Travis Dumsday
Biographic Data
| ID | 453070 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Travis Dumsday |
| GIVEN NAMES | Travis |
| FAMILY NAME | Dumsday |
| SIGNATURE | DUMSDAY T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Concordia University of Edmonton |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3374-0323 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Could an Angel Undergo Substantial Change? A Quasi-Bonaventurean Speculation (And Why it Matters for Universalist Soteriologies)
By the early 1200s the Roman Catholic Church had ruled that angels are incorporeal. However, debate persisted as to what exactly that meant. Universal hylomorphism (UH) (i.e., the idea that all created beings are composites of form and matter) played a role in that debate, as it implies that even angels are, in a sense, partly material. Among the motivations for UH was the need to preserve angelic mutability, yet some of its advocates (notably St…
Thomism’s Ontology of Evolution: Tabaczek’s Account
Fr. Tabaczek's Theistic Evolution constitutes a significant contribution to the Thomistic (and more broadly Neo-Aristotelian / Neo-Scholastic) literature on the metaphysics of biological evolution. The text engages with multiple contested issues in this arena, including natural-kind essentialism, substance ontology, individuation, and the ontological bases of biologists’ taxonomical practices. In this brief response piece, I seek to provide a con…
Rough Metaphysics: The Speculative Thought and Mediumship of Jane Roberts by Peter Skafish (review)
Alien Abduction as Enlightenment
Whitley Strieber is among the most prominent figures writing on ufology and the alien abduction phenomenon. He played a significant role in popularizing the latter via his 1987 book, Communion, and the subsequent film inspired by it (in which Christopher Walken portrayed Strieber). That popularization would in turn have an outsized impact on 1990s pop culture, an impact still felt today. Over the course of many books authored in the intervening d…
Transubstantiation Through the Lens of Spacetime Substantivalism
The doctrine of transubstantiation (as understood by Aquinas and much subsequent Roman Catholic theology) involves the counter-intuitive claim that accidents can come to exist independently of any substance. In particular, the spatial dimensions of bread and wine can come to exist independently. I point out that a key idea that motivated this claim was an aspect of mediaeval philosophy of nature: namely, relationism about space. I argue that if r…
Alternative Conceptions of the Spiritual: Polytheism, Animism, and More in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion
Analytic philosophy of religion and philosophical theology are known for being focused on issues pertaining specifically to Judeo-Christian theism.This volume answers the call for novel work on a broader range of ideas about the spiritual, engaging with key concepts and neglected recent literature from other traditions. Alternative Conceptions of the Spiritualengages with polytheism, animism, panspiritism and theophanism as propounded by recent p…
Watching Guzikowski and Villeneuve’s Prisoners through the Lens of Patristic Teachings on Evil
The 2013 film Prisoners , written by Aaron Guzikowski and directed by Denis Villeneuve, was the most profoundly Christian film produced by Hollywood that year. Yet its many spiritual themes have gone largely unexplored by Christian film critics and theologians. Among the most striking of these themes is a much-neglected idea concerning the sources of evil in our world, an idea with deep historical roots in scripture and patristic theology. In thi…
Can a relational substance ontology be hylomorphic
God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism , by William Lane Craig
God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism, by William Lane Craig. Oxford University Press, 2016. 272 pp., Hb., $94. ISBN 9780198786887
Eric Perl's Theophanism: An Option for Agnostics
Recent work in analytic philosophy of religion has seen increased interest in nontheistic, but still non-naturalist (indeed, broadly religious) worldview options. J.L. Schellenberg's Ultimism has been among the most prominent of these. Another interesting option that has yet to receive much attention is the Theophanism advocated by the Neoplatonism scholar Eric Perl. In this paper, I summarize Perl's theophanism (which he describes as being neith…
Breathing New Life Into the World‐Soul? Revisiting an Old Doctrine Through the Lens of Current Debates on Special Divine Action
Nicholas Saunders’ 2002 book Divine Action and Modern Science remains among the most significant and widely‐cited recent contributions to the literature on special divine action (SDA). One of the tasks he takes up in that work is to critique a wide assortment of models of SDA, including that of Grace Jantzen. Her account employs the panentheistic notion that the physical universe is related to God in a manner closely analogous to the way in which…
Dispositionalism and the Metaphysics of Science
Thought Experiments as a Tool for Undermining Methodological Naturalism
There is a substantial literature on the question of whether methodological naturalism (MN) is and/or should be among the principles operative in the natural and social sciences; moreover the status of MN has been one of the battle grounds in prominent debates regarding the demarcation lines between science and theology (e.g., the debate over whether intelligent design hypotheses can ever count as genuinely scientific). I review some concrete exa…
The exoteric/esoteric divide and Schellenberg's Sceptical Religion
In a ground-breaking series of books, Canadian philosopher J. L. Schellenberg (2005d; 2007b; 2009; 2013a) has developed a systematic non-theistic, non-naturalist philosophy of religion. One of the core claims within his system is that given our limited evidence (and limited capabilities for assessing what evidence we do have), scepticism concerning the truth of religious propositions is at present the only warranted epistemic response. In this ar…
MaxCon extended simples and the dispositionalist ontology of laws
Why the problem of evil undermines the problem of divine hiddenness
The two most prominent arguments against theism are the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness. Here I argue that if the evidential problem of evil is truly forceful, it could block the ability of God to reveal His existence in a rationally indubitable way, which would in turn undermine the evidential problem of divine hiddenness
Divine hiddenness and special revelation
Next to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness is the most prominent single argument for atheism in the current literature. Most advocates of the problem target what can be termed ‘generic theism’, theism abstracted from any particular religious tradition. Correspondingly most replies are made from the perspective of generic theism. While understandable, this common structure to the dialectic can obscure possible replies centred on…
Dispositionalism and Moral Nonnaturalism
Purgatory
Eschatological issues have received a great deal of attention in recent analytic philosophy of religion. Most of that attention has revolved around the metaphysics and ethics of heaven, hell, and bodily resurrection; this is unsurprising, as these doctrines are universally affirmed among theologically orthodox Christians. By contrast, the doctrine of purgatory is not the subject of universal affirmation. Nevertheless it boasts a growing literatur…
Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. By Jeffrey Kripal
In Authors of the Impossible, Jeffrey Kripal, head of the religious studies department at Rice, argues that religious studies scholars need to pay attention to the writings of paranormal researchers. Kripal's book is multi-faceted and complex (to put it mildly), but his central claims include the following two ideas: In what follows I will focus on these two ideas. Section 1 will see a more detailed examination of the first, where I will argue th…
Divine hiddenness as divine mercy
If God exists, why isn't His existence more apparent? In recent analytic philosophy this longstanding question has been developed into an argument for atheism typically referred to as the ‘problem of divine hiddenness’. My goal here is to put forward a new reply. The basic idea is that there is some reason to think that for many of us, our moral conduct would not improve even if God's existence were not subject to doubt. However, immoral conduct …
A New Argument For Intrinsic Biological Essentialism
Intrinsic biological essentialism (INBE) is the view that biological taxa have fixed identity conditions, conditions which consist at least in part of intrinsic properties. After a long period of near universal rejection within both philosophy of biology and theoretical biology, INBE is making a comeback. Here I attempt to support this revival by clarifying the nature of INBE, developing a new argument on its behalf, and addressing an important a…
Counter-cultural religious experiences
Discussions of the evidential import of religious experiences have tended to focus on the intra-cultural variety: that is, experiences the content of which accord with the religious/cultural background of the experiencer (eg. someone raised in a Buddhist culture might experience the oneness of all, whereas someone from a Christian background might have a vision of Jesus). But what of counter-cultural experiences? That is, experiences which fall o…
Robert Boyle on the diversity of religions
Robert Boyle's treatise, ‘On the diversity of religions’, remains a little-known work, and was unpublished during his lifetime. Nonetheless it is of considerable historical and philosophical interest. In it, Boyle attempts to answer the question of how one can hope to obtain religious truth amidst the many competing claims to revelation, a concern which had grown acute in the early modern period. In this paper I examine Boyle's arguments, conside…
Abortion and Non-Fallacious Potentiality: A Reply to Berkich
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
A New Argument For Intrinsic Biological Essentialism
Intrinsic biological essentialism (INBE) is the view that biological taxa have fixed identity conditions, conditions which consist at least in part of intrinsic properties. After a long period of near universal rejection within both philosophy of biology and theoretical biology, INBE is making a comeback. Here I attempt to support this revival by clarifying the nature of INBE, developing a new argument on its behalf, and addressing an important a…
Robert Boyle on the diversity of religions
Robert Boyle's treatise, ‘On the diversity of religions’, remains a little-known work, and was unpublished during his lifetime. Nonetheless it is of considerable historical and philosophical interest. In it, Boyle attempts to answer the question of how one can hope to obtain religious truth amidst the many competing claims to revelation, a concern which had grown acute in the early modern period. In this paper I examine Boyle's arguments, conside…
Abortion and Non-Fallacious Potentiality: A Reply to Berkich
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Counter-cultural religious experiences
Discussions of the evidential import of religious experiences have tended to focus on the intra-cultural variety: that is, experiences the content of which accord with the religious/cultural background of the experiencer (eg. someone raised in a Buddhist culture might experience the oneness of all, whereas someone from a Christian background might have a vision of Jesus). But what of counter-cultural experiences? That is, experiences which fall o…
Divine hiddenness as divine mercy
If God exists, why isn't His existence more apparent? In recent analytic philosophy this longstanding question has been developed into an argument for atheism typically referred to as the ‘problem of divine hiddenness’. My goal here is to put forward a new reply. The basic idea is that there is some reason to think that for many of us, our moral conduct would not improve even if God's existence were not subject to doubt. However, immoral conduct …
A New Argument For Intrinsic Biological Essentialism
Intrinsic biological essentialism (INBE) is the view that biological taxa have fixed identity conditions, conditions which consist at least in part of intrinsic properties. After a long period of near universal rejection within both philosophy of biology and theoretical biology, INBE is making a comeback. Here I attempt to support this revival by clarifying the nature of INBE, developing a new argument on its behalf, and addressing an important a…
Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. By Jeffrey Kripal
In Authors of the Impossible, Jeffrey Kripal, head of the religious studies department at Rice, argues that religious studies scholars need to pay attention to the writings of paranormal researchers. Kripal's book is multi-faceted and complex (to put it mildly), but his central claims include the following two ideas: In what follows I will focus on these two ideas. Section 1 will see a more detailed examination of the first, where I will argue th…
Purgatory
Eschatological issues have received a great deal of attention in recent analytic philosophy of religion. Most of that attention has revolved around the metaphysics and ethics of heaven, hell, and bodily resurrection; this is unsurprising, as these doctrines are universally affirmed among theologically orthodox Christians. By contrast, the doctrine of purgatory is not the subject of universal affirmation. Nevertheless it boasts a growing literatur…
Divine hiddenness and special revelation
Next to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness is the most prominent single argument for atheism in the current literature. Most advocates of the problem target what can be termed ‘generic theism’, theism abstracted from any particular religious tradition. Correspondingly most replies are made from the perspective of generic theism. While understandable, this common structure to the dialectic can obscure possible replies centred on…
Dispositionalism and Moral Nonnaturalism
Why the problem of evil undermines the problem of divine hiddenness
The two most prominent arguments against theism are the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness. Here I argue that if the evidential problem of evil is truly forceful, it could block the ability of God to reveal His existence in a rationally indubitable way, which would in turn undermine the evidential problem of divine hiddenness
The exoteric/esoteric divide and Schellenberg's Sceptical Religion
In a ground-breaking series of books, Canadian philosopher J. L. Schellenberg (2005d; 2007b; 2009; 2013a) has developed a systematic non-theistic, non-naturalist philosophy of religion. One of the core claims within his system is that given our limited evidence (and limited capabilities for assessing what evidence we do have), scepticism concerning the truth of religious propositions is at present the only warranted epistemic response. In this ar…
MaxCon extended simples and the dispositionalist ontology of laws
Breathing New Life Into the World‐Soul? Revisiting an Old Doctrine Through the Lens of Current Debates on Special Divine Action
Nicholas Saunders’ 2002 book Divine Action and Modern Science remains among the most significant and widely‐cited recent contributions to the literature on special divine action (SDA). One of the tasks he takes up in that work is to critique a wide assortment of models of SDA, including that of Grace Jantzen. Her account employs the panentheistic notion that the physical universe is related to God in a manner closely analogous to the way in which…
Dispositionalism and the Metaphysics of Science
Thought Experiments as a Tool for Undermining Methodological Naturalism
There is a substantial literature on the question of whether methodological naturalism (MN) is and/or should be among the principles operative in the natural and social sciences; moreover the status of MN has been one of the battle grounds in prominent debates regarding the demarcation lines between science and theology (e.g., the debate over whether intelligent design hypotheses can ever count as genuinely scientific). I review some concrete exa…
God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism , by William Lane Craig
God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism, by William Lane Craig. Oxford University Press, 2016. 272 pp., Hb., $94. ISBN 9780198786887
Eric Perl's Theophanism: An Option for Agnostics
Recent work in analytic philosophy of religion has seen increased interest in nontheistic, but still non-naturalist (indeed, broadly religious) worldview options. J.L. Schellenberg's Ultimism has been among the most prominent of these. Another interesting option that has yet to receive much attention is the Theophanism advocated by the Neoplatonism scholar Eric Perl. In this paper, I summarize Perl's theophanism (which he describes as being neith…
Watching Guzikowski and Villeneuve’s Prisoners through the Lens of Patristic Teachings on Evil
The 2013 film Prisoners , written by Aaron Guzikowski and directed by Denis Villeneuve, was the most profoundly Christian film produced by Hollywood that year. Yet its many spiritual themes have gone largely unexplored by Christian film critics and theologians. Among the most striking of these themes is a much-neglected idea concerning the sources of evil in our world, an idea with deep historical roots in scripture and patristic theology. In thi…
Can a relational substance ontology be hylomorphic
Transubstantiation Through the Lens of Spacetime Substantivalism
The doctrine of transubstantiation (as understood by Aquinas and much subsequent Roman Catholic theology) involves the counter-intuitive claim that accidents can come to exist independently of any substance. In particular, the spatial dimensions of bread and wine can come to exist independently. I point out that a key idea that motivated this claim was an aspect of mediaeval philosophy of nature: namely, relationism about space. I argue that if r…
Alternative Conceptions of the Spiritual: Polytheism, Animism, and More in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion
Analytic philosophy of religion and philosophical theology are known for being focused on issues pertaining specifically to Judeo-Christian theism.This volume answers the call for novel work on a broader range of ideas about the spiritual, engaging with key concepts and neglected recent literature from other traditions. Alternative Conceptions of the Spiritualengages with polytheism, animism, panspiritism and theophanism as propounded by recent p…
Thomism’s Ontology of Evolution: Tabaczek’s Account
Fr. Tabaczek's Theistic Evolution constitutes a significant contribution to the Thomistic (and more broadly Neo-Aristotelian / Neo-Scholastic) literature on the metaphysics of biological evolution. The text engages with multiple contested issues in this arena, including natural-kind essentialism, substance ontology, individuation, and the ontological bases of biologists’ taxonomical practices. In this brief response piece, I seek to provide a con…
Rough Metaphysics: The Speculative Thought and Mediumship of Jane Roberts by Peter Skafish (review)
Alien Abduction as Enlightenment
Whitley Strieber is among the most prominent figures writing on ufology and the alien abduction phenomenon. He played a significant role in popularizing the latter via his 1987 book, Communion, and the subsequent film inspired by it (in which Christopher Walken portrayed Strieber). That popularization would in turn have an outsized impact on 1990s pop culture, an impact still felt today. Over the course of many books authored in the intervening d…
Could an Angel Undergo Substantial Change? A Quasi-Bonaventurean Speculation (And Why it Matters for Universalist Soteriologies)
By the early 1200s the Roman Catholic Church had ruled that angels are incorporeal. However, debate persisted as to what exactly that meant. Universal hylomorphism (UH) (i.e., the idea that all created beings are composites of form and matter) played a role in that debate, as it implies that even angels are, in a sense, partly material. Among the motivations for UH was the need to preserve angelic mutability, yet some of its advocates (notably St…
Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Theology and Philosophy of Evil (12 works) · Theology (8 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (6 works) · Karl Barth and Christian Theology (5 works) · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs (5 works) · Theism (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)