bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Mystical Experience: with an Emphasis on Wittgenstein and Zen
Authors: Cox Charles H. , Cox Jean W.
Published: October 2008

Mysticism and the mystical experience seemingly play little or no part in our Western tradition. Certainly there is no mystical tradition in the West such as Zen Buddhism, nor is there any great understanding of or influence from the writings of Heraclitus, Spinoza, or the mystical passages in the early work of Wittgenstein. Mysticism has been generally misunderstood in the West, and it has even evoked the attacks of philosophers and theologians.1 Mysticism to many conjures up images of monks meditating in caves; it is generally pictured as esoteric, otherworldly, irrational, and at best irrelevant to the daily lives of human beings. If what we say below is correct, it will be seen that mysticism is none of these but is rather a singular human experience that lies at the foundations of civilization.
Recent Critics of Newman's A Grammar of Assent
Authors: Ker I. T.
Published: October 2008

Professor H. P. Owen has remarked that Newman's A Grammar of Assent, which ‘is the fruit of a great mind's reflection over many years, has not received (in this country at any rate) the attention it deserves ’1 However, the year in which these words were written (1969) saw the publication of three lengthy discussions in English of the Grammar, and more studies have appeared since then.2 Owen's general appreciation has been echoed but the prevailing tone has been critical. In this article I shall attempt to reply to some of the more significant of the objections that have been made.
Omnipresence and Incorporeality
Authors: Dyck Grace M.
Published: October 2008

Predominant branches of historic Christianity have traditionally held to each of two doctrines about God: that he is incorporeal and that he is omnipresent. And in the minds of many people, these two doctrines do not simply represent two independent characteristics or attributes of God, but rather they are closely related. A.H.Strong, a conservative theologian active during the early years of this century, writes, ‘God’s omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal.’1 More recently, Dr Harold Kuhn put forward a view which similarly links the two notions.2 When we recite the Apostles’ Creed and affirm our belief in ‘God the Father Almighty’ we are, according to Kuhn, also implying our belief in an incorporeal God, for any imputation of a body to him would appear to entail spatial limitation, since it is thought that only a bodiless being could be omnipresent.
Classical Theism and Pantheism: a Victory for Process Theism?
Authors: Oakes Robert A.
Published: October 2008

In Anselm's Discovery, Professor Hartshorne makes the rather startling and (I think) counterintuitive claim that ‘…there is indeed no issue between theism and pantheism. We all exist in the divine being, as St Paul said.’1 Classical or orthodox theists, it seems eminently fair to say, can be expected to recoil from any such suggestion with more than a little indignation. First of all, it might well be objected that Hartshorne - as a ‘process theist’ (or, as he often calls himself, a ‘neoclassical theist’) - is not a classical theist, and, consequently, while there may be no issue between pantheism and his brand of theism, such is simply not the case in so far as classical theism is concerned. According to the latter - in contradistinction, of course, to Hartshorne's ‘neoclassical theism’ - immutability is an ‘essential’ property of God; as such, it would be a conceptual error to ascribe any contingent (i.e. changeable) states to God at all. Now as is well known by philosophers of religion, Hartshorne regards this immutability doctrine of classical theism as a serious ‘logical blunder’ (loc. cit.), one which - in so far as it reflects the ‘Greek bias’ which has always (but mistakenly) identified perfection with the absolutely unchangeable - is profoundly distortive of the biblical concept of Deity.
Hartshorne's Arguments Against Empirical Evidence for Necessary Existence: An Evaluation
Authors: Johnson Galen A.
Published: October 2008

Is experiential evidence irrelevant to acceptance or rejection of belief in the existence of a Divine Being? Charles Hartshorne answers that it is indeed irrelevant, and this answer has an initial and, for me, continuing surprising ring to it. Specifically, Hartshorne makes two distinguishable claims: (1) the traditional allegedly a posteriori arguments, the teleological and cosmological, are in fact incompatible with empiricist methodology and are disguised ontological arguments; (2) the conception of God as necessary being demands that belief in such a being's existence or non-existence in no way depend upon empirical evidence. On the contrary, I shall argue, first, that empirical evidence for God is truly empirical and second, that there is no incompatibility between empirical evidence and necessary existence. My argument will involve an attempt to understand and clarify somewhat the very difficult concepts of ‘experience’ and ‘necessity’ as they arise in the context of religious epistemology. I wish to make clear at the outset that my aim is not to eliminate ontological arguments for God in favour of empirical arguments, for I believe that Hartshorne's work on the modal ontological argument contributes substantially to providing grounds for reasonable belief in theism. Rather, my purpose is to show that ontological and empirical patterns of theistic argumentation are neither incompatible with each other nor reducible to each other.
What Makes Religious Beliefs Religious?
Authors: Hudson W. D.
Published: October 2008

I want to put forward a certain view of the logical foundation of religious belief. It is, in a sentence, the view that religious belief is constituted by the concept of god. This view will be discussed under three headings. First, I shall explain as clearly as I can what I mean by it. Secondly, I shall indicate what seem to me to be interesting parallels, both with regard to universes of discourse in general and to religious belief in particular, between my idea of a constitutive concept and Wittgenstein's ideas of a fundamental proposition and a religious ‘picture’. Thirdly, I shall try to substantiate the view I take of the logical foundation of religious belief by rebutting three conceivable objections to it: namely, that it rests on an illegitimate craving for generality, that it is at variance with common usage, and that it consigns religious belief to an intellectual ghetto.
Does Copernicus Help? Reflections for a Christian Theology of Religions
Authors: Lipner J. J.
Published: October 2008

I want to consider in this paper a question that is looming large in the theology of most world religions, not least in the Christian tradition. The following discussion will be confined to the Christian standpoint, though I hope mutatis mutandis the main points will be seen to apply to other religious perspectives as well. Specifically then, this question can be ex–pressed in two ways. We may ask, (i) in the context of the contemporary dialogue situation, how is the committed Christian to regard the adherents of non–Christian religions? and (ii) what status do these alien belief–systems have with respect to the Christian faith–response? Both forms of the issue are often discussed it seems to me without due attention being given to an important distinction between them. So, at the outset, it will be useful to make one or two observations about this. First of all, it is inevitable, I think, that an evaluational factor is implied by both formulations. We are pondering a basically Christian assessment of religious traditions that are non–Christian, and any solution suggested which eventually eliminates a one-sided overall perspective will apparently put us in a dilemma. For, on the one hand, a Christian theology of religions will be expected to produce a Christian (and therefore evaluational) result; on the other hand, a finally nonevaluational solution seems unable to be called a Christian view of things at all. In the event of such a ‘neutral theology’ as the latter resulting (by no means a purely speculative question as we shall see), is the dilemma that becomes apparent a genuine one, or can it be resolved by a more stringent analysis of the relevant issues?
A History of Early Buddhism
Authors: Carter John Ross
Published: October 2008

This article has developed in response to a series of observations made over a decade ago by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in his The Meaning and End of Religion. In that work, Smith made the point that the concepts ‘religion’, ‘religions’, ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ are rather recent, of Western origin, and, in an attempt to understand mankind's religiousness, inadequate. In developing his argument, Smith considered the Buddhist case with penetrating insight but, because his thesis was of such comprehensive scope, chose not to go into a detailed consideration of relevant matters in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition.
Self-awareness and Ultimate Selfhood
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Hossein
Published: October 2008

The fruit of several centuries of rationalistic thought in the West has been to reduce both the objective and the subjective poles of knowledge to a single level. In the same way that the Cogito of Descartes is based on reducing the knowing subject to a single mode of awareness, the external world which this ‘knowing self’ perceives is reduced to a spatio-temporal complex limited to a single level of reality – no matter how far this complex is extended beyond the galaxies or into aeons of time, past and future. The traditional view as expressed in the metaphysical teachings of both the Eastern and Western traditions is based, on the contrary, upon a hierarchic vision of reality, not only of reality's objective aspect but also of its subjective one. Not only are there many levels of reality or existence stretching from the material plane to Absolute and Infinite Reality, but there are also many levels of subjective reality or consciousness, many envelopes of the self, leading to the Ultimate Self which is Infinite and Eternal and which is none other than the Transcendent Reality beyond. Moreover, the relation between the subjective and the objective is not bound to a single mode. There is not just one form of perception or awareness. There are modes and degrees of awareness leading from the so-called ‘normal’ perception by man of both his own ‘ego’ and the external world to awareness of Ultimate Selfhood, in which the subject and object of knowledge become unified in a single reality beyond all separation and distinction.
Do Mystics Perceive Themselves?
Authors: Horne James R.
Published: October 2008

Mystics have always claimed that a very significant kind of self-perception is possible, at the end of certain spiritual disciplines. The self that is then supposed to be known is a unity, identical from one experience to the next, and not to be identified with any particular experiences, such as impressions or ideas, which the self has. In short, mystical testimony supports something like a theory of the essential self as simple and unchanging.
How not Islam?
Authors: Cragg Kenneth
Published: October 2008

A decent interval has elapsed since the publication, in Religious Studies, Vol. 11 (1975), pp. 167–79, of Professor R. C. Zaehner's article: ‘Why Not Islam?’ The question, an intriguing one, was answered there with such ambivalence that a cynic might be forgiven for thinking he was being trifled with, while a well-wisher could easily be lost in confusion. The Professor commended Islam from the angle least worthy to command credence or to merit acceptance. His case for Islam had about it an air of almost perverse pleading, identifying Islam's main asset as an authoritarian simplicity suited to simple minds. The writer appeared to be withholding his own position by the very form of his advocacy. The article could equally be read as a subtle dissuasive. ’Sadly, debate cannot now be joined. For the piece must have been among the very last the author published. Death, as with Dickens and the mystery of Edwin Drood, silences inquiry about the puzzle of his intentions. It would be unseemly to have pressed the issues too sharply or too soon. But, at this distance of time, it may be possible to wonder in print about what Professor Zaehner's purpose really was. ’Why not…?’ is a question which it is always well for us to ask about alternatives within the human, or the religious, scene. Negative questions, as the Latin grammarians have it, expect the answer Yes. ’Why not X,’ however, when it comes to grips, has to pass into reasons why in the affirmative. It is in doing so that Zaehner offers what, on many counts, would seem to be dubious, even un-Islamic, reasons for his pleas.
Call and Response – the Vision of God in John Donne and George Herbert
Authors: Sobosan Jeffrey G.
Published: October 2008

One thing our modern dialogue-consciousness has given us is what might be called an historical ‘sounding board’ harking back to the Hebraic tradition in which reverberate refrains of words like ‘When he calls, I shall answer, I am with you’ (Psalm 90). Set within the framework of our own age, which could be termed an age which speaks of God grown silent, these echoes can have a particular poignancy for us and we can at times find special relevance in the discovery of comparable tensions in the past. Such a tension is revealed in a study of the religious verse of two seventeenth-century English poets, John Donne and George Herbert.
A New Look at Miracles
Authors: Erlandson Douglas K.
Published: October 2008

Recently several philosophers have claimed that miracles cannot occur or that belief in them involves a misunderstanding of the scientific enterprise. In this paper I will argue that these claims, particularly the latter, are mistaken. By examining the characteristics of the believer's conception of the miraculous I will be able to show how he can meet these sceptical challenges. In particular, I will argue that the believer can hold that certain particular events are the result of intervention by divine agency and are thus not to be explained scientifically but nevertheless can grant the scientist autonomy to investigate all types of events. While I urge that belief in the miraculous does not rest on a confusion I do not argue whether or not this belief is rational or justified.
C. A. Campbell's Effort of Will Argument
Authors: Gosselin Phillip D.
Published: October 2008

C. A. Campbell has for many years defended vigorously, and often persuasively, the following libertarian claims: (1) that the libertarian concept of freedom of choice is meaningful; (2) that the libertarian variety of freedom of choice is necessary for moral responsibility; and (3) that the libertarian variety of freedom of choice is a reality. This paper will be concerned with Campbell's effort of will argument for the last claim.
Flew and the Free Will Defence
Authors: Purtill Richard L.
Published: October 2008

In a recent paper Anthony Flew gives an argument which can be outlined as follows:

1. Any attempt to give a ‘free will defence’ (to rebut the argument from evil against God's existence) must be based either on a compatibilist notion of free will or a libertarian, incompatibilist, notion of free will.

2. A free will defence based on a compatibilist notion of free will must fail, for on a compatibilist view of free will, God could make creatures who were free but never chose evil.

3. A free will defence based on a libertarian notion of free will might have other difficulties, but on a libertarian view of free will God could not both leave men free and bring it about that they never chose evil.

4. But a free will defence based on an incompatibilist, libertarian notion of free will can be rejected, since:

(a) It is not clear that the ordinary use of such key terms as ‘action’ and ‘choice’ carry any implications of libertarian free will.

(b) If such terms did carry the implication of libertarian free will it becomes hard to see how anyone could be in a position to know that a choice had been made or an action performed.

(c) The possession of libertarian free will by created beings seems to be incompatible with the essential theistic doctrine that all created beings are always utterly dependent on God as their sustaining cause.

5. Therefore the free will defence fails.
Belief and Will
Authors: Pojman Louis P.
Published: October 2008

It is a widely held belief that one can will to believe, disbelieve, and withhold belief concerning propositions. It is sometimes said that we have a duty to believe certain propositions. These theses have had a long and respected history. In one form or another they receive the support of a large number of philosophers and theologians who have written on the relationship of the will to believing. In the New Testament Jesus holds his disciples responsible for their beliefs, reprimands them for doubting, and speaks of the ability to believe as if it were optional. Paul makes it clear that he thinks propositional belief is a necessary condition for salvation. If a man confesses Christ as Lord with his lips and believes in his heart that God has raised him from the dead, he shall be saved (Romans 10: 9f.). The writer of Hebrews implies that unless we have certain propositional beliefs we cannot please God (Heb. II: 6). In the New Testament most cases of pistis (belief, faith) involve more than a propositional attitude. They involve the idea of trust and faithfulness. Nevertheless, a prima facie case for saying that the volitional theses can be found in the New Testament can be made. Forms of volitionalism can be found stated more explicitly in the writings of the early Church, in the writings of Irenaeus, in the Athanasian Creed, and in Augustine. Acquinas describes faith as an act of the intellect moved by the will. Descartes is perhaps the classic example of a volitionalist, holding that if we were not responsible for our beliefs (especially our false beliefs), then God would be - which is tantamount to blasphemy in that it makes God into a deceiver.
A Theory of disembodied survival and re-embodied existence
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2008

In his Survival and Disembodied Existences Terence Penelhum presents two arguments against the possibility of disembodied survival. The first is that the memory criterion of personal identity is parasitic upon bodily identity and the second is the more fundamental contention that the notion of a disembodied person is unintelligible. Penelhum's claim is not that it is impossible as such to speak of disembodied intelligence, or perception, or even agency, but that the problem of construing the identity of disembodied individuals is overwhelmingly difficult. With regard to the idea of resurrection Penelhum argues that it is intelligible but that the question of whether or not an individual is someone who has been resurrected, or not, is one which no evidence could conclusively settle. It calls for a decision rather than for the production of conclusive evidence. ‘When resurrection is predicted it is always open to a critic to deny that what is predicted has to be accorded that title.’
Would a satanic resurrection world falsify Christian Theism?–Reply to Gregory S. Kavka
Authors: Gregory Donald R.
Published: October 2008

In a recent article in Religious Studies, Gregory S. Kavka argues that John Hick was wrong when he said that the statement ‘God (as conceived by Christians) exists’ is verifiable but not falsifiable. Kavka constructs an imaginary `resurrection world' ruled by Satan and inhabited by such resurrected evildoers as Hitler and Stalin. In such a world, those who had been virtuous in earthly life in the hopes of a Christ-dominated resurrection world discover that virtue is inversely rewarded, with the ‘living’ intolerable for them and worst of all for those among them who had lived especially virtuous lives, i.e. the saints. Further, they are told by presumably knowledgeable inhabitants of this world that:

…the historical Christ was an agent sent by Satan to raise in good people false hopes of eternal salvation. This story is confirmed by Satan himself who demonstrates through a huge telescope-like device how he continues to send false saviours to other planets inhabited by intelligent beings in a cruel plan to make such beings miserable in the long run.
Religious ‘Seeing-As’
Authors: Reese William L.
Published: October 2008

The conceptual framework of religion is more like the frame of a picture than the frame of a house; and what goes on within the frame is other than conceptual. This is the hypothesis motivating the analysis which follows. Given the hypothesis, the problem is to conceive what religion is - this other-than-conceptual enterprise which tends to attract conceptual frames. A possible answer is available in Wittgensteinian ‘seeing-as’. A number of philosophers of religion have recently exercised this option. The present paper adds to their work by comparing a number of types of religious seeing-as with the instances of visual ambiguity drawn on by Wittgenstein.
Eliade's Theory of Millenarianism
Authors: Segal Robert A.
Published: October 2008

To the extent that Mircea Eliade is concerned with millenarianism he is concerned with it as only an instance of religious phenomena generally and is concerned with its meaning rather than its cause. Yet presupposed in the meaning he finds is a theory of its cause, and that theory is worth examining both because it elucidates Eliade's approach to religion as a whole and because as an explanation of millenarianism it is atypical and even unique.
On the Rationality of Radical Theological Non-Naturalism
Authors: Nielsen Kai
Published: October 2008

In my Contemporary Critiques of Religion and in my Scepticism, I argue that non-anthropomorphic conceptions of God do not make sense. By this I mean that we do not have sound grounds for believing that the central truth-claims of Christianity are genuine truth-claims and that we do not have a religiously viable concept of God. I argue that this is so principally because of three interrelated features about God-talk. (I) While purporting to be factual assertions, central bits of God-talk, e.g. ‘God exists’ and ‘God loves man-kind’, are not even in principle verifiable (confirmable or disconfirmable) in such a way that we can say what experienceable states of affairs would count for these putative assertions and against their denials, such that we could say what it would be like to have evidence which would make either their assertion or their denial more or less probably true. (2) Personal predicates, e.g. ‘loves’, ‘creates’, are at least seemingly essential in the use of God-talk, yet they suffer from such an attenuation of meaning in their employment in religious linguistic environments that it at least appears to be the case that we have in such environments unwittingly emptied these predicates of all intelligible meaning so that we do not understand what we are asserting or denying when we utter ‘God loves mankind’ or ‘God created the heavens and the earth’ and the like. (3) When we make well-formed assertions, it appears at least to be the case that a necessary condition for such wellformedness is that we should be able successfully to identify the subject of that putative statement so that we can understand what it is that we are talking about and thus understand that a genuine statement has actually been made. But, where God is conceived non-anthropomorphically, we have no even tolerably clear idea about how God, an infinite individual, occupying no particular place or existing at no particular time, and being utterly transcendent to the world, can be identified. Indeed we have no coherent idea of what it would be like to identify him and this means we have no coherent idea of what it would be like for God even to be a person or an it. He cannot be picked out and identified in the way persons and things can.
Nielsen, Ethics and God
Authors: Ramberan Osmond G.
Published: October 2008

One of the central claims of most religious people (especially those in the Judeo-Christian tradition) is that morality is based upon religion or, more specifically, on a belief in God. A morality which is not God-centred not only cannot provide a genuine basis for moral beliefs but is really and truly groundless. For without a belief in the sovereignty of God, there can be no genuine adequate foundation for moral beliefs. In his recent book, Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen claims that this view is grossly mistaken. According to Nielsen, morality cannot be based on religion because moral claims cannot be derived from religious (non-moral) cosmological claims such as ‘God is Creator’, or ‘God exists’. ‘God wills X’, ‘God commands X’, do not entail ‘X ought to be done’, or ‘I ought to do X’. It is perfectly in order for someone to say that God wills (commands) X, but is X good? It is also perfectly in order for someone to say that God commands me to do X, but why should I obey God? Surely it cannot be because God is powerful and, if I do not obey his commands, he will punish me. It may be prudent and expedient to obey God because I am afraid of punishment, but this is surely not a morally good reason for obeying him. Moral obligations follow God's commands only if it is assumed that God is morally perfect or that he is good or that his commands are right (p. 5). But I cannot know that God is good without an understanding of what it is for something to be good. To be sure, ‘God is good’, is a truth of language, but in order to understand it we must have a prior understanding of goodness- an understanding which is ‘logically prior to, and independent of, any understanding or acknowledgement of God’ (p. 11). Moreover, Nielsen argues, the religious quest is a quest to find a being that is ‘worthy of worship’, but it is by our own moral insight that we decide that any being, any Z, is ‘worthy of worship’. The decision that there is a Z such that Z is worthy of worship is a moral judgment which is in no way dependent upon the will of God. But more than this, ‘God’, in ‘God is worthy of worship’, is, in most cases, used analytically so that anyone who is brought to say ‘My God’, or ‘My Lord and my God’, is using ‘God’ evaluatively and by implication making a moral judgment - a moral judgment which is logically prior to the will or command of God. This leads Nielsen to conclude:
Theological Statements, Phenomenalistic Language and Confirmation
Authors: Martin Michael
Published: October 2008

In a recent paper Michael Tooley has argued that theological statements can be confirmed relative to a phenomenalistic observational language given a certain construal of confirmation. Consequently, he maintains that the verificationist challenge to theological statements, namely that in order to be significant they must be confirmable, can be answered. In this paper I will show that Tooley's argument has serious problems.
Some Problems about Resurrection
Authors: Quinn Philip L.
Published: October 2008

Suppose that a person P1 dies some time during 1978. Many years later, the resurrection world, a perennial object of Christian concern, begins on the morning of the day of judgment. On its first morning there are in that world distinct persons, P2 and P3, each of whom is related in remarkably intimate ways to P1. You are to imagine that each of them satisfies each of the criteria or conditions necessary for identity with P1 to some extent, that both of them satisfy these conditions to exactly the same extent, and that every other denizen of the resurrection world satisfies each of these conditions to a lesser extent than P2 and P3 do. Thus, for example, philosophers often claim that bodily continuity is a necessary condition for personal identity. If it is, you might assume that the body P2 has on the morning of the day of judgment contains some of the same atoms the body of P11 contained when P1 died, and that P2's body on that day contains exactly n atoms from P1's body at the time of death just in case P3's body on that day contains exactly n atoms from P1's body at the time of death. Or, again, some philosophers hold that connectedness of memory is necessary for personal identity. If so, you are to suppose that on the morning of the day of judgment P3 seems to remember some of the events in the life of P1 having happened to him, and that P3 seems to remember a certain event in the life of P1 having happened to him just in case P2 seems to remember that very event in the life of P1 having happened to him. You are to fill in the details by adding complete parity between P2 and P3 with respect to similarity of DNA molecules, character traits and whatever else you deem relevant to personal identity. And, finally, you are to complete the story by imagining that P2 and P3 live very different sorts of lives in the resurrection world. To heighten the poignancy of the story, you might imagine that P2 enjoys forever after the beatitude promised to the blessed while P3 suffers the everlasting torments reserved for the damned.
Statements of Religious Belief
Authors: O'hear A.
Published: October 2008

A well-trodden approach to statements of religious belief takes the following course:

Religious believers call upon God as their loving Father. Clearly God, being a spirit, is not a Father in the straightforward biological sense. What is claimed is that he is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that he has moreover a special father-like care for his human creatures. But this claim does not seem to be subject to any modification in the face of apparent lack of parental care on the part of God to his children. In fact believers are unwilling or unable to specify any actual or potential state of affairs that counts or would count towards deciding the truth value of their belief. In the light of this, it is hard to see the belief as having any meaning at all. The conclusion is that however much we may want to accept religious statements on faith, we cannot, because we are unable to discover what it is we are being asked to believe.
Sinai and Exodus: Two Grounds for Hope in the Jewish Tradition
Authors: Hartman David
Published: October 2008

Hope is a category of transcedence, by means of which a man does not permit what he senses and experiences to be the sole criterion of what is possible. It is the belief or the conviction that present reality (what I see) does not exhaust the potentialities of the given data. Hope opens the present to the future; it enables a man to look ahead, to break the fixity of what he observes, and to perceive the world as open-textured. The categories of possibility and of transcendence interweave a closely stitched fabric - hope says that tomorrow can be better than today.
Is Religion Psychotherapy? – An Indian View
Authors: Ravindra R.
Published: October 2008

A related question to the one posed in the title is: ‘Is religion psychology?’ In order to make this question a little sharper, let us raise two parallel ones: ‘Is religion physiology?’ and ‘Is religion physiotherapy?’

I have the impression that the answer to any of the above four questions is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. What I propose to do below is to try to find out how we might understand these questions in the light of the Bhagavad Gītā and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with occasional help from other sources. These two texts are of paramount importance in Indian religion and psychology, and may be considered representative of the classical Indian view.
Evil, Omniscience and Omnipotence
Authors: Paterson R. W. K.
Published: October 2008

There are numerous ‘solutions’ to the problem of evil, from which theists can and do freely take their pick. It is fairly clear that any attempt at a solution must involve a scaling-down of one or more of the assertions out of whose initial conflict the problem arises – either by a downward revision of what we mean by omnipotence, or omniscience, or benevolence, or by minimizing the amount or condensing the varieties of evil actually to be found in the universe. And indeed, in one or more of these different ways, the charge of logical inconsistency can no doubt always be vouchsafed at least a formal answer. Unfortunately, the mere ironing-out of formal inconsistencies does not of itself go very far towards providing a solution to this central problem of theism which will be morally, religiously, and intellectually convincing and acceptable as well as logically impeccable. Everything depends on how the inconsistencies are ironed out. For every attempt at a solution of the problem of evil has to be made at a price, in keeping with the scale and type of conceptual or ethical readjustments which it requires of us. And if the solutions which are generally offered seldom seem to carry much conviction, this is because the price they require us to pay nearly always seems far too high. A ‘solution’ to the problem of evil that is to count as a genuine solution must not require us to make any conceptual or ethical readjustments which it would not on independent grounds be entirely reasonable to make. A ‘solution’ that was finally to count as the solution of the problem of evil would presumably need to be that particular one which required us to make only those conceptual and ethical readjustments which (of all the readjustments that were open to us) were on independent grounds the ones that it was the most reasonable to make. What follows is offered as a solution, in the above sense, of the problem of evil. However, I shall not here attempt to argue that it is the solution.
‘Meaning’, experience and the ontological argument
Authors: Wald Albert W.
Published: October 2008

There is a theory about knowledge of the meanings of words which has been held by philosophers as different as existentialists and crude empiricists.1 It may be called the empiricist theory, and is stated thus:

If anyone fully understands the meaning of ‘x’, then the object(s) denoted by ‘x’ must have been experienced or ‘encountered’ by that person.
Eastern and western empiricism and the ‘no-self’ theory
Authors: Lesser A. H.
Published: October 2008

Several recent writers, of whom the most important and accessible, for English readers, are probably K. N. Jayatilleke and W. Rahula, have drawn attention to the fact that Buddhism, unlike many other religious philosophies, regards personal experience as the only valid source of knowledge. The Buddha himself is said to have distinguished between those who base their religion, or world-view, on tradition, those who base it on reasoning and speculation, and those who base it on personal experience, as he does himself:

I am one of those who profess the basis of a religion after finding a final and ultimate insight in this life by gaining a higher knowledge personally of a doctrine among doctrines not traditionally heard of before. (Quoted by Jayatilleke, p. 171)
Plantinga's God and other monstrosities
Authors: Grim Patrick
Published: October 2008

In God, Freedom, and Evil, Alvin Plantinga presents a new form of the ontological argument for the existence of God. Though he has reservations concerning its evangelical efficacy, Plantinga considers the proof both valid and sound, and presents it as a defence of the rational acceptability of theism.
Prayer in primitive religion
Authors: McEwen Richard C. , Aseltine Herschel E.
Published: October 2008

The aim of this paper is to examine the several aspects of prayer in primitive, i.e. nonliterate religions. The contention is that prayer does in fact exist among primitive people in their religious practices and that prayer does have a functional aspect in primitive religion.
Rationality and Religious Belief
Authors: Pojman Louis P.
Published: October 2008

In debate on faith and reason two opposing positions have dominated the field. The first position asserts that faith and reason are commensurable and the second position denies that assertion. Those holding to the first position differ among themselves as to the extent of the compatibility between faith and reason, most adherents relegating the compatibility to the ‘preambles of faith’ (e.g. the existence of God and his nature) over against the ‘articles of faith’ (e.g. the doctrine of the incarnation). Few have maintained complete harmony between reason and faith, i.e. a religious belief within the realm of reason alone. The second position divides into two sub-positions: (1) that which asserts that faith is opposed to reason (which includes such unlikely bedfellows as Hume and Kierkegaard), placing faith in the area of irrationality; and (2) that which asserts that faith is higher than reason, is transrational. Calvin and Barth assert that a natural theology is inappropriate because it seeks to meet unbelief on its own ground (ordinary human reason). Revelation, however, is ‘self-authenticating’, ‘carrying with it its own evidence’.1 We may call this position the ‘transrationalist’ view of faith. Faith is not so much against reason as above it and beyond its proper domain. Actually, Kierkegaard shows that the two sub-positions are compatible. He holds both that faith is above reason (superior to it) and against reason (because reason has been affected by sin). The irrationalist and transrationalist positions are sometimes hard to separate in the incommensurabilist's arguments. At least, it seems that faith gets such a high value that reason comes off looking not simply inadequate but culpable. To use reason where faith claims the field is not only inappropriate but irreverent or faithless.
The Concept of Divine Transcendence
Authors: Hudson W. Donald
Published: October 2008

The thought of God as transcendent is central to theism. Although the expression ‘divine transcendence’ does not appear to have been used by theologians (as distinct from philosophers) before the nineteenth century,1 the idea itself is very deep-rooted. If we ask where it is ultimately grounded, I think the answer may well be: in the idea of the holy.
Religious Experience and Transcendence
Authors: Lyttkens Hampus
Published: October 2008

Someone may ask what the reasons are for putting religious experience and transcendence together. My answer is the following. My general philosophical position is empirical by nature. I am of the opinion that everything that is said about reality must in some way or other, in order to be true or probable, be related to or grounded in reality. If God is thought to be real in some sense of the word and if he is said to have the quality of being transcendent, there must be some sort of empirical reasons for it. Experience is generally - at least in its objective variant - a usual way of motivating propositions about reality. There is therefore reason to ask: Is there anything in religious experience that motivates giving God the predicate of transcendence? And on the other hand: What conditions would there have to be in our world of experience to justify a consideration of a theory of Transcendence?
Divine Conservation and Spinozistic Pantheism
Authors: Quinn Philip L.
Published: October 2008

In a recent paper, Robert A. Oakes argues that a doctrine central to, and partially constitutive of, classical theism implies a certain sort of pantheism. The doctrine in question is a modal form of the claim that God conserves in existence the world of contingent things; alternatively, it is the view that all contingently existing things are necessarily continuously dependent upon God for their existence. And the variety of pantheism at stake is a modal form of the thesis that all contingent things are, in some sense, included within the being of God.
Divine Omniscience and Human Freedom
Authors: Davis Stephen T.
Published: October 2008

Theists typically believe the following two propositions:

(1) God is omniscient,

and

(2) Human beings are free.

Are they consistent? In order to decide, we must first ask what they mean. Roughly, let us say that a being is omniscient if for any proposition he knows whether it is true or false. Since I have no wish to deny that there are true and false propositions about future states of affairs (as some philosophers have done), omniscience includes foreknowledge, which we can say is knowledge of the truth value of propositions about future states of affairs. For example, I believe the proposition ‘Davis will wear shoes tomorrow’ is true today, and if it is true today, i.e. if I will wear shoes tomorrow, an omniscient being knows today that it is true – and, if this being is eternally omniscient, he knew it millions of years ago.
The Dimensions of the Self: Buddhi in the Bhagavad-G¯tā and Psyché in Plotinus
Authors: Armstrong A. H. , Ravindra R.
Published: October 2008

The Bhagavad-Gītā is the most important text in the smrti (what is remembered) literature of India, as distinct from the śruti (what is heard) literature which is traditionally regarded as ultimately authoritative. The Bhagavad-Gītā has been assigned a date ranging from the fifth century B.C. to the second century B.C. The Indian religious tradition places the Gītā at the end of the third age of the present cycle of the universe and the beginning of the fourth, namely the Kali Yuga to which we belong.
Zen and San-Lun Mādhyamika Thought: Exploring the Theoretical Foundation of Zen Teachings and Practices
Authors: Cheng Hsueh-Li
Published: October 2008

Zen Buddhism often appears to be ‘anti-intellectual’, ‘illogical’ and ‘trivial’. These apparent aspects of Zen have puzzled many students of Buddhism. Why is Zen so ‘irrational’? By what Buddhist doctrines, tenets or philosophies did Zen masters develop their unconventional and dramatic teachings and practices? The aim of this paper is to show that main San-lun Mādhyamika doctrines, such as Emptiness, the Middle Way, the Twofold Truth and the refutation of erroneous views as the illumination of right views, have been assimilated into Zen teachings and practices Mādhyamika philosophy seems to provide a major ‘theoretical’ foundation for as a ‘practical’; ‘anti-intellectual’, ‘irrational’, ‘unconventional’ and ‘dramatic’ religious movement.
Divine Independence and the Ontological Argument – A Reply to James M. Humber
Authors: Nasser Alan G.
Published: October 2008

In a detailed and spirited critique, Professor James M. Humber has found my defence of the ontological argument unconvincing. Humber's case rests upon his claim that my ‘error’ is due to my ‘having accepted an incorrect definition of “physically necessary being” … ’. Now I do indeed claim that God must be conceived as a factuall necessary being, i.e. as eternally independent. I take the notion of God's aseity or eternal independence to be relatively straightforward and uncontroversial; it is accepted as an essential component of the concept God by many philosophers who also insist that there is no acceptable form of demonstrative theism. Thus, it is widely held that ‘God is a factually necessary being’ does not imply ‘God is a logically necessary being’; that God is eternally independent does not imply that he exists in all possible worlds. But it is precisely this view that I have argued is incorrect. While I concur that there is an intelligible concept of God as factually necessary, I deny that the existence of such a being is logically contingent, a mere matter of empirical fact. Indeed, a rigorous inspection of the concept of an eternally independent being reveals that whether that concept is instantiated, i.e. whether there exists a being exemplifying that concept, is knowable a priori. My claim is in fact stronger than this. I argue that the existence of an eternal, independent, omniscient and omnipotent being (God) is demonstrable by conceptual analysis. It is Humber's contention that my alleged demonstration of God's existence crumbles upon the discovery of the unacceptability of my definition of ‘factually necessary being’. Let us see.
Plantinga on free will and evil
Authors: Pike Nelson
Published: October 2008

Some philosophers have argued that a world created by an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good being would not contain evil. Since the world contains evil in fact, it follows (so it is claimed) that the world was not created by an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good being. One of the replies frequently given to this argument is that the world contains evil only because it is populated with free creatures (men and devils) who perform morally wrong action. This is the centre of the so-called ‘Free Will Theodicy’ - a favourite not only of technical theologians such as Thomas Aquinas but of practising believers of the least sophisticated sort. On this view, evil results from the illicit exercise of created free will. The fault thus lies with his creatures and not with the omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good creator.
Human freedom and divine providence: some new thoughts on an old problem
Authors: Basinger David
Published: October 2008

Christian theists have not normally wished to deny either of the following tenets:

T1 God creates human agents such that they are free with respect to certain actions and, therefore, morally responsible for them.

T2 God is an omniscient, wholly good being who is omnipotent in the sense that he has (sovereign, providential) control over all existent states of affairs.
A new solution to an old problem
Authors: Wall George B.
Published: October 2008

Although a personal god of mixed moral character is logically possible, no personal god that has been represented as less than wholly good has gained more than a strictly local appeal. The Judaeo-Christian god is no exception. The god is represented as merciful, kind, longsuffering, forgiving, loving - in a word, wholly good. Of course, representing a god as wholly good is one thing; providing a convincing defence of his goodness is quite another. Indeed, many would contend that of all the defences provided within the Judaeo-Christian system, the defence of the goodness of God is the least convincing.
Fate and free will in the Bhagavadgītā
Authors: Sharma Arvind
Published: October 2008

The issue of free will versus fate can be analysed in three ways in relation to the Bhagavadgīā,: (1) by focusing on those verses of the Gita which address themselves to this question; (2) by focusing on the figure of Arjuna himself who, as will be shown, crystallizes around his person the issue of free will and fate; and (3) by focusing on the Kauravas who are similarly involved in the issue.
World Messianity: A study in liminality and communitas
Authors: Hambrick Charles H.
Published: October 2008

Among all the different religious movements in contemporary Japan one must acknowledge that from the point of view of the number of members, financial assets, physical facilities and activities, the most dominant are those that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and are referred to collectively as ‘newly arisen religions’ (Shinkō Shūkyō). Various observers have offered their explanations for the success and popularity of these groups in religious, sociological, psychological and historical terms.1 Several of these groups fall into the category of millenarian and messianic movements and have been discussed by Professor Carmen Blacker in her essay, ‘Millenarian Aspects of the New Religions in Japan’.2 Why and how do millenarian and messianic movements remain popular and maintain their vitality even when the circumstances surrounding their founding change? How do they continue their dynamic growth after the messiah dies or when the millennium is delayed? What are the similarities and differences between these groups in Japan and those in other cultural areas?