Showing papers in "Religious Studies in 2018"
TL;DR: In this article it was argued that there cannot be more than three divine persons because three persons are sufficient for the existence of unselfish love, and any fourth divine person would be produced by an act which none of the three needed to produce, and so would not exist necessarily and so could not be divine.
Abstract: Subsequent to the fifth century until modern times all theologians agreed that God the Trinity is constituted by three persons (in Boethius's sense of ‘an individual substance of a rational nature’) who have a common divine essence, and are individuated only by their relations to each other. Having that essence entailed each being omnipotent and so perfectly good. In virtue of his perfect goodness the Father necessarily produces the Son (in order to have one equal whom to love and be loved by) and the Spirit (in order that the Son have one equal other than the Father to love and be loved by). There cannot be more than three divine persons because three persons are sufficient for the existence of unselfish love, and so any fourth divine person would be produced by an act which none of the three needed to produce, and so would not exist necessarily and so could not be divine. Necessarily if there is one divine person, there are three and only three divine persons.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that good-god theism is not rendered unreasonable by the problem of evil in the same way that evil-god belief in good is rendered unreasonable.
Abstract: This article is a response to Stephen Law's article ‘The evil-god challenge’. In his article, Law argues that if belief in evil-god is unreasonable, then belief in good-god is unreasonable; that the antecedent is true; and hence so is the consequent. In this article, I show that Law's affirmation of the antecedent is predicated on the problem of good (i.e. the problem of whether an all-evil, all-powerful, and all-knowing God would allow there to be as much good in the world as there is), and argue that the problem of good fails. Thus, the antecedent is unmotivated, which renders the consequent unmotivated. Law's challenge for good-god theists is to show that good-god theism is not rendered unreasonable by the problem of evil in the same way that evil-god theism is rendered unreasonable by the problem of good. Insofar as the problem of good does not render belief in evil-god unreasonable, Law's challenge has been answered: since it is not unreasonable to believe in evil-god (at least for the reasons that Law gives) it is not unreasonable to believe in good-god. Finally, I show that – my criticism aside – the evil-god challenge turns out to be more complicated and controversial than it initially appears, for it relies on the (previously unacknowledged) contentious assumption that sceptical theism is false.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a model of eternal generation and demonstrate how it avoids standard philosophical and theological objections, such as the notion that the essence of the Son involves the Father, but not vice versa.
Abstract: According to the doctrine of eternal generation, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. Although the doctrine is enshrined in the Creed of Nicaea and has been affirmed by Christians for nearly 1,700 years, many Protestants have recently rejected the doctrine. Eternal generation, its detractors contend, is both philosophically and theologically suspect. In this article, I propose a model of eternal generation and demonstrate how it avoids standard philosophical and theological objections. Eternal generation, I argue, can be understood as a form of essential dependence. To say that the Son is begotten of the Father is just to say that the Son essentially depends on the Father. The essence of the Son involves the Father, but not vice versa.
11 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is consistent with a very strong version of the thesis of divine simplicity, so long as the simple divine nature is a relational nature, a nature characterized in terms of such relations as knowing and loving.
Abstract: Is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity consistent with a very strong version of the thesis of divine simplicity? Yes, so long as the simple divine nature is a relational nature, a nature that could be characterized in terms of such relations as knowing and loving. This divine nature functions simultaneously as agent, patient, and action: as knower, known and knowledge, and lover, beloved, and love. I will draw on work on qua-objects by Kit Fine and Nicholas Asher and on my own account of relational facts to elucidate this model more fully.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an ontology of substances, attributes, and modes of the Trinity is presented, where the Trinity comprises one substance, triply attributed, where distinctions among attributes are of reasoned reason only, but founded in the nature of the substance.
Abstract: An attempt is made to provide a consistent, independently motivated metaphysics of the Trinity by invoking an ontology of substances, attributes, and modes in the spirit of Descartes and Spinoza. The Trinity comprises one substance, triply attributed, where distinctions among attributes are ‘of reasoned reason’ only, but ‘founded’ in the nature of the substance.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a model of the Trinity dealing with various objections to the filioque clause was proposed, including double procession, the problem of the Father's omnipotence, and the Spirit's subordination.
Abstract: This article offers a model of the Trinity dealing with various objections to the filioque clause. I deal with three worries: the problem of double procession; the problem of the Father's omnipotence; worries about the Spirit's subordination. The model has two main commitments: (i) relations like proceeding, begetting, generation, etc. are causal relations; (ii) each Divine Person is caused by the other two Divine Persons. The model also allows for the Father's elevation over and above the Spirit and the Son. I end by discussing some problems for this revisionary scheme.1
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that there is no viable candidate for the role the marble plays in the case of a statue's case, and that the concept of constitution cannot explain or at least provide an analogy for the doctrine of the Trinity.
Abstract: Some marble, appropriately worked, comes to constitute a statue: constitution is the relation between the resulting statue and the marble it is made of. Some recent authors use the concept of constitution to explicate or at least provide an analogy for the doctrine of the Trinity. I argue that this won't do, because there is no viable candidate for the role the marble plays in the statue's case.
5 citations
TL;DR: McKaughan as discussed by the authors pointed out that the view of relational faith I have elsewhere defended fits rather well with the understanding of pistis that emerges from Morgan's careful reading of New Testament texts.
Abstract: In conversation with Morgan (2015), I point out that the view of relational faith I have elsewhere defended (McKaughan 2013, 2016, 2017) fits rather well with the understanding of pistis that emerges from Morgan's careful reading of New Testament texts. Moreover, the fact that New Testament authors display little interest in examining interior aspects of faith makes it difficult to justify the claim that their understanding of the pistis lexicon requires believing in the modern sense as the attitude Christians must take towards relevant content, in contrast to various other positive but non-doxastic attitudes that philosophers recognize today. Such faith is of contemporary interest, given its congruity with early Christian tradition, the role it can play in helping relationships to persevere through various kinds of challenges (including doubts significant enough to preclude believing), and for the wide range of evidential circumstances in which it can be enacted with intellectual integrity.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the Simple Trinitarian is used to avoid conflating Persons or multiplying Gods, and does not have to identify the Persons with minor entities or entities partially disjoint from God.
Abstract: According to Simple Trinitarianism, God is mereologically simple, and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not identified with any entities in our ontology. Thus the Simple Trinitarian is able to avoid conflating Persons or multiplying Gods, and does not have to identify the Persons with minor entities or entities partly disjoint from God. However, to maintain that Trinitarian sentences are nonetheless true, the Simple Trinitarian will need a non-standard semantics. I explore one option for this, involving taking ‘the Father’, ‘the Son’, and ‘the Holy Spirit’ to be empty names. By adopting a positive, Free Logic, we can take these names to make semantic contributions and play roles in true sentences, while blocking problematic inferences.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses the factors which led to the development of Christian fideism and why Christians were seen as a threat to wider society, and suggests how the faith of St Teresa of Calcutta might have been viewed by early Christians.
Abstract: Responding to key questions raised by the other three, this article discusses the factors which led to the development of Christian fideism and why Christians were seen as a threat to wider society. It considers whether early Christian discourses always represent (of characters in narratives), or demand, belief alongside trust and other relational aspects of pistis, and argues that it is sometimes possible to have effective pistis without having right beliefs. It discusses the variable relationship between belief and doubt in New Testament texts, and suggests how the faith of St Teresa of Calcutta might have been viewed by early Christians.
1 citations
TL;DR: The main themes and arguments of Roman faith and Christian faith are outlined in this article, and a brief introduction outlines the main arguments and main themes of Roman Faith and Christian Faith are discussed.
Abstract: This brief introduction outlines the main themes and arguments of Roman Faith and Christian Faith.
TL;DR: In this article, a new Latin account of the Trinity is proposed, according to which each of the persons of the trinity is an improper part of the Godhead, and a new interpretation of the Holy Trinity is given.
Abstract: In this article, I propose a new Latin account of the Trinity, according to which each of the persons of the Trinity is an improper part of the Godhead.
TL;DR: In this article, a classicist's perspective on the book Roman Faith and Christian Faith is presented. But it is limited to the Roman faith and Christian faith, not the Christian faith.
Abstract: This article offers a classicist's perspective on Teresa Morgan's book Roman Faith and Christian Faith.
TL;DR: In this article, a contribution to the symposium on Teresa Morgan's Roman faith and Christian faith set the stage for three questions: 1) in the Graeco-Roman view, when you put/maintain faith in someone, is the cognitive aspect of your faith compatible with scepticism about the relevant propositions?
Abstract: In my contribution to the symposium on Teresa Morgan's Roman Faith and Christian Faith, I set the stage for three questions. First, in the Graeco-Roman view, when you put/maintain faith in someone, is the cognitive aspect of your faith compatible with scepticism about the relevant propositions? Second, did some of the New Testament authors think that one could put/maintain faith in God while being sceptical about the relevant propositions? Third, in her private writings, Saint Teresa of Calcutta described herself as living by faith and yet not believing; even so, by all appearances, she was an exemplar of faith in God. Would people during the period of your study tend to see her as an exemplar of faith in God?