Showing papers in "International Journal for Philosophy of Religion in 2005"
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that boredom is not a necessary consequence of immortality, even if it is a probable one, and even if we grant Williams the use of "boredom" as a term of art, we can still criticize his claim that boredom (construed as an absence of categorical desires) is a necessary condition of the immortal life.
Abstract: John Martin Fischer has argued1 that Bernard Williams’ account of the tedium of immortality2 is inadequate – that human agents could, in principle, bear the burden of immortality without falling prey to the necessary boredom Williams thinks accompanies prolonged life. Although Fischer offers several criticisms of Williams view of immortality, I will limit my discussion in this paper to one. It is my contention that an essential ambiguity concerning the term “boredom” pervades Williams’ argument, and that it is this ambiguity, not Williams’ argument, that makes his position susceptible to Fischer’s objection. I will argue for an alternate reading of boredom that allows him to escape (one of) Fischer’s objections. In the final portion of this paper I argue that, even if we grant Williams the use of “boredom” as a term of art, we can still criticize his claim that boredom (construed as an absence of categorical desires) is a necessary condition of the immortal life. Williams ignores the possibility of the new fulfillment of old categorical desires, and this possibility allows one to hold that boredom is not a necessary consequence of immortality, even if it is a probable one.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a cyclical collapse of verbal assurance in a culture that veers into widespread worries about the reliability of words and even into wholesale refusal of rational discourse.
Abstract: Periodically in intellectual history, confidence in the Logos, in the ability of the word to grasp reality and disclose truth, flags dramatically. Discourses in all disciplines and fields suddenly become dubious and problematic as language enters into generalized crisis and the currency of the word goes bust. Such cyclical collapse of verbal assurance fosters cultures that can be characterized as "apophatic," that is, as veering into widespread worries about the reliability of words and even into wholesale refusal of rational discourse. This type of culture in retreat from language becomes pervasive notably in the Hellenistic Age in a spate of Hermetic philosophies and Gnosticisms, all in various ways repudiations of the Greek rational enlightenment. It rises to prominence again towards the end of the medieval period with the surpassing of Scholasticism as an all-encompassing rational system. The thinking of Meister Eckhart is exemplary at this juncture. Eckhart engenders hosts of scions and satellites who carry his inspiration forward into Baroque mysticism, which likewise bursts the measures of reason and word that had been dictated by Renaissance rhetorical norms. Something similar happens yet again with Romanticism in its revolt against the Enlightenment Aufkldrung on the threshold of the period with which the present essay is concerned. Such eruptions arguably have continued with intensifying rhythm ever since. A particularly dense and destiny-laden nodal point in the midst of this history is Viennese culture at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, pivoting on figures such as Hofmannsthal, Wittgenstein, Musil, Rilke, Klimt, Kraus, and Schoenberg. The catastrophe of an entire historical epoch was here felt in all its extremity and was expressed with the utmost acuteness and oftentimes pathos too. Hofmannsthal's "Letter
23 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that human beings do not deserve Hell because they either cannot cause an infinite amount of harm or are not responsible for doing so, and since humans don't have infinitely bad characters, hell can't be deserved on the basis of character.
Abstract: This essay aims to establish two theses. First, hell is unjust. Second, God ought not (or perhaps cannot) impose hell on human beings. I specifically argue that human beings do not deserve hell because they either cannot cause an infinite amount of harm or are not responsible for doing so. Also, since humans don't have infinitely bad characters, hell can't be deserved on the basis of character. Since humans don't deserve hell, God may not (or perhaps cannot) impose unjust punishments and hence may not (or cannot) send or allow persons to go to hell.
14 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that serious tensions exist in Locke's position regarding miracles, which impact on the reasonableness of the assent to Christianity which he presumes they provide, and argued that genuine miracles contain the hallmark of the divine such that pretend revelations become intuitively obvious.
Abstract: Locke considers miracles to be crucial in establishing the credibility and reasonableness of Christian faith and revelation. The performance of miracles, he argues, is vital in establishing the “credit of the proposer” who makes any claim to providing a divine revelation. He accords reason a pivotal role in distinguishing spurious from genuine claims to divine revelation, including miracles. According to Locke, genuine miracles contain the hallmark of the divine such that pretend revelations become intuitively obvious. This paper argues that serious tensions exist in Locke’s position regarding miracles, which impact on the reasonableness of the assent to Christianity which he presumes they provide.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that we are justified in making design inferences only in contexts where there is already strong independent reason to think that there exist intelligent agents with the ability to bring about the occurrence of the relevant entity, feature, or property.
Abstract: Proponents of design arguments attempt to infer the existence of God from various properties or features of the world they take to be evidence of intelligent design. Thus, for example, the fine-tuning argument attempts to infer the existence of a divine designer from the improbable fact that life would not be possible if any of approximately twoto three-dozen fundamental laws and properties of the universe had been even slightly different. Similarly, the argument from biochemical complexity attempts to infer the existence of a divine designer from the improbable fact that living beings frequently instantiate what proponents call irreducible specified complexity. In this essay, I argue that we are justified in making design inferences only in contexts where there is already strong independent reason to think that there exist intelligent agents with the ability to bring about the occurrence of the relevant entity, feature, or property. Only in such contexts is there sufficient information to justify assigning a probability to the design hypothesis that is higher than the probability that we are presumably justified in assigning to the chance hypothesis. Accordingly, design arguments implicitly presuppose that some other argument for God's existence justifies assigning a probability to the design hypothesis that is larger than the probability we can assign to the chance hypothesis. What this means, contra the intentions of proponents, is that design arguments for the existence of God cannot stand by themselves.
10 citations
9 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that theism fails to account for any instance, kind, quantity, or distribution of natural evil found in the world, arguing instead that a plausible explanation or theodicy for God's permission of at least some instances of moral evil is not beyond the reach of the theist.
Abstract: Received wisdom has it that a plausible explanation or theodicy for God’s permission of at least some instances of natural evil is not beyond the reach of the theist. In this paper I challenge this assumption, arguing instead that theism fails to account for any instance, kind, quantity, or distribution of natural evil found in the world. My case will be structured around a specific but not idiosyncratic conception of natural evil as well as an examination of three prominent theodicies for natural evil. In contrast, however, to much contemporary discussion, my assessment of these theodicies will be grounded in the prior conviction that a successful theodicy for moral evil is available.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a collection of essays from the philosophy clubs of Yale and Brown Universities with a focus on the actual psychology of human opinion, and a survey of various candidates for the status of "objective evidence" and a quarrel with the very idea of such objectivity.
Abstract: From its first appearance in print down through our day, many have stepped forward to take its measure.2 The essay is undoubtedly engaging. Constructed out of a rich assortment of disparate materials, it surely would have captivated the members of James' original audience, the philosophy clubs of Yale and Brown Universities, as it continues to attract readers today. Among the wares on offer are samples of T. H. Huxley's and William Clifford's robust rhetoric; a snappy rendition of Blaise Pascal's unfailingly provocative wager argument; a succinct yet rich description of what is termed "the actual psychology of human opinion"; a useful survey of various candidates for the status of "objective evidence" and a quarrel with the very idea of such objectivity; a quick sorting of absolutist and empiricist tendencies in philosophy accompanied by an expose of the dogmatizing instincts of philosophers of either stripe; routine observations about scientific method and contemporary illustrations of scientific practice; a proposed one size fits all characterization of religious belief and speculations as to what a personal god would require of those who would know him; along with the occasional home-spun analogy and stirring anecdote.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a distinction is made between "general" providence which arises straightforwardly from what the cosmos will do "on its own" and what will happen if God chooses to perform some "special" providential action by interfering with the normal workings of the cosmos.
Abstract: Briefly stated, the problem of divine action has, in recent thought, been that of whether and how God can affect the workings of a world characterized usually at least by obedience to "laws of nature." There have, essentially, been two kinds of answer to this question. One of these has relied on a traditional conceptual scheme, which speaks of a "special" mode of God's action which is analogous, in many respects, to that of any other personal agent. In this understanding, a very clear distinction is made between "general" providence which arises straightforwardly from what the cosmos will do "on its own" and what will happen if God chooses to perform some "special" providential action by interfering with the normal workings of the cosmos.1 The other main kind of response to the problem of divine action is conceptually different from this interference model (though it is sometimes combined with aspects of it.) Here the focus is on a distinction between primary and secondary causes, and God's action is not seen as that of an agent working "from the outside", as in the interference model. The fact that this approach has given rise to outlooks as varied as a traditionalist neo-Thomism and an essentially deistic kind of naturalism indicates, however, that the model, in itself, has no specific answers to the questions of how God's will is brought about through "natural" causes, and of what the scope of this mode of divine action is.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the main lines of attack that have been directed as Plantinga's project, and thereafter show how many, if not most, of these objections can be understood as versions or aspects of the same criticism, what they call the "inadequacy Thesis".
Abstract: Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief is without questionone of the central texts of the Reformed epistemology movement. Critiques of Plantinga’s defence have been both multiple and varied. As varied as these responses are, however, it is my contention that many of them amount to the same thing. It is the purpose of this paper to offer an overview of the main lines of attack that have been directed as Plantinga’s project, and thereafter to show how many, if not most, of these objections can be understood as versions or aspects of the same criticism, what I call the ’Inadequacy Thesis’.
6 citations
TL;DR: Ghazali as mentioned in this paper argued that the connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause and what is not necessary, and showed how the implication in question follows from this argument.
Abstract: Occasionalism is the doctrine that God is the sole immediate cause 4 of all events, to the exclusion of any causal participation on the part 5 of creatures. While this doctrine clearly has interesting implications 6 with regard to causation and the philosophy of natural science, few 7 have noticed that it also seems to entail, not only that creatures have 8 no causal power whatsoever, but that they are completely devoid of 9 intrinsic natures, conceived as intrinsic dispositional properties. In this 10 paper, I will outline what is probably the first systematic argument for 11 occasionalism, mounted by the eleventh-century Muslim, Abu Hamid 12 al-Ghazali, and show how the implication in question follows from 13 this argument. 14 The seventeenth discussion of Ghazali’s Tahafut-ul-Falasifah, on 15 causality and miracles, opens with this statement of the occasionalist 16 doctrine. 17 “The connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause 18 and what is habitually believed to be an effect is not necessary,” Ghaz19 ali writes. On the contrary, in “all [that is] observable among con20 nected things” between which there is no logical entailment, “it is not 21 a necessity of the existence of the one that the other should exist, 22 and it is not a necessity of the nonexistence of the one that the other 23 should not exist. . .Their connection is due to the prior decree of God, 24 who creates them side by side, not to its being necessary in itself, inca25 pable of separation”.1 26 Taking the sequence of events involved in the contact of fire with 27 cotton and its subsequent burning as an example, Ghazali maintains 28 the possibility of the former without the latter, and vice versa. Against 29 this possibility, he opposes the position that, “the agent of the burn30 ing is the fire alone, it being an agent by nature [and] not by choice 31 hence incapable of refraining from [acting according to] what is in its 32 nature after contacting a substratum receptive of it”.2 33
TL;DR: The authors examined the role of the self in time, and the role that writing plays therein, comparing the pseudonymous writings with Ricoeur's treatment of metaphor and narrative, and showed how these forms of discourse create an indirect, second-order reference to those realities that do not permit direct, first-order references in this case, the self and its possibilities.
Abstract: This paper examines the problem of the self in time, and the role that writing plays therein. Because the self is a temporal phenomenon, questions arise regarding its continuity in time: Does personal identity endure over time? What sort of integrity might the self have if it is always changing? This raises the further problem of reference, particularly if one rejects the notion of a substantial self: what resources do we have to refer to the self? Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Ricoeur both situate this discussion within the boundaries of writing. While recognizing the limitations of thought, reference, and writing, both authors push these boundaries in the hope that new possibilities of meaning might emerge through creative modes of discourse. For Ricoeur, the semantic innovations of metaphor and narrative exemplify this possibility. For Kierkegaard, I propose, the indirect communication of his pseudonymous writings comprises another type of semantic innovation. In comparing the pseudonymous writings with Ricoeur's treatment of metaphor and narrative, I show how these forms of discourse create an indirect, second-order reference to those realities that do not permit direct, first-order reference in this case, the self and its possibilities. Further, these innovations mark the intersection of reference to the self with the constitution of the self. That is, these semantic innovations are essential to the dynamic identity of the temporal self. We see this in Ricoeur's discussion of narrative, the main features of which illuminate the narrative dimension of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authorship, whose task is to assist the reader in coming to selfhood. Kierkegaard and Ricoeur share many convictions regarding the nature of this self, and while I highlight some of these, I do not propose an identity between their positions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that foundationalism and coherentism do not exhaust the options; there is logical space in between the two options, and the argument is this: foundationalism requires one-directionality, coherentism does not; coherentism requires justification to be exclusively a matter of relations among beliefs.
Abstract: . . . foundationalism and coherentism do not exhaust the options; 8 there is logical space in between. At its simplest, the argument is 9 this: foundationalism requires one-directionality, coherentism does 10 not; coherentism requires justification to be exclusively a matter 11 of relations among beliefs, foundationalism does not. . . So: a the12 ory which allows no-belief input cannot be coherentist; a theory 13 which does not require one-directionality cannot be foundational14 ist. A theory such as the one I favor, which allows the relevance 15 of experience to justification, but requires no class of privileged 16 beliefs justified exclusively by experience with no support from 17 other beliefs, is neither foundationalist nor coherentist, but is inter18 mediate between the traditional rivals.1 19
TL;DR: In this paper, the existence of an infinite temporal regress does not undermine the soundness of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, and it is shown that this complication can be made innocuous by extending the notion of A-theoretic time, which is presupposed by Craig's argument, to include a notion of temporal becoming.
Abstract: In this paper I show that the existence of an infinite temporal regress does not undermine the soundness of Craig’s version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. To this end I shall focus on a particular complication that Craig raises against one of his arguments in support of a finite temporal regress. I will show that this complication can be made innocuous by extending the notion of A-theoretic time, which is presupposed by Craig’s argument, to include a notion of temporal becoming that is compatible with the existence of an infinite regress of temporal events. All this shows that God could have created an infinite temporal regress a finite time in the past without this entailing a contradiction.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Stenmark's "How to Relate Science and Religion" as discussed by the authors ) is a conciliatory model of science and religion that is based on the Templeton Prize-winner's work.
Abstract: Today there are two very different views concerning the relation of science and religion. On the one hand is the view that there is no limit to the competency of science, including its ability to subsume the traditional domains of religion and values. On the other hand is the view that science ought to itself be shaped in a significant way by religion. In this book these opposing views are presented, critically discussed, and replaced with a badly needed conciliatory model of science and religion. Written by Templeton Prize-winner Mikael Stenmark, "How to Relate Science and Religion" points an exciting way forward in the effort to reconcile what are arguably the two most powerful cultural forces of our time. Stenmark succinctly lays out the central issues of the debate and shows what is at stake for the nature and advancement of human knowledge. The outcome of Stenmark's work is the construction of a "multidimensional model" of science and religion that refuses to automatically prioritize either. Stenmark shows the ongoing though shifting value of both science and religion played out as a dynamic, evolving relationship.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that of the three claims that constitute the form of religious pluralism outlined by Peter Byrne in his Prolegomena to Religious Pluralism, the first is something proponents of the theory can't think of themselves as having the resources to defend; the second is something that is in danger of being rendered trivial by the definition of religions offered; however, if one makes it non-trivial, it becomes implausible (and offering a defence of it inconsistent with other elements of this theory); and, even if the first half of the
Abstract: “(1) All major religious traditions are equal in respect of making common reference to a single transcendent sacred reality. (2) All major traditions are likewise equal in respect of offering some means or other to human salvation. (3) All traditions are to be seen as containing revisable, limited, accounts of the nature of the sacred none is certain enough in its particular dogmatic formulations to provide the norm for interpreting the others.” P. Byrne, Prolegomena to Religious Pluralism (NY: Macmillan, 1995), p. 12. In this paper, I argue that of the three claims that constitute the form of Religious Pluralism outlined by Peter Byrne in his Prolegomena to Religious Pluralism, the first is something proponents of the theory can’t think of themselves as having the resources to defend; the second is something that is in danger of being rendered trivial by the definition of religions offered; however, if one makes it non-trivial, it becomes implausible (and offering a defence of it inconsistent with other elements of the theory); and, even if the first half of the third is right, the second half is wrong.
TL;DR: There is a Barthian objection to the project of natural validation theology (i.e., the attempt to establish, on purely natural bases, whether God exists) according to which, far from being required to engage in the project, the theologian is required to abstain from engaging in it as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: There is a Barthian objection to the project of natural validation theology (i.e. to the attempt to establish, on purely natural bases, whether God exists) according to which, far from being required to engage in the project, the theologian is required to abstain from engaging in it. By considering the motivation for an analogous objection to validation projects in metaphysics and epistemology, voiced by representatives of the comman sense tradition in modern Western philosophy, I argue that this objection is plausibly motivated by the thought that engaging in natural validation theology inappropriately commits one to the irrelevance of putatively nonnatural belief-sources.