The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped our world. Regarded as the father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard transformed philosophy with his conviction (...) that we must all create our own nature; in this great work of religious anxiety, he argues that a true understanding of God can only be attained by making a personal "leap of faith.". (shrink)

God Never ChangesOr does he? God has been getting a makeover of late, a "reinvention" that has incited debate and troubled scholars and laypeople alike. Modern theological sectors as diverse as radical feminism and the new “open theism” movement are attacking the classical Christian view of God and vigorously promoting their own images of Divinity.God Under Fire refutes the claim that major attributes of the God of historic Christianity are false and outdated. This book responds to some increasingly popular alternate (...) theologies and the ways in which they cast classical Christian theism in a negative light. Featuring an impressive cast of world-class biblical scholars, philosophers, and apologists, God Under Fire begins by addressing the question, “Should the God of Historic Christianity Be Replaced?” From there, it explores issues as old as time and as new as the inquest into the “openness of God.” How, for instance, does God risk, relate, emote, and change? Does he do these things, and if so, why? These and other questions are investigated with clarity, bringing serious scholarship into popular reach.Above all, this collection of essays focuses on the nature of God as presented in the Scriptures and as Christians have believed for centuries. God Under Fire builds a solid and appealing case for the God of classical Christian theism, who in recent years—as through the centuries—has been the God under fire. (shrink)

To naturalize religion, we must identify what religion is, and what aspects of it we are trying to explain. In this paper, religious social institutional behavior is the explanatory target, and an explanatory hypothesis based on shared primate social dominance psychology is given. The argument is that various religious features, including the high status afforded the religious, and the high status afforded to deities, are an expression of this social dominance psychology in a context for which it did not evolve: (...) high-density populations made possible by agriculture. (shrink)

Open theists argue that God's relationship to time, as conceived in classical theism, is erroneous. They explain that it is contradictory for an atemporal being to act in a temporal universe, including experiencing its temporal successions. Contrary to the atemporalists, redemptive history has shown that God interacts with humans in time. This relational nature of God nullifies the classical notion of God as timelessly eternal. Therefore, it lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Because God is in time, He does (...) not know all future contingencies and, therefore, changes. This study examines open theism's appropriation of the A and B theories of time to the divine-human relationship. The study argues that divine temporality does not solve the tension of divine-human relationships, especially in relation to the future. Further, historical divine temporality does not negate the fact of divine atemporality. It mainly stems from God's choice to create temporal creatures and His relationship with them. Furthermore, if it is not logically and metaphysically contradictory for an omnipresent being to act in space, then it follows that an atemporal being can act in time. Whether time is understood from the metric or psychological point of view, it does not transcend God, and therefore, the limitation it places on human creatures with respect to the future does not apply to God. Lastly, although a few philosophers reject the notion of eternity as timelessly eternal, the doctrine has a philosophical and theological basis in the Scripture. (shrink)

Throughout its long history metaphysics has been variously conceived. At its most sublime, it has been taken to be the study of the super‐sensible, in particular of the existence of a god, the nature of the soul, and the possibility of an afterlife. When the young Ludwig Wittgenstein entered the lists, it was entirely reasonable to conceive of metaphysics in this manner. Its subject matter was held to be the language‐independent and thought‐independent de re necessities of the world. The (...) Tractatus is dominated by three problems: first, the nature of logic and logical necessity; secondly, the essence of the proposition and hence the characterization of the general propositional form; and thirdly, the intentionality of the proposition. Logical propositions are combinations of elementary propositions by means of truth‐functional logical connectives. The metaphysics adumbrated in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thought, was required for the possibility of representation and for the possibility of logic. (shrink)

Contents include: Foreword Editor's Preface Introduction by the Editor Preface Introduction BOOK ONE: The Objective Problem Concerning the Truth of Christianity Introductory Remarks Chapter I: The Historical Point of View 1. The Holy Scriptures 2. The Church 3. The Proof of the Centuries for the Truth of Christianity Chapter II: The Speculative Point of View BOOK TWO: The Subjective Problem, The Relation of the Subject to the Truth of Christianity, The Problem of Becoming a Christian PART ONE: Something About Lessing (...) Chapter I: An Expression of Gratitude Chapter II: Theses Possibly or Actually Attributable to Lessing 1. The subjective existing thinker has regard to the dialectics of the process of communication 2. The existing subjective thinker is in his existential relation to the truth as negative as he is positive; he has a much humor as he has essential pathos; and he is constantly in process of becoming, i.e. he is always striving 3. Lessing has said that accidental historical truths can never serve as proofs for eternal truths of the reason; and that the transition by which it is proposed to base an eternal truth upon historical testimony is a leap 4. Lessing has said that, if God held all truth in His right hand, and in His left the lifelong pursuit of it, he would choose the left hand A. A logical system is possible B. An existential system is possible PART TWO: How the Subjectivity of the Individual Must be Qualified in Order that the Problem May Exist for Him Chapter I: The Task of Becoming Subjective. The conclusion that would be forced upon ethics if the attainment of subjectivity were not the highest task confronting a human being—Considerations left out of account in connection with the closer understanding of this—Examples of thinking directed towards becoming subjective Chapter II: The Subjective Truth, Inwardness; Truth is Subjectivity Appendix. A Glance at the Contemporary Effort in Danish Literature Chapter III: Real or Ethical Subjectivity—The Subjective Thinker 1. Existence and Reality 2. Possibility as higher than Reality—Reality as higher than Possibility—Poetic and Intellectual Ideality—Ethical Ideality 3. The Simultaneity of the Individual Factors of Subjectivity in the Existing Subject—The Constrast between this Simultaneity and the Speculative Process 4. The Subjective Thinker—his Task, his Form, his Style Chapter IV: The Problem of the Fragments: How can an Eternal Happiness be based upon Historical Knowledge? Section I. For Orientation in the Plan of the Fragments 1. That the point of departure was taken in the pagan consciousness, and why 2. The importance of a preliminary agreement concerning what Christianity is, before there can be any question of mediating between Christianity and speculative thought. The absence of such an agreement favors the proposal of medication, while at the same time making any mediation illusory; the presence of such an agreement precludes mediation 3. The problem of the Fragments viewed as a problem, introductory not to Christianity, but to becoming a Christian Section II. The Problem Itself. The eternal happiness of the individual is decided in time through the relationship to something historical, which is furthermore of such a character as to oinclude in its composition that which by virtue of its essence cannot become historical, and must therefore become such by virtue of the absurd A. Existential Pathos 1. The Initial Expression for Existential Pathos: the absolute direction (respect) toward the absolute telos, expressed in action through the transformation of the individual's existence Aesthetic Pathos—The deceptiveness of the principle of mediation—The medieval monastic movement—The simultaneous maintenance of an absolute relationship to the absolute telos and a relative relationship to the relative ends 2. The Essential Expression for Existential pathos: Suffering—Fortune and misforutne as the expression for an aesthetic view of life, in constradistinction to suffering as the expression of a religious view (illustrated by reference to the religious discourse)—The Reality of suffering (humor)—The reality of suffering in the last instance as evidence for the possession by the existing individual of a relationship to an eternal happiness—The illusion of religiosity—The category of Anfechtung—The primary ground and significance of the religious suffering: The dying away from the life of immediacy while still remaining in the finite—An edifying divertisement—Humor as an incognito for religiosity 3. The Decisive Expression for existential pathos: Guilt—That the investigation goes backward instead of forward—The eternal recollection of guilt is the highest expression for the relation between the consciousness of guilt and an eternal happiness—Lower expressions for the consciousness of guilt, and corresponding forms of satisfaction—Self-imposted penance—Humor—The religiosity of hidden inwardness Intermediate Clause between A and B B. The Dilectical 1. The dialectical contradiction which constitutes the breach: to expect an eternal happiness in time through a relationship to something else in time 2. The dialectical constradiction that an eternal happiness is based upon something historical 3. The dialectical contradiction that the historical fact here in question is not a simple historical fact, but is constituted by that which only against its nature can become historical, hence by virtue of the absurd Appendix to B. The retroactive effect of the dialectical upon the pathetic, and the factor simultaneously present in the pathos (a) The consciousness of sin (b) The possibililty of offense (c) The smart of sympathy Chapter V. Conclusion. About Childish Christianity Appendix. For an Understanding with the Reader First and Last Declaration Notes Index Originally published in 1941. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Berkeley holds that the essence of sensible objects is percipi. So, sensible objects cannot exist unperceived. Naturally, this has invited questions about the existence of sensible objects when unperceived by finite minds. This is sometimes called the Problem of Continuity. It is frequently said that Berkeley solves the problem by invoking God's ever-present perception to ensure that sensible objects maintain a continuous existence. Problems with this line of response have led some to a phenomenalist interpretation of Berkeley's claim. This paper (...) argues that neither of these are Berkeley's solution since he recognizes no such problem. The paper sketches a new interpretation of sensible objects that obviates the need for a "solution" by avoiding the "problem" in the first place. (shrink)

This chapter examines what it means to take time seriously. It begins with an examination of the arguments of Kant and Bradley for the view that time is not an ultimate primitive of reality. Then Bergson’s attempt to take time seriously is criticised. Bergson’s duration fails to capture the content of our concept of time. Space is just as important and it plays a unique role in explaining facts about our concept of time. Thus, in order to take time seriously (...) we need to posit space-time of which space and time are mere aspects. Consequences about the nature of time with respect to theories of motion, temporal progression in the universe, universals and God are also discussed. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus offers the possible beginning for a modern reconceptualization of infinity. Because of his own contemporary mindset, Scotus is not able to overcome completely the mediaeval notionof infinity, but he moves toward an understanding of pluralities of infinities. While Scotus reserves infinity in its most proper sense only to God, this effort on Scotus' part, which extends the concept of infinity while reserving a unique sense of it to the divine essence alone, is surely part of a tradition (...) that leads to Descartes' dual concepts of "infinity" (predicated only of the idea of God) and "indefiniteness"(predicated of material nature). Therefore, without tracing the entire history of the contemporary notion of infinity, we see that its possible beginnings could very well lie in the writings of the Subtle Doctor. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I study the attribute of God ́s omnipotence in Francisco Suárez. The need, perfection and infinity of the divine essence qualify this attribute crucially; potence belongs to God himself, who –as an infinite being- contains all possible perfection. God contains all by its nature, because He contains every possibility, which is infinite. Thus, undestanding Himself, God understands everything, because He contains all in its essence.

Without seeking to diminish its authority as the Word of God, this article acknowledges the Fourth Gospel as a brilliant piece of literary artistry by the implied author. The aim of this article is to substantiate this assertion by conducting a study on focalisation and illustrating how it invites the implied reader’s participation in the narrative. This contribution acknowledges the existence of insightful contributions on the topic, particularly in relation to the Fourth Gospel. However, it asserts that the study of (...) the performative nature of focalisation in this particular Gospel has not received the attention it deserves. The main contribution of this article is its analysis of a selected narrative of the Fourth Gospel using focalisation as an analytical tool, with the objective of demonstrating that the Fourth Gospel is performative in nature, crafted and formulated to consistently engage the implied reader in considering its purpose, as stated in 20:30–31.Contribution: The article showcases that focalisation, when used as an analytical tool, can unlock, and enable the interpreter of the Fourth Gospel to recognise its performative nature to the implied reader of the text. This is critical, given that the text is crafted to encourage the reader to participate in it by making decisions regarding their faith in Jesus Christ. (shrink)

'God necessarily exists, since it is not possible for things to be otherwise, as Aristotle shows in the Metaphysics.' So Mehmed II, the Ottoman conqueror of both Constantinople and Trebizond, tells George Amiroutzes, the Byzantine scholar and native of Trebizond, in the beginning of Amiroutzes' dialogue The Philosopher, or On Faith. The dialogue is a literary recreation of the conversations between Mehmed, a Muslim, and Amiroutzes, a Christian. In the course of The Philosopher, the two debate the role of logic (...) and rationality in religious debate, the nature of God, and the fate of the body and soul in the afterlife. Surprisingly complex and subtle arguments emerge, firmly situated in their fifteenth-century context but steeped in the long Greek philosophical tradition. Previously known only from a sixteenth-century Latin translation, The Philosopher was recently rediscovered in a Greek manuscript in Toledo. In this volume, John Monfasani presents both the editio princeps of this manuscript and the first translation of the text from the Greek, with an introduction that discusses the life of Amiroutzes and the text as well as two appendixes that offer texts and translations of two additional documents related to Amiroutzes and The Philosopher. (shrink)

The United States Constitution was written for the purpose of establishing an effective but limited national government, a government that would be capable of dealing with national and international problems, but that would not be able to violate the traditional liberties of the people. Thus, the Constitution was, and is essentially a practical-juridical document. One should not expect to find there pronouncements about the nature of man, society, law, or the state, such as are often found in many other (...) national constitutions and international conventions. Nevertheless, several important characteristics of the Constitution—indeed its most important characteristics—are clear and admirable applications of the natural law. The principal drafters of the Constitution believed that God, in creating the universe, implanted in the nature of man a body of law to which all human beings are subject, which is superior to all manmade law, and which is knowable by human reason. Thus, the natural law of the American founders was traditional natural law as understood and expounded by classical and Medieval writers and carried forward in the English common law, and not the “Enlightenment” versions in vogue in eighteenth-century Europe. The classical-traditional natural law understanding of Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and other leaders of the Philadelphia Convention are reflected in the three most important characteristics of the Constitution: the principle of limited government; the principle of subsidiarity (in both political and larger societal matters); and the practice of guaranteeing traditional rights, and only as against government. (shrink)

Libertarians such as J.R. Lucas have abandoned traditional Christian doctrines because they cannot reconcile them with the freedom of the will. Traditional Christian thinkers such as Augustine have repudiated libertarianism because they cannot reconcile it with the dogmas of the Faith. In Free Will and the Christian Faith, W.S. Anglin demonstrates that free will and traditional Christianity are ineed compatible. He examines, and solves, puzzles about the relationships between free will and omnipotence, omniscience, and God's goodness, using the idea of (...) free will to answer the question of why God allows evil, and presenting arguments that link free will to eternal life and to the nature of revelation. Topics covered include the meaning of life, the soul and Lesbegue measure, and strategies for discerning the voice of God. (shrink)

"Seymon Lyudvigovich Frank, the author of the volume here made available for the first time in English translation, was one of the leading Russian philosophers of this century; some authorities consider him the most outstanding Russian philosopher of any age...._ " _Man's Soul__ is a book which perfectly exemplifies the generous conception of the mission and competence of philosophy characteristic of Frank and the other members of the Russian metaphysical movement. Frank's stated aim in the treatise is to reclaim for (...) philosophy a field of investigation which, from the time of Plato and Aristotle to that of the Russian Idealists, philosophers had viewed as properly theirs, but which, since the mid-nineteenth century, they had allowed to fall into almost complete neglect: the study of the nature of the human soul...._ "The moral message of _Man's Soul__ is well summed up by its epigraph, quoted from St. Augustine: 'Let man first of all return to his own self, so that once he has, as it were, stepped therein, he may rise from thence and be elevated to God.'" -- from the foreword by Philip J. Swoboda. (shrink)

In 1917 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote an essay that proposes union as a way to observe how the process of evolution takes place. He spent the remainder of his life broadening and sharpening the vision, which was based on union in nature. We propose that this vision and the historical development of thermodynamics and classical statistical mechanics offer insight into union and even into the divine life that many Christians believe to be triadic. We briefly situate union in (...) the triune divine life in early Christian tradition as it was believed and practiced. We then interpret three stages of development in the sciences of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics that support the theme of union in nature. Next we describe the development of Teilhard's thought during his scientific career and his tests of the theme of union, principally in his private journals, now being edited. We offer examples of Teilhard's application of union to his own spiritual life and compare his understanding of union with those of Paul the Apostle and John of the Cross. Finally, although the Christian God's triadic life was not a particular concern of Teilhard, we propose union in nature as a vestige of the divine life. (shrink)

If something like Reformed Epistemology is correct, an agent is innocent in regarding certain ways of forming beliefs to be reliable until those ways have been proven guilty. An important species of argument purporting to show guilt (1) identifies the ways of forming beliefs at the core of our cognitive activity, (2) isolates the features of our core practices which account for their reliability, and (3) determines whether or not peripheral practices which ought to have those features enjoy at least (...) their functional equivalents. An example. Sense perception is at the heart of our cognitive activity; a feature of sense-perception which provides us with confidence in its reliability is that we can subject sense-perceptual beliefs to intersubjective criticism - others can check our beliefs. Beliefs about God formed on the basis of religious experience cannot be so checked and therefore lack positive epistemic status.An important response to such criticism consists of arguing that the difference between two ways of forming beliefs is just what we should expect given some relevant difference between the subject matters of those two ways of forming beliefs. This species of response employs what I call ‘the Ontological Principle,’ viz., that the nature or characteristics of an object constrain the way an agent ought to form beliefs about that object.In this paper, I attempt to provide a rationale for the Ontological Principle. I argue as follows. Any epistemic norm which requires of an agent that she enter into causal relations with an object which she cannot in the ‘nature’ of the case enter lacks epistemic merit - it violates the ought implies can dictum. Because the epistemic norms properly governing the cognitive activity of a given agent are constrained by the causal relations possible between an agent and an object of belief, and because the causal relations possible between an object of belief and an agent are determined in part by the characteristics of the object of belief, the epistemic norms properly governing the cognitive activity of a given agent are determined in part by the characteristics of the object of belief. That is, the Ontological Principle is true. (shrink)

This paper contends that the natural law theory of Saint Thomas Aquinas has been inappropriately removed from its foundation in the classical philosophical traditions of Cicero and Aristotle. Critics charge that because it refers to the eternal law, and hence divine revelation, St. Thomas’s natural law theory is not “natural.” The author in reply demonstrates the Ciceronian and Aristotelian—and therefore pagan, naturalist—roots of the Thomistic theory. St. Thomas’s discussion of natural law in the Summa mirrors Cicero’s attempted derivation of natural (...) law from “a rational encounter with objective reality.” Further, St. Thomas’s Summa includes demonstrations that God is the Cause of all objective reality. This truth does not however deny the “naturalness” of human rational consideration of reality, but rather shows that humans internally apprehend an external order which owes its reality to the First Cause of all being. Human reason and natural law thereby necessarily involve a participation in the eternal law. The author concludes that attempts to dissociate Thomistic natural law theory from its Ciceronian and Aristotelian roots lessen the force and persuasive power of the former. The proper approach involves, not an abandonment of the traditional theory, but its further development and its application to present issues. (shrink)

As controversial as Lockean interpretation relating to the ideas of the law of nature and natural rights has always been, few would dispute the inextricable connection between them in the context of John Locke's thought. The historical development of natural rights language out of the natural law tradition is mirrored to a certain extent in the order within and between Locke's own writings. Locke intimates a persuasive account of the concurrent univocal property of God and the human being in (...) the particular human being herself. The particular human being is the property of God and herself in the very same sense of the word "property", i.e. the product of workmanship or labor. Both slavery and suicide fall foul of Locke's doctrine of the law of nature and natural rights: slavery is a violation of self‐ownership, and suicide is as direct a violation of divine ownership as one can imagine. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, the concept of natural law was linked with that of “innate ideas”. Natural laws were said to be ideas imprinted by nature or by God on men's minds and were the very foundation of religion and morality. Locke's attack on innate ideas in the first book of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding is therefore considered to be an assault on natural law. Modern critics like Peter Laslett, W. von Leyden and Philip Abrams are of the (...) opinion that Locke's critique of innate ideas in the Essay cannot be reconciled with the concept of natural law in the Two Treatises of Government. (shrink)

Peirce’s doctrine of God has scarcely been studied at all. This is surprising because his own naturally religious temperament, his desire for philosophical completeness and the influence of Kant, all led him to give an important place to theistic speculation in his philosophy. It is true that few parts of his philosophy reveal more than the fragmentary and unfinished nature of his thinking. This however does not take away from its importance both for the interpretation of his philosophy and (...) for the evaluation of its contribution. In this paper I want to examine his doctrine of God mainly in order to discover and outline what views he held in the matter. Such examination is an essential preliminary to any consideration of the value of his theistic thinking. Moreover, an objective exposition is already the best beginning of evaluation. However it is impossible to undertake this kind of examination without a careful search into various corners of his writings and a meticulous and slightly laboured presentation of one’s findings. But I think that the patience involved in such research has a rich reward. (shrink)

The doctrine of God is central to theology for it determines the way in which other regions of Christian doctrine are articulated, yet work on this topic in its own right has been occluded recently by treatments of the Trinity or divine passibility. This collection of specially commissioned essays presents major treatments of key themes in the doctrine of God, motivated by but not restricted to the work of Professor Paul S. Fiddes to whom it is offered as a Festschrift. (...) It includes invigorating discussions of the biblical and non-biblical sources for the doctrine of God, and the section on 'Metaphysics and the Doctrine of God' examines some of the most important conceptual questions arising in contemporary theological debate about the being and nature of God, and God's relations to the world. The final section of the book on 'God and Humanity' will be highly relevant to scholars working in the fields of theological anthropology, moral and political theology, on inter-faith relations, on theology and literature, or who are interested in the impact of contemporary science on the doctrine of God. The introduction relates the essays in the book to the work of Professor Fiddes and to wider debates in Christian doctrine. This volume brings together a team of internationally distinguished scholars from a wide range of theological, philosophical, and religious perspectives, and it will stimulate fresh thinking and new debate about this most central of topics in Christian theology.--Publisher. (shrink)

_An Introduction to Metaphysics_ offers an engrossing survey of central metaphysical topics, including truth, universals, the nature of mind, personal identity, free will, time, and the existence of God. The book is pitched at an intermediate undergraduate level and is suitable for students without background knowledge in these areas. Topically organized, it examines a variety of historical and contemporary positions relevant to each of the included themes. Memorable and amusing drawings by Gillian Wilson are interspersed throughout the text to (...) illustrate concepts and examples. (shrink)

The Symposium and the Phaedrus are combined here because of their shared theme: a reflection on the nature of erotic love, the love that begins with sexual desire but can transcend that origin and reach even the heights of religious ecstasy. This reflection is carried out explicitly in the speeches and conversations in the dialogues, and implicitly in the dramatic depiction of actions and characters. Thus, the two dialogues deal with a theme of enduring interest and are interesting for (...) both their literary and their philosophical character. In addition to the introduction, the book contains substantial commentaries and thorough endnotes. Key Greek terms are discussed for readers who are unfamiliar with the language. A special feature is a discussion on the importance of the dramatic and literary aspects of the dialogues for interpreting their philosophical content. The introductions deal with the nature of the dialogues themselves as philosophical texts and with Plato’s philosophical assumptions and key concepts, as well as with the necessary background of Athenian society. The endnotes clarify any ambiguities and obscurities in the original text, identifying all references to people, places, gods, et cetera. The commentaries are designed to open up the dialogues for the reader, showing the issues that have been debated by commentators and considering some of the responses to them. They are designed to stimulate further reflection. (shrink)

Einstein argued in his latter years that the intelligibility of the world was in the nature of a miracle, and that in no way could one have expected a priori such a high degree of order; this is why he rejected the atheist, positivist standpoint, and believed in a Spinozist God. Einstein's argument, however, is essentially a form of the ?argument from design? for a personal God based on the existence of beautiful, mathematically simple laws of nature; that (...) physical order is a unique, improbable alternative compared to the infinite number of chaotic universes that might have existed. Einstein, in his early manhood, was a Humean, but in later years, as he moved toward Spinoza, from phenomenalism to noumenalism, he clearly rejected Hume's restriction of probable inferences to observed sequences. Darwin's arguments against biological design did not apply to Einstein's argument, because the laws of physics are not the outcome of any cumulative struggle for existence and natural selection. Perhaps the beautiful simplicity of basic physical laws helps account for the fact that relatively more physicists than biologists or psychologists hold to a theistic standpoint. Einstein's finite universe would have seriously weakened the argument that life, though infinitely improbable, would have been realized in an infinite world. But in any case, Einstein would have regarded ?emergence? theories of life as irrational. In accordance with the principle of identity of Emile Meyerson, the epistemologist whom he most respected, it would have followed that the occurrence of consciousness and intelligence was grounded in a God with those attributes, and that theism was consequently the basis for scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract Charles Darwin, in his discussions with Asa Gray and in his published works, doubted whether God could so arrange it that exactly the desired contingent events would occur to cause particular outcomes by natural selection. In this paper, I argue that even a limited or neo-Leibnizian deity could have chosen a world that satisfied some arbitrary set of goals or functions in its outcomes and thus answer Darwin's conundrum. In more general terms, this supports the consistency of natural selection (...) with providentialism, and makes “theistic evolutionism” a coherent position to hold. (shrink)

Arguments against intervening in nature's ways have been used against many new technologies in the last century. Many of these arguments have employed the metaphor of "playing God." In this essay I briefly review the use of the term "playing God" in recent decades. I then examine the cosmology that lies implicit in this language. My thesis is that the language of "playing God" overlooks the dynamic, evolutionary nature of world process—the role played by the indeterminacy of statistical (...) probabilities. I review the notion of "emergent probability" in order, in the end, to advocate an ethic of risk that both recognizes the dangers of hubris and includes an open and emergent view of creation. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to map out the perspective of ecstatic naturalism and its corollary theology of deep pantheism. Ecstatic naturalism begins and ends with the fissuring between nature naturing (nature perennially creating itself out of itself alone) and nature natured (the innumerable orders of the world). Nature naturing and its pulsating potencies could also be named: der Wille (Schopenhauer), firstness (Peirce), the transcendental psychoid (Jung), and creativity (Whitehead). Deep Pantheism rejects theism, with a (...) fully transcendent deity, and panentheism, with its deity both in and beyond nature. The “deep” in my form of pantheism refers to the otherness of the unfathomable depths of the unconscious of nature. The theism entailed is that of gods and goddesses, finitely located, that are archetypal images. The symbol of the Great Mother is a premier locus for grounding and enveloping the human psyche. The travail of mind involves the fitful and precarious transitions between finite and embedded mind within nature natured and the emergence of an awareness of the depths of the human, cultural, collective, and natural modes of the unconscious via nature naturing. (shrink)

Hume’s critique of religion in the first ’Enquiry’ is a unified whole. ’Of Miracles’ is not a free-standing critique of religion, but the first part of a two-stage argument. Hume follows Locke in subordinating evidence for miracles to natural theological arguments for the existence of God--without such supports miraculous claims are incredible (’disproven’ in his special sense). He differs from Locke in arguing, in ’Of a particular Providence’, that no such arguments are available. The decline of natural theology after Darwin (...) explains why ’Of Miracles’ is now mistaken for a free-standing argument. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 30, Issue 2, pp 202 - 221 There is ongoing scholarly debate over the role that Hobbes’s laws of nature play in grounding the moral requirement that subjects obey the government under which they live. This essay demonstrates how the laws of nature, when understood as natural duties, may directly ground a moral duty to obey one’s sovereign without positing that subjects have undertaken any covenant of subjection. Such a grounding avoids the problems that attend (...) accounts that depend on tacit covenant and coerced covenant. The essay describes the advantages of a natural duty account of the laws of nature over accounts that regard those laws as contractual obligations entered through voluntary acts, or as legal obligations to treat the natural laws as literal laws legislated by a sovereign God. (shrink)

Nature and Spirit: An Essay in Ecstatic Naturalism develops an enlarged conception of nature that in turn calls for a transformed naturalism. Unline more descriptive naturalisms, such as those by Dewey, Santayana, and Buchler, ecstatic naturalism works out of the fundamental ontological difference between nature naturing(natura naturans) and nature natured (natura naturata). This difference underlies all other variations within a generic conception of nature. The spirit operates within a generic conception of nature. The spirit (...) operates within a fragmented nature and has its own unique locations. Ecstatic naturalism does not eulogize spirit nor impose a process theodicy upon nature as a whole but carefully describes the ways in which spirit emerges from finite locations within the world. Methodologically, the text radically regrounds phenomenology so that it can work more closely with a metaphysics seeking the most generic forms of nature. The move from a transcendental phenomenology, which rests upon a profound misconception of the parcel of a radicalized naturalism, makes it possible to show how all orders of relevance are related to nature and to the spirit. This, in turn relocates the human process, with its dialectical tension between finitude and transendence, and places the self fully within the emergent structures of the community of interpreters as that community lives out of hope. The concept of worldhood is regrounded in pragmatic and semiotic terms, thus putting pressure on Heidegger's formulations. Peirce's pragmatic categorical structure is used to show how worldhood differs from any other order within the world. The correlation of the potencies of nature, which are presemiotic and preordinal, wit the orders of the world itself, is possible only through an ordinal phenomenology that remains attuned to the fundamental difference between nature naturing (the potencies) and nature natured (the orders of the world). Finally, the text redefines the divine natures in the light of an ecstatic naturalism that sees god as an order within the world that experiences the fragmented quality of nature. Process theology is challenged for its inability to grasp the tensions between god and the encompassing. Four divine natures are laid bare as they relate to nature and to each other. The work concludes with a description of the divine life in the face of the encompassing. (shrink)

This paper is about the nature of God’s pre-creation knowledge of possible creatures. I distinguish three theories: non-qualitative singularism, qualitative singularism, and qualitative generalism, which differ in terms of whether the relevant knowledge is qualitative or non-qualitative, and whether God has singular or merely general knowledge of creatures. My main aim is to argue that qualitative singularism does not depend on a version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles to the effect that, necessarily, qualitatively indiscernible individuals are (...) identical. It follows that qualitative singularism does not depend on the view that possible creatures categorically have qualitative individual essences. (shrink)

Intellectual history, philosophy, and science’s own self-understanding undermine the claim that science entails or need even tend toward atheism. By definition a radically transcendent creator-God is inaccessible to empirical investigation. Denials of the possibility or actual occurrence of miracles depend not on science itself, but on naturalist assumptions that derive originally from a univocal metaphysics with its historical roots in medieval nominalism, which in turn have deeply influenced philosophy and science since the seventeenth century. The metaphysical postulate of naturalism and (...) its correlative empiricist epistemology constitute methodological self-limitations of science -- only an unjustified move from postulate to assertion permits ideological scientism and atheism. It is entirely possible that religious claims consistent with the empirical findings of the natural and social sciences might be true. Therefore, historians of religion not only need not assume that atheism i. (shrink)

Collins examines the main philosophical approaches, whether positive, negative, or skeptical, which have been taken towards God since Cusanus, showing the central and often decisive role which the theme of God's existence, nature, and relation to the world has played in this development. It is an ambitious undertaking, and Collins acquits himself well. His survey includes such diverse thinkers as Montaigne, Descartes, Hume and Rousseau, Pascal, Newman, Marx, Mill, and Whitehead. The concise introductory remarks to each chapter are particularly (...) revealing, and the bibliographical references are extensive and up-to-date.--L. S. F. (shrink)

Building on recent research exposing Hegel’s debt to esoteric Christianity (both Gnostic and Hermetic traditions), the aim of this paper is to show how Hegel and Schelling resolve an ambiguity in Boehme’s theology of evil in opposing ways. Jacob Boehme’s notion of the individuation of God through the overcoming ofopposition is the central paradigm for both Hegel’s and Schelling’s understanding of the role of evil in the life of God. Boehme remains ambiguous on the question of the modality of evil: (...) Is it necessary to God’s self-unfolding, or is it rather an anarchic act that God permits in the interest of preserving the autonomy of finite freedom? If the former, Boehme becomes much more closely aligned to Gnosticism by identifying finitude with evil. This identification is shown to be exactly Hegel’s solution to the ambiguity, one Hegel opts for in the interest of maintaining the absolute rationality of the system. Hermeticism opposes Gnosticism on this point: for the Hermeticist, finitude / material being / nature is not evil but ‘of God,’ the means of his individuation. This conflict in interpretations of Boehmeilluminates an often overlooked but essential difference between Gnosticism and Hermeticism. Schelling remains faithful to the Hermetic tradition by sacrificing system for the sake of preserving the contingency of evil, and disidentifying finitude and evil. (shrink)

A Robert Spaemann Reader: Philosophical Essays on Nature, God, and the Human Person. Edited and translated by.. Pp. 241. Price £62.16.).

In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, one of the principal Upaniṣads, we find a venerable and famous story where the god Prajāpati separately instructs three groups of people (gods, humans, and demons) simply by uttering the syllable “Da.” In this paper, our concern is not with ethics but theories of meaning and interpretation: How can all divergent interpretations of a single expression be correct, and, indeed, endorsed by the speaker? As an exercise in cross-cultural philosophical reflection, we consider some of the leading (...) modern theories of meaning—those of Grice, Quine, and Davidson—in order to see if the Upaniṣadic story receives a natural home in any of them. We conclude that the story is best understood through Grice’s theory of meaning rather than Quine’s or Davidson’s. (shrink)