his article in the usual sense but to suggest that his analysis of believing is curiously and disappointingly incomplete. I shall offer some reasons of my own in support of this suggestion, not so much in criticism of Price's thesis as in hopes of finding some way out of the difficulties which, I take it, forced Price to stop short just where he did. It will be the burden of my argument to show that a more complete and satisfactory account of believing must include a description of its ‘metaphysical element’ as well as of its epistemological and psychological conditions. For it is at the point of what I shall call the ‘metaphysics of believing’ that Price's analysis and description of belief ‘in’ and belief ‘that’ stops short.1
Divine Goodness and the Problem of Evil
Authors: Penelhum Terence
Published: October 2008

The purpose of this paper is not to offer any solution to the problem of evil, or to declare it insoluble. It is rather the more modest one of deciding on its nature. Many writers assume that the problem of evil is one that poses a logical challenge to the theist, rather than a challenge of a moral or scientific sort. If this assumption is correct, and the challenge cannot be met, Christian theism can be shown to be untenable on grounds of inconsistency. This in turn means that it is refutable by philosophers, even if their task is interpreted in the most narrowly analytical fashion. It has recently been argued that the challenge of the problem of evil can be met on logical grounds, and that if the existence of evil is damaging to theism it is not because the recognition of its existence is inconsistent with some essential part of it. I take two examples of this position. The first is in the paper ‘Hume on Evil’ by Nelson Pike; the second I owe to Professor R. M. Chisholm.
The Logic of Mysticism
Authors: Findlay John
Published: October 2008

I am both happy and honoured to have been asked to give this lecture on mysticism in memory of Leo Robertson, of whom I have many very pleasant memories. It was a delight to be wafted off to the Saville Club after a lecture here, and to discuss mysticism and philosophy on one of its many sofas. I am very sorry that this particular pleasure will not recur. Leo Robertson belonged to an old-fashioned climate of thought in which an interest in mysticism was respectable, and a long stay in the East had confirmed him in these leanings. I myself have always been constitutionally mystical, feeling that certain kinds of rapture, concerned with work, beauty, love and a few other things, are the only things absolutely worth having. I dropped my mysticism for a long period, partly on account of certain disillusioning experiences in my ’twenties, and partly out of deference to the dry methods and doctrine that prevailed in British philosophy. Latterly, however, increasing age has restored many of my illusions and made me generally more tender-minded; also, seeing the completely nugatory accomplishments of purely unmystical analysis, I have found myself reverting increasingly to my original mysticism. It was very refreshing to talk to a philosopher like Leo Robertson who took mysticism with the complete seriousness I think it deserves—as one of the truly fundamental human attitudes—but who also thought of it as supplementing and completing, rather than as undermining and nullifying, what other less rarefied thinkers do. It was also refreshing to hear all his talk about an earlier Cambridge, where he knew Wittgenstein in the full brilliance of his personal beauty as well as of his intelligence, and also knew Moore in the golden period of his dialectic, before he became so very preoccupied with the minutiae of the English language. Leo Robertson was a complete and rounded philosopher rather than a hamstrung one, and knowing him has been a factor in strengthening my resolve to be a complete and rounded thinker too.
A Religion for Materialism
Authors: Feibleman James K.
Published: October 2008

The religiously inclined have always rejected materialism. The thesis of this study is that there may have been good reasons for them to do so until comparatively recent times but that the same reasons no longer exist. Our knowledge of matter has not only increased, it has also been altered so completely thatthere is no more justification for disapproving of materialism on religious grounds.
Is there a Christian Philosophy?
Authors: Aldwinckle R. F.
Published: October 2008

In the present philosophical climate of opinion many are inclined to respond to this question in the spirit of the cynical comment concerning Christian Science, that it is neither Christian nor scientific. So it might be affirmed of Christian philosophy. It is neither Christian nor philosophical. It is customary these days to find both theologians and positivistic philosophers agreeing on this point. Theologians of a certain persuasion wish to keep theology free from any taint of the bacillus metaphysicus. Philosophers of a certain school are equally anxious to keep philosophy free of any entanglement with theological questions which involve problems incapable of linguistic clarification and precise meaning. Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence that this kind of intellectual apartheid is becoming less and less possible in practice and less attractive in principle. Even those who wish to separate rigidly theology and philosophy seem in practice to find it impossible to let each other alone. Each exercises a kind of morbid fascination for the other, and even if real dialogue is refused, the sniping still goes on, in reluctant acknowledgement of the existence of the other. The time would appear to be ripe, therefore, for a fresh and bold re-opening of the question which forms the title of this paper.
‘Faith-In’ and ‘In-Faith’—Reply to Professor H. H. Price
Authors: Litzenburg Thomas V.
Published: October 2008

In two recent essays,1 H. H. Price has offered an interesting approach to the ‘reducibility theory’ which yields several important distinctions that should be drawn between various meanings of ‘belief-in’ and ‘belief-that’ These distinctions go far towards illuminating the uniqueness or—depending upon your point of view—oddness of religious faith.2 It may be useful to examine Price's ‘reducibility theory’ and the basic distinctions he has drawn in order to point the way toward a related analysis of usage which he neither undertakes nor considers explicitly—that of the distinctly different function (i.e. meaning and use) of a similar if not equally commonplace expression: ‘in-faith’. This latter analysis is called for, it seems to me, for several reasons. In the first place, Price himself vaguely suggestsmdaash;but does not discuss— the possibility that talking about being ‘in the faith attitude’ is not necessarily the same as talking about believing or having faith-in ‘Someone’. Secondly, it may be argued that the use of the expression ‘in-faith’ conveys, in certain instances, much more of the uniqueness of the theist's position than do the expressions ‘belief-in’or ‘faith-in’. Thirdly, the claim—sometimes made—that the faith ‘situation’ (‘experience’, ‘encounter’, ‘meeting’, ‘confrontation’, or whatever it may be) transcends the grasp of reason is perhaps more readily pointed to by using the expression ‘in-faith’.
God and the Good
Authors: Brown Patterson
Published: October 2008

First, a paradox, a problem in the problem of evil. I shall call it ‘the paradox of evil’.

On the one hand it is of course widely held that the evils in the world present an insuperable difficulty for Judeo-Christian theism. Russell, to take a conspicuous example, challenges any orthodox believer to visit the bedside of a child terminally ill with cancer and yet to retain his faith without hypocrisy (cf. ‘Why I am not a Christian’). No paradox here; just the familiar problem of evil.
Is there a tenable religious theory of ethics?
Authors: Lillie W.
Published: October 2008

Before attempting to suggest a religious theory of ethics that appears to me to be tenable, I want to say three things by way of introduction.
Plurality of Theologies: A Paradigmatic Sketch
Authors: Capps Walter H.
Published: October 2008

There has been a great deal of talk recently among historians of Christian reflection about the problem and the possibility of a ‘plurality of theologies’. Directives from such eminent spokesmen as Karl Rahner have underscored the need for a rationale by which to demonstrate that the presence of different orientations does not necessarily violate the unitary character of a Christian tradition. Other Catholic thinkers have offered arguments for ascribing a relative status to the ‘Thomistic style’ of theology, and cases have been made for the inclusion of additional schematic frameworks. Beyond all of this, there are elegant suggestions in the writings of Bernard Lonergan (and others who have come under his influence) that there is sufficient theoretical, even metaphysical, basis to justify plurality in theology. The claim would seem to be that different theological orientations (e.g. those of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and maybe even Teilhard de Chardin, etc.) are expressive of distinct fields of vision which are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Immortality and Resurrection
Authors: Sutherland Stewart R.
Published: October 2008

In the last ten years or so there has been some lively discussion of the questions of immortality and resurrection. Within the Christian tradition there has been debate at theological and exegetical level over the relative merits of belief in the immortality of the soul, and belief in the resurrection of the dead as an account of life after death. Further to this, however, there has been the suggestion that there may be good philosophical reasons for preferring the latter to the former. It is just this contention which I propose to discuss.
The Moral and Religious Philosophy of C. A. Campbell
Authors: Owen H. P.
Published: October 2008

For over thirty years C. A. Campbell has made major contributions to both ethics and metaphysics. Since these do not correspond to the prevailing fashions in philosophy and theology they are in danger of being under-estimated, if not ignored. I hope to summarise and comment on them as impartially as possible. Inevitably I must be selective. In writing for this journal I have, naturally, chosen to stress those elements in Campbell's thought which are directly or indirectly relevant to religion. Even so, there are many points which I have no space to develop. I shall be content if I say enough to indicate the importance of Campbell's writings for the study of the philosophically crucial topics to which they are devoted.
Schleiermacher and the Problem of Divine Immediacy
Authors: Scott Charles E.
Published: October 2008

A problem which was widely recognised during Schleiermacher's life, and one which I think is not yet satisfactorily solved, concerned the integration of feeling and concepts within human consciousness. Within the domain of philosophy of religion it may be phrased as follows: How does religious feeling relate to rational reflection such that each complements and enriches the other? Schleiermacher was convinced that religion never originates in human understanding or autonomy and that one's understanding of the world is not necessarily dependent on religious faith. But he was equally convinced that reflection and religion ought to enjoy a harmony which reflects the harmony of the universe, and this ideal motivated his continuous attempt to construct a complementary philosophy and theology. His hope was to show that ‘understanding and feeling… remain distinct, but they touch each other and form a galvanic pile.… The innermost life of the spirit consists in the galvanic action thus produced in the feeling of the understanding and the understanding of the feeling, during which, however, the two poles always remain deflected from each other.’
God, Evil and Mystery
Authors: Hick John
Published: October 2008

Professor Roland Puccetti sets himself a double aim in his article ‘The Loving God—Some Observations on John Hick's Evil and the Love of God’ (Religious Studies, April 1967). His more modest aim is to demolish the Irenaean type of Christian theodicy presented in the book which he discusses. His more ambitious aim is to show that no theodicy of any kind is possible because ‘theodicy in general is a subject without a proper object’ (p. 255). His intention is thus ‘not only to carry the battle but also the campaign’ (p. 255); and at the end he is evidently satisfied that he has done this. But I think it can be shown that his satisfaction is at least premature. He has not achieved even his more limited aim, still less his more comprehensive one. For in his critique he altogether omits from consideration an essential part of the argument which he is attacking. Whereas in the first ten sections of his articlehe gives accurate summaries of the relevant aspects of the view which he is criticising, in section eleven on the ‘appeal to mystery’ his summary is misleadingly inadequate. He simply ignores a crucial aspect of the theodicy he is trying to demolish; and the purpose of the present article is to repair that omission.
Professor Hepburn on Meaning in Life
Authors: Dilman Ilham
Published: October 2008

Some people do not find much sense in talk about meaning in life. Some people think that such talk cannot have or express any sense, that those who find sense in it must be under an illusion. Some others think that if one is inclined to think that such talk cannot have any sense that is because one misconstrues its logic. So they set off to show us how it is to be construed if what is said here is to make sense. However, there may not really be anything wrong with what they thus set themselves the task of putting right. Their idea that the logic of discourse on meaning in life has been misconstrued may itself come from limitations in their view of logic and its relation to language, from ‘misunderstandings about the logic of our language’. Therefore, as Professor Hepburn rightly points out, such philosophers, in their attempt to ‘prune and rationalise and redefine the vocabulary’ in question, will merely succeed in misleading themselves in their appreciation of its logic and, worse still, in their understanding of life. In his article (‘Questions about the Meaning of Life’, Religious Studies, vol. I, 1965–66) Hepburn opposes such simplifications and distortions of logic which may confine our understanding of life. I am in sympathy with his programme, with his desire to fight superficiality, his caution in rejecting brashness. What I want to do is to remark on some of its limitations and to open up some new questions—though it is not my intention here to pursue any of them.
Meaning and Modernisation
Authors: Bellah Robert N.
Published: October 2008

Modernisation, whatever else it involves, is always a moral and a religious problem. If it has sometimes been hailed as an exhilarating challenge to create new values and meanings it has also often been feared as a threat to an existing pattern of values and meanings. In either case the personal and social forces called into play have been powerful.