Commitment, Justification, and the Rejection of Natural Theology

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 77 (3):417-436 (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper considers two related claims in the work of D. Z. Phillips: that commitment to God precludes a distinction between the commitment and the grounds for the commitment, and that belief and understanding are the same in religion. Both these claims motivate Phillips’s rejection of natural theology. I examine these claims by analyzing the notion of commitment, discussing what is involved in making a commitment to a worldview, why commitment is necessary at all in religion, levels of commitment, and commitment and justification. I show that Phillips fails to distinguish between adopting a hypothesis, where justification would be germane, and committing to the hypothesis after one has adopted it, where justification is not so pressing. This failure fatally undermines his rejection of natural theology.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Two kinds of ontological commitment.Howard Peacock - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (242):79-104.
Moral Commitment and Moral Theory.Sarah Stroud - 2001 - Journal of Philosophical Research 26:381-398.
Naturalistic Epistemologies and A Priori Justification.Lisa Warenski - 2010 - In Marcin Milkowski & Konrad Kalmont-Taminski (eds.), Beyond Description: Naturalism and Normativity. College Publications.
Kierkegaard's concept of truthfulness.Jeremy Walker - 1969 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 12 (1-4):209 – 224.
Religious pluralism assessed.Avi Sagi - 1999 - Sophia 38 (2):93-115.
Construing Sen on commitment.Philip Pettit - 2005 - Economics and Philosophy 21 (1):15-32.
Rationality and Religious Commitment.Robert Audi - 2011 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-02-22

Downloads
49 (#287,646)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Brendan Sweetman
Rockhurst University

Citations of this work

D. Z. Phillips on Christian immortality.Patrick Horn - 2012 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 71 (1):39-53.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references