bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
personal Dimensions of the Sacred Journey: What Pilgrims Say
Authors: Aziz Barbara Nimri
Published: October 2008

A decade has passed since Victor Turner published his long and important paper defining pilgrimage as a ritual process. There and in his earlier article ‘The Centre Out There’, which appeared a year earlier, Turner provided a social explanation for the ubiquitous and still expanding phenomenon of pilgrimage. His simple model, developed from Van Gennep's ‘rite de passage’ seemed profound; it offered us a means for comparing the sacred journeys of one people with those of another, and for comparing pilgrimage with other kinds of ritual processes. Moreover, a vast amount of sociological data having to do with class, age, caste, and status of pilgrims could be usefully mobilized within this model. It continues to have some value although subsequent studies have shown that often pilgrim-groups are not as coherent or homogenous as Turner's model suggested they would become as they moved ever closer to the sacred centre of their shared faith.
The Place of Reason in the Quest for Moksha – Problems in Vivekananda's Conceptualization of Jñānaroga
Authors: Rambachan Anantanand
Published: October 2008

Most contemporary general studies on Hinduism affirm the view that this tradition proposes several distinct and independent ways (mārgas) for the attainment of ultimate spiritual freedom (moksha). The methods most often mentioned are karmayoga (the way of detached selfless work), bhaktiyoga (the way of love and worship towards a personal God), and jñānayoga (the way of reason). These studies, however, make little or no attempt to critically assess the assumptions of this thesis or to demonstrate in any convincing detail the relationship between the particularities of a specific method and the attainment of moksha. In spite of the way in which this claim has entered into modern writings on Hinduism, discussion still tends, on the whole, to be vague and generalized.
Some Reflections on the Ethics of Knowledge and Belief
Authors: Harrison Jonathan
Published: October 2008

Knowledge is desirable both for its own sake (because it is something most of us, from curiosity, want) and because without it we will not be able to take the right means to whatever ends we happen to have. Much knowledge is interesting to oneself and others as well as useful, and a man without it will be an impoverished bore, as well as being unsuccessful in his enterprises.
The Faith/History Problem, and Kierkegaard's A Priori ‘Proof’
Authors: Ferreira M. J.
Published: October 2008

What has become known as the ‘faith/history’ problem for historical religions like Christianity centres on the attempt to combine the ontological decisiveness, for faith, of an historical event characterized as an actual Incarnation of God with the epistemological indifference, or irrelevance, of historical information about that event which is decisive for faith. Without the former there is nothing to be related to or personally appropriated; without the latter faith is rendered vulnerable to the vagaries of historical research. Soren Kierkegaard's Climacus writings – the Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript – provide a classic formulation of the inherent tension. Twentieth-century variations on the same theme are found in the writings of Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, among others. In what follows I want to highlight an element in Kierkegaard's Climacus account which crucially distinguishes his attempt to deal with the faith/history relation from other attempts to deal with it, and thus offers what I suggest is a novel approach to overcoming the tension. This element – effectively a kind of a priori or conceptual proof – has been neglected, and whatever one's final judgement on its contribution to the problem as a whole, a consideration of it and its implications is, at the very least, integral to a full understanding of the thought-experiment in the Fragments. Moreover, in the process, useful light can be shed indirectly on twentieth-century attempts to deal with the faith/history problem.
Newman's Distinction Between Inference and Assent
Authors: Steinberg Eric
Published: October 2008

The Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is now generally recognized as the culmination of John Henry Newman's longstanding preoccupation with what might be called the ‘Catholic problem of faith’. In numerous places Newman noted that prior to writing this work he had made sporadic and fruitless attempts to deal with the problem. In the widely cited insight of 1866 he received new ideas about the concepts involved in the problem and work on the Grammar ensued.
The Buddha of Christendom: A Review of The Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat
Authors: Almond Philip
Published: October 2008

Through the Manichaeans, the Islamic world, and the Christian East, the story of the Buddha became known to the Christian West. If the teachings of the Buddha reached the West in an attenuated form, his life and the ascetic ideal which it symbolized were a positive force in the spiritual life of Christendom. It is one of the vicissitudes of history for which Christianity and Buddhism can both feel grateful. For the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat demonstrates powerfully the intimate connections between these two traditions to the extent that they both pursue the spiritual life and the ascetic ideal. As Max Müller has aptly put it

Whatever we may think of the sanctity of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to a place among them read the story of his life as it is told in the Buddhist canon. If he lived the life which is there described, few saints have a better claim to the title than Buddha; and no one either in the Greek or in the Roman Church need be ashamed of having paid to Buddha's memory the honour that was intended for St Josaphat, the prince, the hermit, and the saint.
What does Death have to do with the Meaning of Life?
Authors: Levine Michael P.
Published: October 2008

Philosophers often distinguish in some way between two (or more) senses of life's meaning. Paul Edwards terms these a ‘cosmic’ and ‘terrestrial’ sense. The cosmic sense is that of an overall purpose of which our lives are a part and in terms of which our lives must be understood and our purposes and interests arranged. This overall purpose is often identified with God's divine scheme, but the two need not necessarily be equated. The terrestrial sense of meaning is the meaning people find (subjectively) in their own lives apart from the place of their lives in any ultimate end or context.
Evil and the Problem of God
Authors: Chryssides George D.
Published: October 2008

The purpose of this article is to develop a solution to the problem of evil within the context of a ‘revisionist' concept of God. The traditional approach to the problem of evil has been to assume one particular model of God, and then to ascertain how evil can be reconciled with that model. I hope to demonstrate that this is a mistake. What needs to be done, rather, is to acknowledge the existence of evil, and to ask whether this problem is generated by a faulty model of God. What I shall contend is that it is the traditional concept of God which generates this area of philosophical and theological perplexity, not the nature and function of evil. In particular, I shall attempt to show that the problem admits of a much more acceptable solution if the Christian believer abandons the notion of God as ‘a person’ or a disembodied agent, and conceives of God in a less overtly ‘personalistic’ manner.
The Ritual Meaning of Corn Pollen Among the Navajo Indians
Authors: Raitt Thomas M.
Published: October 2008

Navajo religious rituals are so multifaceted that one has trouble perceiving any centre of gravity. The inevitable question is: What are the sources of unity behind the diversity of the chant system? Let us see what evidence there is among the Navajo that all religions tend to seek some point of contact with the divine.
In Defence of Free Will Theodicy
Authors: Coughlan Michael J.
Published: October 2008

The Free Will Defence has been attacked as being unsound, implausible and, more recently, irrelevant. The first section of the paper returns to a discussion on the relevance of the Free Will Defence, arguing that the case for its irrelevance is inextricably impaled on the horns of a dilemma. In the second section it is shown that Free Will Theodicy, even in a form extended to include natural evil, need not be as implausible as it is sometimes portrayed for it demands no more than that good, on the whole, outweighs evil, on the whole. Finally, some tempting objections to the strategy employed in this argument are considered and rejected, both on the grounds that they are untenable in themselves and on the paradoxical ground that, if valid, the objections would appear to rule out any creation.
Newman, Arnold & the Problem of Particular Providence
Authors: Armour Leslie
Published: October 2008

It has often been suggested – recently again by Michael Goulder in a debate with John Hick – that what traditionally was called the problem of ‘particular providence’, the problem of God's selective interference in the ongoing affairs of the world, is so acute as to render any form of rational theism impossible. In the same debate Hick argues for a ‘minimalist’ position which allows divine intervention only in the form of a general, radiated, goodness and benevolence on which human beings may draw. In this paper I want to show that reason permits and some evidence suggests another (and richer) possibility – the possibility that God intervenes through the inner life and perhaps by establishing the cast of characters. I shall construct this alternative usingideas developed from Cardinal Newman and Matthew Arnold.
Is The God of Judaism Incarnate?
Authors: Neusner Jacob
Published: October 2008

The issue of incarnation in the formative centuries of the Judaism of the dual Torah concerns not the invention of an essentially new conception of God but the recovery of what was among other Judaisms an entirely conventional one. What concerns us is not so much why in light of the prior Judaic systems and their statements, the Judaism of the dual Torah represented God inincarnate form. It is how the incarnation of God attained realization. For in the earlier stages of the unfolding of the canon of the Judaism of the dual Torah, e.g. in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and related exegetical writings, we have no hint of an incarnation of God, and it is only in the final and complete statement of that Judaism that we confront, in full and whole realization, the notion of God with an individuality, a personality, a corporeal character. The answer to that question requires us to pursue two distinct lines of inquiry. The first concerns incarnation – treating as human and fleshly and corporeal what is to begin with either an object or an abstraction – as a mode of thought, not with special reference to God. Here we want to know the point at which, in the unfolding of the canon of the Judaism of the dual Torah, the conception of incarnation serves as a mode of presenting as a human person or personality some thing or some idea. Within this inquiry, further, we want to know precisely how the conception of incarnation comes to expression. The second addresses the issue why is it that in the pages of the Bavli in particular the process of incarnation reaches the person of God?
Indra's Search for the Self and the Beginnings of Philosophical Perplexity in India
Authors: Kapstein Matthew
Published: October 2008

In the present essay our concern will be with some of the earliest documents that shed light on the development of Indian reflections on the puzzles of personal identity. These texts are derived from the Upanisads, which exemplify a type of literature that some philosophers may regard as classic, but not as philosophy. What I will be proposing here is that we attempt to regard such very ancient sources of Indian thought more philosophically, more in the manner that some recent writers have begun to re–examine the Presocratics. I attempt to show that although philosophical method was not yet developed in the early literature under consideration (as equally it was not in Anaxagoras or Heraclitus), several important arguments are nonetheless already emerging therein limine. In surveying these proto–arguments, we will also have occasion to remark on their historical and/or conceptual affinities with the developed philosophies of later ages.
Intellect and Will in Augustine's Confessions
Authors: Crawford Dan D.
Published: October 2008

Augustine tells us in the Confessions that his reading of Cicero's Hortensius at the age of nineteen aroused in him a burning ‘passion for the wisdom of eternal truth’. He was inspired ‘to love wisdom itself, whatever it might be, and to search for it, pursue it, hold it, and embrace it firmly’. And thus he embarked on his arduous journey to the truth, which was at the same time a conversion to Catholic Christianity, and which culminated twelve years later in his experience in the garden in Milan.
Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Duns Scotus
Authors: Thomas Hywel
Published: October 2008

The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor conceals his meaning, but reveals it with a sign.(Heracleitos fragment)

In the eternal truth from which all temporal things are made, we behold the form … and we have within us like a word the knowledge of what we have conceived.(St augustine, De Trin.)

For the invisible things of Him, since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made.(St Paul, Romans i, 20)
Determinism and the Hiddenness of God in Calvin's Theology
Authors: Kinlaw C. J.
Published: October 2008

Julian N. Hartt once observed that Calvin so accentuates divine causation that he denies all secondary agency. A strong statement of God's omnipotence commits Calvin to the position that divine causation is the only connection that has any foundation in reality. And this claim, Hartt noted, places Calvin dangerously close to Spinozism. I have no stake (nor does Hartt) in any analysis that attempts to indicate affinities between Calvin and the Dutch rationalist whom he predates by several generations. But, as Hartt suggested and as I will demonstrate, a persuasive case can be made for Calvin's commitment to a thoroughgoing causal determinism that has God at the helm directing every event. Now one should note at the outset that Calvin has solid theological reasons for stressing the role of God's all-determining will in the course of events. As a Reformation theologian, he is a persistent defender of the utter gratuitousness of grace, thereby denying that the moral, spiritual, and epistemological chasm separating the human and the divine can in any way be reconciled by human being. Yet, for Calvin, grace possesses an omnicompetence – even faith is the gift of grace – which, when examined within the total context of his thought, reveals the radical dependence of the entire created order upon the will of God.
An Analysis of Holiness
Authors: Smith Quentin
Published: October 2008

This inquiry is motivated by the question: if atheism is true, is it nevertheless the case that holiness or sacredness is exemplified? I believe the answer to this question is affirmative, and that the path to its affirmation lies in the rejection of the traditional assumption that holiness is a single and simple property of a divinity that eludes analysis. The opposite view, that there are several complex properties comprising holiness, makes it manifest that there are holy beings, even a holy ‘supreme being’, even if there is no God and no gods.
World–Views and the Epistemic Foundations of Theism
Authors: Runzo Joseph
Published: October 2008

Epistemological issues have inevitably been perennial issues for theism. For any claim to have insight into the nature and acts of the divine requires some sort of substantiation. And the appeal to faith typically made to meet this demand is often unconvincing. This raises a fundamental question: what could constitute proper grounds for theistic belief? In attempting to anwser this question, we will need to address the underlying epistemic issue of what justifies commitment to any world–view.
Wittgenstein's Notion of ‘Theology as Grammar’
Authors: Harvey Michael G.
Published: October 2008

In the wake of Kantian and positivistic critiques of metaphysics and theology, one group of philosophers and theologians has attempted to reconstrue the meaning of religious discourse without making ontological commitments to a mind-independent reality. Another group has refused to abandon such commitments: they remain convinced that religious language is meaningless without them, because it cannot otherwise be ‘about’ anything objectively real; it merely becomes an expression ‘of’ religious piety, sentiment, or emotion.
The Divine Simplicity in St Thomas
Authors: Burns Robert M.
Published: October 2008

In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ (1.3.7) immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so that at best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ (1.13.5). In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ (Q 7). Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ (1.32.1). Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature.
Mysticism and Experience
Authors: Jantzen Grace M.
Published: October 2008

The definition of mysticism has shifted, in modern thinking, from a patristic emphasis on the objective content of experience to the modern emphasis on the subjective psychological states or feelings of the individual. Post Kantian Idealism and Romanticism was involved in this shift to a far larger extent than is usually recognized. An important conductor of the subjectivist view of mysticism to modern philosophers of religion was William James, even though in other respects he repudiated Romantic and especially Idealist categories of thought. In this article I wish first to explore William James' understanding of mysticism and religious experience, and then to measure that understanding against the accounts of two actual mystics, Bernard of Clairvaux and Julian of Norwich, who, for all their differences, may be taken as paradigms of the Christian mystical tradition. I shall argue that judging from these two cases, James' position is misguided and inadequate. Since James' account has been of enormous influence in subsequent thinking about mysticism, it follows that if his understanding of mysticism is inadequate, so is much of the work that rests upon it.
Mystical Experience and Non–Basically Justified Belief
Authors: Levine Michael P.
Published: October 2008

Two theses are central to foundationalism. First, the foundationalist claims that there is a class of propositions, a class of empirical contingent beliefs, that are ‘immediately justified’. Alternatively, one can describe these beliefs as ‘self–evident’, ‘non–inferentially justified’, or ‘self–warranted’, though these are not always regarded as entailing one another. The justification or epistemic warrant for these beliefs is not derived from other justified beliefs through inductive evidential support or deductive methods of inference. These ‘basic beliefs’ constitute the foundations of empirical knowledge. One can give a reason for the justification of a basic belief even though the justification for that belief is not based on other beliefs. Thus, according to Chisholm, if asked what one's justification was for thinking that one knew, presently, that one is thinking about a city one takes to be Albuquerque, one could simply say ‘what justifies me…is simply the fact that I am thinking about a city I take to be Albuquerque’.
Kierkegaard On Doctrine: A Post–Modern Interpretation
Authors: Emmanuel Steven M.
Published: October 2008

Though Kierkegaard never explicitly formulated a theory of religious doctrine, he did have a clear position on the role that Christian doctrine ought to play in the lives of believers. Briefly stated, he maintained that Christianity, as a human activity, involves more than merely believing certain propositions about matters of fact. The doctrines of Christianity take on a true religious significance only when they are given the power to transform the lives of those who accept them; only when they are given expression in the existence of the believer. This was, however, far from evident to Kierkegaard's theological contemporaries who, in the collective absentmindedness of the age, sought to replace the Christian virtue of faith with the philosophical ideal of objective knowledge.
The Logic of God Incarnate
Authors: Hick John
Published: October 2008

The most important recent philosophical treatment of Ghristology is that of Thomas V. Morris in The Logic of God Incarnate, defending the high-orthodox position that ‘Jesus of Nazareth was one and the same person as God the Son, the Second Person of the divine Trinity’ (p. 13) against the charge that the characteristics of deity and humanity are non-compossible in one person at one time, so that it is a contradiction to attribute both sets of qualities to the historical Jesus of Nazareth. I believe that Morris's defence, impressive though it is, does not succeed but on the contrary provides yet another illustration of the thesis that any attempt to spell out the idea of divine incarnation as a metaphysical theory, rather than as religious metaphor or myth, is bound to be unacceptable or, in traditional terminology, heretical.
Piety and the Proofs
Authors: Clayton John
Published: October 2008

Religious piety and proofs of God's existence have not in modern times invariably sat so happily beside one another as the attempted euphony of my title may at first appear to suggest.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the existence and nature of God came to be conceived as a purely philosophical question that could be answered, if at all, without recourse to ‘narrowly religious’ considerations. Philosophers and sympathetic theologians agreed that a religiously independent philosophy is itself competent to demonstrate the deity's existence and nature by means of formally valid and generally convincing rational proofs.
Do all Religious Traditions Worship the Same God?
Authors: Vroom Hendrik M.
Published: October 2008

Do all religions worship the same God? Sometimes this question is answered positively, sometimes negatively. Various reasons are given. In the first four sections of this paper we will analyse arguments which affirm or deny that all religions worship the same God. We will see that different types of argument are used. Some authors base their answers to our question on their theological insights (section 1); others defend their thesis with reference to the results of studies in comparative religion (section 2); a third type of argument derives from the philosophy of religion (section 3) and a fourth from philosophical views regarding the ultimate unity of the world (section 4). After this survey we will deal with the structure of the various arguments given. What kind of argument is decisive? I will also make some comments on each of these arguments in order to develop my own. We will then draw our conclusion as to the kind of arguments which are appropriate to our theme (section 5). In the last section I will elaborate my own view.
On Failing to Resolve Theism-Versus-Atheism Empirically
Authors: O'connor David
Published: October 2008

At least since Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, theism has been under indictment; indeed it has been on trial for its life. In part, this indictment is that the enormous quantity, variety, and distribution of evils evident in the natural world disconfirm the core beliefs of theism. Those core beliefs, I think, are the following pair: there exists a being at once omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, the worshipful creator of the universe (henceforth G); and G stands in a relation to the natural world which might be called one of moral responsibility (henceforth M). Obviously, theism says a lot more than the above, rather abrupt, conjunction; nevertheless, that conjunction constitutes its core.
A God by any other Name …
Authors: Steglich David
Published: October 2008

In his book Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen voices criticism of Christian thought and morality. In two of his major arguments, Nielsen contends that morality can not be based on the Christian religion or similar theistic metaphysics, and secondly, that if morality is based on God, or God's will, any ‘moral decisions’ are arbitrary and involve no reasoning on the part of the individual. These two criticisms of Christian moral thought can be met by drawing upon the Ideal Observer Theory in ethics.
Meaning, Truth and Realism in Bultmann and Lindbeck
Authors: Fergusson David
Published: October 2008

The philosopher Michael Dummett has argued that a commitment to realism in a given domain must display the following marks: a conception of reality as determinate and mind-independent, the correspondence theory of truth, and a truth conditions theory of meaning. In his own and others' philosophy we see a series of arguments at work in the theory of meaning, in epistemology and in the philosophy of science which converge upon a common rejection of such realism. It is not surprising that in such an intellectual climate we see a rise in non-realist theories of religion. Religious realities are here recognised as projected; theological truth is fixed by pragmatic criteria; and meaning is handled in terms of assertibility conditions. This rise of regulative religion has met with a variety of reactions ranging from a horror of being imprisoned by an alien philosophy to a delight that the true nature of religion has at last been brought into sharper focus.
Kierkegaard on Theistic Proof
Authors: Stern Kenneth
Published: October 2008

It has been customary among analytic philosophers not to think highly of, and even to denigrate Kierkegaard. Their view is exemplified by the late Henry Aiken who writes that that Kierkegaard ‘usually does not argue for his position: he merely presents it’. Or that, as according to Aiken, one ‘distinguished Oxford philosopher’ is reported to have remarked, ‘Kierkegaard is not one of those philosophers on whom you can sharpen your wits’. It seems to me on the contrary, that Kierkegaard does indeed present arguments for his views. What follows is an example of this.
Of One Mind or Two? Query on the Innate Good in Mencius
Authors: Lai Whalen
Published: October 2008

Every man, says Mencius, has within him this mind (heart) of commiseration, this pu-jen chih hsin that cannot bear to see another person suffer. To support his argument, Mencius cites the parable of the child about to fall into a well. A man with an innate mind of compassion unable to bear to see the child suffer would naturally feel the urge to run ahead to save the child (Mencius 2A.6). Yet elsewhere in Mencius 4A.17, it appears that had the potential victim been a drowning sister-in-law, the man would also be momentarily checked by a fear of impropriety. Since the sense of propriety has its beginning in the mind as much as the sense of compassion, is not the mind of goodness somehow divided against itself? The present essay will examine this possible dilemma.
‘Why Did It Happen to Me?’
Authors: Thomas J. L. H.
Published: October 2008

There are doubtless many with personal experience of suffering, or of comforting others in distress, who would agree with Milton thus far that philosophic argument is powerless to satisfy those who in their anguish ask the question ‘Why did it happen to me?’ Yet to think so is to underestimate both the necessity and the power of reason: clarity of mind and the disposition to argue are commonly enhanced rather than diminished by suffering; and if reason is an essential part of man's nature, it should serve him, if anywhere, in the trials of life. We have every justification, therefore, despite common opinion, for seeking a rational answer to the question proposed. It must, however, be admitted at the outset that there is no direct answer to the question which can both withstand critical scrutiny and bring genuine comfort to the afflicted, an answer, that is, which accepts the question as it stands with its attendant presuppositions; but there is an indirect answer, which, precisely by rejecting one or more of these presuppositions and restating the question, can indeed satisfy these two requirements. Before such an answer can be outlined, however, the question in its traditional form must be examined and the traditional answers to it critically reviewed.
Patripassianism, Theopaschitism and the Suffering of God. Some Historical and Systematic Considerations
Authors: Sarot Marcel
Published: October 2008

In contemporary theology the doctrine of divine impassibility is a hot issue. The doubts about this doctrine in the present century have their earliest roots in British theology, where we can trace the passibilist tendency back to the last ten years of the nineteenth century. It received a powerful impetus from the First World War, and by the time the Second World War broke out it was almost generally accepted in British theology that God suffered. Since then this tendency has spread to the rest of Europe, notably to France and Germany, to the United States and to Asia. Although it cannot be denied that most of the theologians who explicitly state their views on divine impassibility, hold that this doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree false, the debate over this issue is far from closed. Recently Richard Creel published a thorough study in defence of divine impassibility, which, I expect, will prove quite influential. Apart from him some other theologians defend the doctrine as well. Moreover, the fact that many authors consider it necessary at present to write books and articles in defence of divine passibility also indicates that the truth of the passibilist position is not yet taken for granted by everyone.
Could God Make a Contradiction True?
Authors: Goldstick D.
Published: October 2008

Was Thomas Aquinas the first major Western philosopher to distinguish systematically between things it would be contradictory to deny and other things? He certainly was willing to give his authority to the proposition that whatever is logically impossible (as we say in modern terminology) ‘does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence’. In the later Middle Ages, scholastic philosophers came virtually to equate achievable by divine power and (describable in phraseology) free of contradiction (hence also not (describable in phraseology) free of contradiction and not achievable (even) by divine power).
The Crucial Disanalogies Between Properly Basic Belief and Belief in God
Authors: Grigg Richard
Published: October 2008

The antifoundationalist defence of belief in God set forth by Alvin Plantinga has been widely discussed in recent years. Classical foundationalism assumes that there are two kinds of beliefs that we are justified in holding: beliefs supported by evidence, and basic beliefs. Our basic beliefs are those bedrock beliefs that need no evidence to support them and upon which our other beliefs must rest. For the foundationalist, the only beliefs that can be properly basic are either self-evident, or incorrigible, or evident to the senses. Belief in God is none of these. Thus, says the foundationalist, belief in God is justified only if there is sufficient evidence to back it up.
Foundationalism and Peter's Confession
Authors: Hester Marcus
Published: October 2008

One part of the Clifford–James dispute is still with us, namely a more inclusive foundationalism which has grown out of criticism of evidentialism in relation to belief in God. ‘Evidentialism’ will here mean the view, attributed to thinkers in the middle ages, that foundational premises must be either self-evident or evident to the senses. One answer now given by some (chiefly Plantinga) to such foundational questions is that belief in God is a properly basic belief, though not properly basic in an evidentialist sense. Thus one can rationally hold such a belief without proving it by argument. I will argue that belief in some specific personal God, such as Allah, Yahweh or Jesus as the Christ (Peter's confession), as constituted by sacred texts is the form belief takes for Christian believers and that there are special questions as to whether such beliefs can be shown to be properly basic.
Does faith create its own objects?
Authors: MacKinnon Donald M.
Published: October 2008

The claim that faith is creative of its objects resides primarily in the conviction that the richness of the life of faith demands that it shall be subject only to its own laws. Its very diversity of expression is indication that it should not be fettered or confined by a restrictive model that outlaws the marvellously unexpected quality of its explorations. Yet that metaphor itself suggests caution; for exploration is necessarily of a territory that the explorer does not bring into being by his voyage or journey. His travels have their own richness; thus Shackleton's famous boat journey has its place in the records of human endurance. But travel assumes a ground to be traversed, and the journey of Ernest Shackleton and the men who sailed with him was not conjured out of nothing, but an achievement made necessary as response to a situation that was itself in no sense of the explorer's contriving. Yet of course we are impatient with the suggestion that it was a mere, largely passive reaction to natural emergency, and only marginally regarded as humanly creative.
Craig, Mackie, and the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Authors: Oppy Graham
Published: October 2008

In ‘Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument’ (Religious Studies, xx (1984), 367–75), Professor William Lane Craig undertakes to demonstrate that J. L. Mackie's analysis of the kalam cosmological argument in The Miracle of Theism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982) is ‘superficial’, and that Mackie ‘has failed to provide any compelling or even intuitively appealing objection against the argument’ (p. 367). I disagree with Craig's judgement; for it seems to me that the considerations which Mackie advances do serve to refute the kalam cosmological argument. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to reply to Craig's criticisms on Mackie's behalf.
The Evidence for Reincarnation
Authors: Cockburn David
Published: October 2008

There are significant numbers of well-documented cases of the following general kind. At the age of 3 or 4 a child starts to make claims about his past which clearly do not correspond to anything that has happened in his present life. He claims to remember living in a certain place, doing certain things, being with certain people, and so on. It is then found that these memory claims fit the life of a person who died shortly before the child was born. The accuracy of the memory claims is striking and there seems to be no possible normal explanation of this. The child also has certain character traits, interests and skills which correspond closely to those of the one who died; and, perhaps, a physical characteristic, such as a birthmark or wound, which closely resembles a characteristic of the earlier individual.
David Hume and the Mysterious Shroud of Turin
Authors: Schoen Edward L.
Published: October 2008

In a footnote to ‘Of Miracles’, David Hume defined the miraculous as ‘… a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.’ In the opening pages of the essay itself, however, Hume dropped the reference to agency in favour of the simpler declaration that any ‘ … miracle is a violation of the laws of nature …’ This preference for the simpler formulation was deliberate. According to Hume, it was their violation of natural law that provided the genuinely intimidating obstacle against miracles. As the course of his argument makes clear, Hume believed that the massive accumulation of evidence supporting the regularity of nature invariably would overwhelm any meagre reports to the contrary. For this reason alone, questions of divine agency could be ignored as purely academic.
James, Rationality and Religious Belief
Authors: Wainwright W. J.
Published: October 2008

One of James's earliest philosophical essays sounds a note which will echo through his writings. Criticizing Spencer's definition of truth as (‘mere’) correspondence, James asserts that a ‘correspondence’ between the mind and reality is a ‘right mental action’, and rightness is determined by ‘pure subjective interests …brought… upon the scene and corresponding to no relation already there’ (EP 11).
Irony and Argument inDialogues, XII
Authors: Davis Scott
Published: October 2008

Toward the end of Hume'sDialogues concerning Natural Religion, Philo catalogues the ‘frivolous observances’, ‘rapturous ecstasies’ and ‘bigotted credulity’ of ‘vulgar superstition’, concluding that ‘true religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: But we must treat of religion, as it has com monly been found in the world’ (Hume, 1947: 222–3). This would be a mild enough sort of caveat were it not nigh on impossible to determine exactly what counts as true religion, and how it figures in Hume's argument. Typically, answers to this puzzle have required identifying the positions of the discussants, and then arguing that one of them represents Hume's views. A catalogue of the options may prove instructive.
Faith and Reason: Reflections on MacIntyre's ‘Tradition-constituted Enquiry’
Authors: Markham Ian
Published: October 2008

The problem at the heart of the faith/reason relationship can be set out as follows. Faith implies total commitment whilst reason requires a certain detachment. One cannot be totally committed yet rationally detached at the same time. Therefore faith and reason are two mutually exclusive approaches to religion. Alasdair MacIntyre in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? has offered a very interesting perspective on this problem. He has argued, albeit indirectly, that this faith/reason question is a modern problem generated by a certain set of liberal and relativist presuppositions. This paper will summarize Maclntyre's contribution to the discussion, and then point to some of the inadequacies of his account. I will be arguing that commitment to a tradition is largely justified by internal explanations for disagreement. Faith seems to need an intolerant explanation for different traditions. Therefore, MacIntyre is, in fact, handling liberalized forms of the traditions. By tackling MacIntyre's work from the faith/reason angle, I hope to show certain more fundamental problems with his work.
Evidentialist Agnosticism
Authors: Konyndyk Kenneth
Published: October 2008

Three very different assessments of the rationality of theistic belief have emerged from Oxford University in recent years. Richard Swinburne argues that theism is rationally demonstrable, producing a trilogy and more of books building an evidential case for theism. The late John Mackie, on the other hand, argued persistently that theism is not supported by the evidence usually offered for it and is controverted by our best evidence. The most rational course of action, according to him, is to be an atheist. Anthony Kenny, meanwhile, takes an agnostic position, arguing on personal grounds (but ones presumably available to any rational person) that he neither has adequate reason to accept theism nor adequate reason to embrace atheism. Although he says this issue is one on which it is important to have a view and one on which he formerly held a view, he unhappily finds himself in the position of being agnostic.
Can History Measure Eternity? A Reply to William Craig
Authors: Padgett Alan G.
Published: October 2008

I am grateful to Dr William L. Craig for his reply to an earlier article of mine in this journal, on the relationship between God and time. Craig and I agree on most points with respect to the relationship between God and time. What then is there for us to disagree about?

The point Craig argues for is, eternity is ‘coincident’ with our history, i.e. the duration of our space–time is simultaneous with some duration of eternity. But I already agree to this point. In fact, I argued that if God sustains the universe, and if the universe and God are temporal, then God's time must be related to our time. We are in God's time, and God's time is our time, when by time we mean ‘ontological time’ or what I call duration, rather than Measured Time. If this is so, where is our disagreement?

Our disagreement turns on this question: does history measure eternity? Does the ‘cosmic time’ of our universe give a proper measure to the same duration of God's time in eternity? I say it does not, while Craig says that it does.
God, Supernatural Kinds, and the Incarnation
Authors: Senor Thomas D.
Published: October 2008

Thinking about God often leads to thinking about ‘God’. And it has never been completely clear how best to understand this little English word. Traditionally, ‘God’ has been taken to be either a description or a name. However, a third option has recently captured the attention of philosophical theologians. It is claimed that just as one should think of, say, ‘humanity’ as a kind term, so one should think of ‘God’, or perhaps ‘divinity’, as a kind term. But given the tight link between semantics and metaphysics, if one is tempted to understand ‘humanity’ or ‘divinity’ as kind terms, then one will naturally begin to think of humanity and divinity as kinds. Characterizing divinity this way, a primary task of philosophical theology is to give a characterization of the divine kind-essence. In this paper, I want to consider the claim that divinity is profitably construed as a kind-essence, and argue that the way that this has typically been understood is not altogether adequate. I shall then present and develop an alternative understanding of this kind-essence approach that takes the analogy of `supernatural kinds’ and natural kinds much more seriously. I will conclude by considering some objections.
Is there A Place for Historical Criticism?
Authors: Price Robert M.
Published: October 2008

Modern historical criticism of the gospels and Christian origins began in the seventeenth century largely as an attempt to debunk the Christian religion as a pious fraud. The gospels were seen as bits of priestcraft and humbug of a piece with the apocryphal Donation of Constantine. In the few centuries since Reimarus and his critical kin, historical criticism has been embraced and assimilated by many Christian scholars who have seen in it the logical extension of the grammatico-historical method of the Reformers. The new views of New Testament exegesis and of early Christian history are important and well known. Many New Testament scholars would now hold with Schweitzer and Bultmann that Jesus was a preacher of the imminent end of the world. He may have secretly considered himself to be the Messiah, or he may have simply sought to pave the way for another, the apocalyptic Son of Man. After his execution, his disciples' experiences of his resurrection forced on them a conclusion already implicit in his teachings and personal piety: that Jesus was indeed, or had become, the Messiah, and was in fact God's Son. They expected he would soon return as the Son of Man he had predicted.
Rudolf Otto and Mystical Experience
Authors: Schlamm Leon
Published: October 2008

Rudolf Otto has often been criticized for not showing enough interest in mystical experience. In this article I want to demonstrate how misplaced this criticism is and to show that it is based on an erroneous interpretation of the relationship between numinous and mystical experience in his work by most of his students. I shall argue that, particularly inThe Idea of the Holy, Otto offers an account of the nature of mystical experience which should be of considerable interest to students of mysticism today, not least because it calls into question many of the assumptions that are presently made about mysticism by phenomenologists and philosophers of religion. Most of this article will be devoted to an examination of references to mysticism inThe Idea of the Holyand to an evaluation of Otto's observations about the nature of mystical experience, and I shall conclude that Otto's account of the relation-ship between mystical and devotional forms of religion provides a significant, but frequently overlooked, insight into the nature of mystical experience.
Could Abstract Objects Depend Upon God?
Authors: Davison Scott A.
Published: October 2008

What sorts of things are there in the world? Clearly enough, there are concrete, material things; but are there other things too, perhaps nonconcrete or non-material things? Some people believe that there are such things, which are often called abstract; purported examples of such objects include numbers, properties, possible but non-actual states of affairs, propositions, and sets. Following a long-standing (but somewhat misleading) tradition, I shall describe persons who believe that there are abstract objects as ‘platonists’. In this paper, I shall not directly address the plausibility of platonism, as compared with its rivals; instead, I shall confine my attention to one way in which some people have tried to combine platonism and theism. More specifically, I shall concentrate upon the claim that abstract objects depend upon God ontologically (hereafter just ‘DEP’); I shall argue that platonistic theists should reject DEP in favour of the claim that abstract objects exist independently of God (hereafter just ‘IND’). In order to evaluate the relative merits of DEP versus IND, it will be helpful to examine in some detail a particular articulation of DEP. When it comes to recent work on DEP, we can do no better in this regard than to examine the recent work of Thomas V. Morris and Christopher H. Menzel. According Morris and Menzel, there is a sense in which God literally creates such abstracta through engaging in intellective activities.