The Society Of Christian Philosophers
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 4576807 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | The Society Of Christian Philosophers |
| NOMBRES | The Society Of Christian |
| APELLIDO | Philosophers |
| FIRMA | PHILOSOPHERS T S O C |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 55 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 12 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 55 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1985 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2019 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Eleonore Stump’s Critique of Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theories
The first three chapters of Eleonore Stump’s Atonement are devoted to a critique of atonement theories she styles “Anselmian,” including penal substitutionary theories. I focus on her critique of the latter. She presents three groups of objections labeled “internal problems,” “external problems,” and “further problems,” before presenting what she takes to be “the central and irremediable problem” facing such accounts. The external and further pro…
Faith Through the Dark of Night
Faith plays a valuable role in sustaining relationships through various kinds of challenges, including through evidentially unfavorable circumstances and periods of significant doubt. But if, as is widely assumed, both faith in God and faith that God exists require belief that God exists, and if one’s beliefs are properly responsive to one’s evidence, the capacity for faith to persevere amidst significant and well-grounded doubt will be fairly li…
Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity
I develop a Latin Social model of the Trinity that is an extension of my previous work on indexicals and the Trinity. I focus on the theological desideratum of the necessity of the divine persons' unity of action. After giving my account of this unity, I compare my account with Swinburne's and Hasker's social models and Leftow's non-social model. I argue that their accounts of the divine persons' unity of action are theologically unsatisfactory a…
Duns Scotus on Divine Immensity
In a recent article, Hud Hudson analyses divine omnipresence in terms of a spatial property, ubiquitous entension, neither reducible to nor derivative from any other divine attribute. Hudson's view is an alternative to the predominant view in recent philosophical theology, in which omnipresence is reduced to omnipotence. I show that Duns Scotus adopts a view that conforms very closely to Hudson's account, and show how he argues against the deriva…
The Topography of Divine Love
Does God love every human equally and to the deepest degree possible?In an earlier article 1 argued that no one could, in principle, love every human equally and to the deepest degree possible.Thomas Talbott has objected and argues that a model of the divine love extended equally to all best captures the idea of God as loving parent. 1 contend that Talbott's argument fails, in part, as it implies that the divine love treats the interests of human…
The Truth about Foreknowledge
In this paper we critically evaluate Trenton Merricks's recent attempt to provide a "new" way of defending compatibilism about divine foreknowledge and human freedom. We take issue with Merricks's claim that his approach is fundamentally different from Ockhamism. We also seek to highlight the implausibility of Merricks's rejection of the assumption of the fixity of the past, and we also develop a critique of the Merricks's crucial notion of "depe…
Hasker's Quests for a Viable Social Theory
In a series of papers, William Hasker, in conversation with important recent work in philosophical theology, has carefully articulated and argued for a version of "social" trinitarianism. I argue that this theory should be rejected because it is not consistently monotheistic
The Topography of Divine Love
It is widely thought that God must love each and every human to the same depth and degree.This proposition plays a prominent role in influential versions of the problem of evil, and in theistic attempts to answer the problem of evil.A common reason cited in support of the idea of God's loving equally every human is that a perfect being would possess every great-making property and loving equally every human would be a great-making property.It is …
Sceptical Detachment or Loving Submission to the Good? Reason, Faith, and the Passions in Descartes
The paper begins by challenging a received view of Descartes as preoccupied with scepticism and setting out entirely on his own to build up everything from scratch. In reality, his procedure in the Meditations presupposes trust in the mind's reliable powers of rational intuition. God, the source of those powers, is never fully eclipsed by the darkness of doubt. The second section establishes some common links between the approach taken by Descart…
The Non-Aristotelian Character of Aquinas’s Ethics
Scholars discussing Aquinas's ethics typically understand it as largely Aristotelian, though with some differences accounted for by the differences in worldview between Aristotle and Aquinas. In this paper, I argue against this view. I show that although Aquinas recognizes the Aristotelian virtues, he thinks they are not real virtues. Instead, for Aquinas, the passions-or the suitably formulated intellectual and volitional analogues to the passio…
Kant, The Passions, and The Structure of Moral Motivation
This paper is an account of Kant's view of the passions, and their place in the structure of moral motivation. The paper lays out the relations Kant sees between feelings, inclinations, affects and passions, by looking at texts in Metaphysics of Morals, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Anthropology, and Lectures on Education. Then it discusses a famous passage in Groundwork about sympathetic inclination, and ends by proposing two wa…
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
“The Hard Problem of Consciousness” and Two Arguments for Interactionism
God, Sin, and Rogers on Anselm
Anselmian Eternalism
Anselm holds that God is timeless, time is tenseless, and humans have libertarian freedom.This combination of commitments is largely undefended in contemporary philosophy of religion.Here I explain Anselmian eternalism with its entailment of tenseless time, off er reasons for accepting it, and defend it against criticisms from William Hasker and other Open Theists.I argue that the tenseless view is coherent, that God's eternal omniscience is cons…
Divine Command Morality and the Autonomy of Ethics
This paper formulates a kind of divine command ethical theory intended to comport with two major views: that basic moral principles are necessary truths and that necessary truths are not determined by divine will. The theory is based on the possibility that obligatoriness can be a theological property even if its grounds are such that the content of our obligations has a priori limits. As developed in the paper, the proposed divine command theory…
Saturation, World Ensembles, and Design
Divine Judgment and the Nature of Time
A Latin Trinity
Latin models of the Trinity begin from the existence of one God, and try to explain how one God can be three Persons.I offer an account of this based on an analogy with time-travel.A time-traveler returning to the same point in time repeatedly might have three successive events in his/her life occurring at that one location in public time.So too, God's life might be such that three distinct parts of His life are always occurring at once, though w…
Must Metaphysical Time Have a Beginning?
In the present paper, I seek to establish, first, that the a priori arguments against the infinite past are vital to the overall success of the kalam argument.Merely appealing to the big bang theory of the origin of the universe will not do the trick.In the second place, I show that neither of these arguments is at all successful in showing that "metaphysical time" has a beginning.Along the way, various discoveries are made about the relation of …
Petit Larceny, the Beginning of All Sin
Plantinga on Exclusivism
Exclusivists contend that specific doctrines, such as Christian doctrines, are true and those incompatible with them are false. In "Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism" Alvin Plantinga defends religious exclusivism from a variety of objections. In this paper I discuss one of those objections. Plantinga agrees, at least for the sake of argument, that those in other religious traditions have evidence for their beliefs comparable to his ev…
Body and Soul
‘A Death He Freely Accepted’
Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ.Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom for him to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious.Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is truly divine.So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes -significant freedom or moral perfection -apparently needs to be s…
Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection
Many Christians assume that there are only two possibilities for what a human person is: either Animalism (the view that we are fundamentally animals) or Immaterialism (the view that we are fundamentally immaterial souls). I set out a third possibility: the Constitution View (the view that we are material beings, constituted by bodies but not identical to the bodies that now constitute us.) After setting out and briefly defending the Constitution…
The Principle of Sufficient Reason
Plantinga on Exclusivism
Exclusivists contend that specific doctrines, such as Christian doctrines, are true and those incompatible with them are false. In "Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism" Alvin Plantinga defends religious exclusivism from a variety of objections. In this paper I discuss one of those objections. Plantinga agrees, at least for the sake of argument, that those in other religious traditions have evidence for their beliefs comparable to his ev…
Kant, The Passions, and The Structure of Moral Motivation
This paper is an account of Kant's view of the passions, and their place in the structure of moral motivation. The paper lays out the relations Kant sees between feelings, inclinations, affects and passions, by looking at texts in Metaphysics of Morals, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Anthropology, and Lectures on Education. Then it discusses a famous passage in Groundwork about sympathetic inclination, and ends by proposing two wa…
Petit Larceny, the Beginning of All Sin
Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection
Many Christians assume that there are only two possibilities for what a human person is: either Animalism (the view that we are fundamentally animals) or Immaterialism (the view that we are fundamentally immaterial souls). I set out a third possibility: the Constitution View (the view that we are material beings, constituted by bodies but not identical to the bodies that now constitute us.) After setting out and briefly defending the Constitution…
Chrzan on Necessary Gratuitous Evil
claims to have found a flaw in the central argument of my essay, "The Necessity of Gratuitous Evil." I point out that Chrzan misstates
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
This paper argues that Anselm's method in philosophical theology is shaped by five fundamental factors.They are: (1) his appreciation of the ontological incommensuration between God and creatures; (2) his commitment to the infallible authority of Scripture as interpreted through the creeds and conciliar pronouncements; (3) his conviction that humans are made in God's image; (4) his conception of inquiry as essentially a Divine-human collaboration…
The Hardness of the Past
Foreknowledge and Necessity
Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition
Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas
Eritis Sicut Deus
When the Kings Come Marching In
Marxism and Christianity
Duns Scotus on the Goodness of God
The Hardness of the Past
Anselmian Explorations, Essays in Philosophical Theology
“No Other Name”
The conviction ofthe New Testament writers was that there is no salvation apart from Jesus.This orthodox doctrine is widely rejected today because God's condemnation of persons in other world religions seems incompatihle with various attributes of God.Analysis reveals the real problem to involve certain counterfactuals of freedom, e.g., why did not God create a world in which all people would freely believe in Christ and be saved?Such questions p…
Is Molinism as Bad as Calvinism?
This paper compares the theories of providence and predestination in Molinism and Calvinism. My particular concern is with whether Molinism is beset with the same sort of disturbing moral implications which plague Calvinism. I conclude that Molinism is better off than Calvinism in this regard, but still fails to give us a satisfactory account of God's goodness and will to save all persons. I suggest an amended version of Molinism to repair this d…
To Bedlam and Part Way Back
The diversity of human wants, needs, actions, passions, and opinions within a pluralistic society is undeniable.Given such diversity, the classical definition of justice as "to each his or her due" does not readily translate into material principles for the distribution of social benefits and burdens.Indeed, a theory of justice suited to liberal democracies may seem an impossible ideal.In this paper, I examine John Rawls's attempt to formulate su…
The Epistemological Significance of Transformative Religious Experiences
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
This paper argues that Anselm's method in philosophical theology is shaped by five fundamental factors.They are: (1) his appreciation of the ontological incommensuration between God and creatures; (2) his commitment to the infallible authority of Scripture as interpreted through the creeds and conciliar pronouncements; (3) his conviction that humans are made in God's image; (4) his conception of inquiry as essentially a Divine-human collaboration…
Providence, Eternity, and Human Freedom
Stoic Psychotherapy in Descartes and Spinoza
Libertarian Freedom and the Avoidability of Decisions
Recently, John Fischer has applied Frankfurt's well-known counter-example to the principle of alternate possibilities to refute the traditional libertarian position which holds that a necessary condition for an agent's decision (choice) to be free in the sense of freedom required for moral responsibility is that the decision not be causally determined, and that the agent could have avoided making it. Fischer's argument has consequently led variou…
Libertarianism and Avoid Ability
Dualism and Materialism
The thesis that dualism is a Greek import into Christianity and that the Christian hope of eternal life does not presuppose dualism has recently begun to win adherents. This paper is a defense of this thesis. One philosophical argument for dualism (that dualism best explains the phenomenon of sensuous experience) is briefly discussed and is rejected. The body of the paper addresses the relevant creedal and biblical data. The paper closes with a d…
Middle Knowledge
Faith and Philosophy(2) Counterfactuals of freedom are more fundamental features of the world than are particular facts.(Hence, worlds which differ from the actual world with regard to factual content are closer than those which differ from it with regard to counterfactuals of freedom.)
Chrzan on Necessary Gratuitous Evil
claims to have found a flaw in the central argument of my essay, "The Necessity of Gratuitous Evil." I point out that Chrzan misstates
Avoidability and Libertarianism
Recently, Widerker has attacked Fischer's contention that one could use Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities to show that even from a libertarian viewpoint an agent might be morally responsible for a decision that he could not have avoided.Fischer has responded by: (a) arguing that Widerker's criticism presupposes the falsity of Molinism and (b) presenting a version of libertarianism which avoids Widerker's…
As the Waters Cover the Sea”
John Wesley explained the existence of evil in moral rather than metaphysical terms. His understanding of the fall was fairly typical of western theology and he also enthusiastically embraced a version of the felix culpa theme as essential for theodicy. Unlike many influential western theologians, he also relied heavily on libertarian freedom to account for evil. His most striking proposal for theodicy involves his eschatalogical vision of the fu…
Libertarian Choice
In this paper, I develop a noncausal view of agency.I defend the thesis that choices are uncaused mental actions and maintain, contrary to causal theorists of action, that choices differ intrinsically or inherently from nonactions.I explain how they do by placing them in an ontology favored by causal agency theorists (agent-causationists).This ontology is one of powers and liabilities.After explicating how a choice is an uncaused event, T explain…
Making Sense of Your Freedom
Epistemology (55 obras) · Philosophy (51 obras) · Contemporary philosophy (26 obras) · Medieval Philosophy and Theology (14 obras) · Philosophy (13 obras) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (10 obras) · Theology (10 obras) · Theology and Philosophy of Evil (10 obras) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (9 obras) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (7 obras)