Over the past 25 years, no religious institution in America has done more to explore the link between the environment and spirituality than the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Now, for the first time, a selection of the finest of the Cathedral's ecological sermons appears in a single volume.

I provide the account of divine creation found in multiverse theorists Donald Turner, Klaas Kraay, and Tim O’Connor. I show that the accounts Kraay and Turner offer are incoherent. God does not survey all possible worlds and necessarily actualize those universes in the (on balance) good worlds or the worthy worlds. If God necessarily actualizes the multiverse, we have no idea which universes are parts of that multiverse. I show next that Tim O’Connor’s multiverse account of creation (...) is also incoherent. I argue that a preferable multiverse would include a much greater variety of universes than are included in Turner, Kraay or O’Connor. In the last section I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

Either a ‘best world’ scenario is true or a ‘no best world’ scenario is true. In a ‘best world’ scenario, God actualizes a world that is unsurpassable. In a ‘no best world’ scenario, for any possible world God actualizes, God could have actualized a better world. A ‘no best world’ scenario precludes theism, so the theist should endorse a ‘best world’ scenario. However, a ‘best world’ scenario leads to the highly counter-intuitive conclusion of modal collapse: the position that nothing could (...) have turned out differently than it did. A tentative solution to modal collapse is if the ‘best world’ scenario turns out to be the theistic multiverse containing many universes. (shrink)

This volume contains essays by twenty-two eminent scholars from across North America and Europe, examining various aspects of the Hebraic, Hellenic, patristic, medieval, and early modern understandings of God and creation.

Multiverse theorists provide controversial, unique but unified accounts of divine creation that result in the Anselmian God creating a best world. On what conditions should theists endorse this or any account of divine creation? One available way is to evaluate how well they resolve some intractable problems in philosophical theology. I argue that multiverse accounts do not resolve these problems to a greater degree than some alternative account of divine creation. I conclude that we (...) should endorse the alternative account over multiverse accounts. (shrink)

In a series of publications spanning over two decades, William Hasker has argued both that (1) human beings have souls and (2) these souls are not directly created by God but instead are produced by (or “emergent from”) a physical process of some sort or other. By contrast, an alternative view of the human person, endorsed by the contemporary Catholic Church, maintains that (1) human beings have souls but that (2*) each human soul is directly created by God rather than (...) produced by any kind of physical process. Hasker argues that given what we know from evolutionary biology, (2*) is a much less plausible position for believers in souls to take than (2) is. If Hasker is right, then there is a serious tension between the Church’s teaching about the human person and evolutionary biology. In this article, I challenge Hasker’s reasoning. I argue that those who hold the Catholic view that each human soul is directly created by God face no more difficulty reconciling their view with evolutionary biology than those who maintain, as Hasker does, that human souls are instead produced by some kind of physical process. (shrink)

Concerning the connection between God and the created realm, it is maintained that God in himself is independent of the created realm and that the created realm is wholly dependent upon God. This distinction is explicated in trinitarian terms, identifying God as source with the Father, the created realm as dependent with the Son, and the power of creation with the Holy Spirit. Although in himself entirely vague with respect to intelligible determinations, God in the context of creation (...) is intelligible as the trinitarian Persons, and even can be experienced as such. Experience, analogy and dialectic are all essential to the knowledge of God as creator. Furthermore, that the created realm depends wholly upon God insures it the integrity of its own nature, for its integrity consists simply in its having the nature it has; for it to lose its integrity would be for it to cease to be, and what is not cannot suffer loss. ;The second problem with regard to the nature of creation concerns how it takes place, and a theory of contraction is put forward. It is then argued that the determinations of being themselves presuppose a common source of the nature of God as previously discussed. ;With regard to the nature of creation, the first problem concerns the kinds of being that would distinguish the creator from what he creates. It is argued that if the kinds of being are only analogically related qua kinds of being, there could be no knowledge of a connection between them; hence, a univocal sense of being is sought. To steer between the doctrine on the one hand that being in its univocal sense is ens commune, which would leave the specific determinations of being without an account, and the doctrine on the other hand that it is ens perfectissimum, which would allow the comprehensive category of being no meaningful contrast, the following theory is advanced. Being in its univocal sense is characterized as the indeterminate common source of all determinations of being. As source, it accounts for the determinations; as common, it is univocal to all things which are as that which stands them off against absolute non-being; and as indeterminate in itself, it needs no contrast term which would also have to be. Being is intelligibly contrasted with absolute non-being, not in virtue of its essential determinations, but in virtue of its relation as creator to the determinations of being. God is primarily identified with the source of the determinations, and the created realm is said to include all the determinations of being. ;The problems of divine creation cluster around two main issues: the nature of creation and the connection it entails between God and the created realm. (shrink)

Although modern societies have come to recognize diversity in human sexuality as simply part of nature, many Christian communities and thinkers still have considerable difficulties with related developments in politics, legislation, and science. In fact, homosexuality is a recurrent topic in the transdisciplinary encounter between Christianity and the sciences, an encounter that is otherwise rather “asexual.” I propose that the recent emergence of “Christianity and Science” as an academic field in its own right is an important part of the larger (...) context of the difficulties related to attempts to reconcile Christianity and a recognition of diversity in human sexuality as a norm. Through a critical discussion of arguments which are upheld most disturbingly on a global scale by the Roman Catholic Church and supported with much sophistry by important stakeholders of an influential stream in analytic philosophy of religion, this paper aims to contextualize and defend the legitimacy of the question why God would create homosexuals as such if it is true that every homosexual act is prohibited by God. While recently advanced nonheterosexist scientific models of sexuality in nature inform the discussion, I reject the simplistic view that religions suppress and the sciences liberate in matters sexual. (shrink)

Michael Almeida once told me that he thought we were just a couple of hours of conversation away from reaching deep agreement about some important topics in the philosophy of religion pertaining to God, multiverses, and modality. This paper represents my attempt to move this conversation forward and to seek this common ground. Specifically, I respond to Almeida’s paper entitled “The Multiverse and Divine Creation”. In the first four sections, I record my disagreement with him concerning some smaller (...) matters. In Section 5, I try to persuade him that what he considers a ‘bug’ in the theistic multiverse is actually a feature—and a desirable one at that. In Section 6, I close by identifying some points at which our views seem to converge. (shrink)

The majority of the contemporary literature on Schelling and Heidegger focuses on the direct connection between the two philosophers – Heidegger’s engagement with Schelling’s Freedom essay. This paper, however, explores an implicit link between them on the topic of creation by reading Schelling’s Ages of the World alongside Heidegger’s ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’. It brings God’s creation in Schelling together with artistic creation in Heidegger and argues that the two have similarities in their structures, (...) sources, and aims: both creations are dependent on a two-fold struggle, the sources are either the absolute (in Schelling) or being (in Heidegger), and the aims are to reveal the divine principle (in Schelling) or the truth of being (in Heidegger) in the world. In making these comparisons, I argue that, in spite of Heidegger’s esoteric neologisms, his account of artistic creation is not as radically new as he himself claims. It can be read and better comprehended in the light of a Schellingian metaphysics of creation and, more broadly, in the light of the history of philosophy in general. Eventually, Heidegger’s philosophy remains committed to the tradition of philosophical theology, despite his own attempt to move beyond this tradition. (shrink)

When Timaeus claims that all vice is involuntary, and that it is not individual human beings but their “nurturers” and begetters” who must be assigned causal responsibility for human vice, he is extending the grand cosmological discourse he has been offering to include the causes of human vice, and he is presenting a novel twist on the Socratic paradox familiar from earlier works, that no one does wrong voluntarily. He is not, however, contradicting his earlier claims that human beings, rather (...) than the gods, are responsible for human evils. This is because 86b-87b does assign responsibility to human causes and responsibility for individual actions is not under discussion there. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that Plotinus denies deliberative forethought about the physical cosmos to the demiurge on the basis of certain basic and widely shared Platonic and Aristotelian assumptions about the character of divine thought. We then discuss how Plotinus can nonetheless maintain that the cosmos is «providentially» ordered.

The basic challenge that readers of the New Testament face is not only about what Jesus Christ teaches but who he is. Functional Christology has developed at the expense of ontological Christology. This challenge centres on Jesus Christ’s relevance, in terms of his identity, not only for Christians in particular but also for creation as a whole. The question ‘who is Jesus Christ in relation to creation?’ is thus of special interest to this study. Various authors such as (...) Gunton, Gregersen, Peacocke and others have approached this question from different perspectives. The PhD study by Rabie-Boshoff was completed to shed light into the context of dialogue between Christian theology and the science of linguistics in an effort to understand the Genesis 1 creation story. This article refers to part of the study in an effort to make sense of who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. This provides consolation in a time of worldwide lockdown because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 virus. The human struggle of making sense of the world is brought into sharp focus in times like these, more so in terms of making sense of their creatureliness and mortality. Although science as a valid knowledge base may provide some answers to this human dilemma, Christians in particular appeal to the Bible and their belief in Jesus Christ. This turn to Jesus, and who he is, provides human beings with enduring and satisfying answers to their suffering and pain.Contribution: This article is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussion on creation in terms of how human beings make sense of creation, considering who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. Human beings have always been engaged in a process of making sense of the world they live in. Ancient cultures provide such a window, allowing a glimpse into how those cultures perceived their world. (shrink)

Proclus (c.412-485) once offered an argument that Christians took to stand against the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo based on the eternity of the world and God’s perfection. John Philoponus (c.490-570) objected to this on various grounds. Part of this discussion can shed light on contemporary issues in philosophical theology on divine perfection and creation. First I will examine Proclus’ dilemma and John Philoponus’ response. I will argue that Philoponus’ fails to rebut Proclus’ dilemma. The problem (...) is that presentism is incompatible with divine simplicity, timelessness, and a strong doctrine of immutability. From there I will look at how this discussion bears on contemporary understandings of divine perfection and creation, and argue that there are at least two possible ways contemporary philosophical theologians can try to get around the dilemma. One option is to adopt four-dimensional eternalism and maintain the traditional account of the divine perfections. I argue that this option suffers from difficulties that are not compatible with Christian belief. The other option is to keep presentism and modify the divine perfections. I argue that this option is possible and preferable since our understanding of the divine perfections must be modified in light of divine revelation and the incarnation. (shrink)

The immense distance between God and creatures is a core statement of Gregory of Nyssa’s thought, which makes it distinctive not only in theology, but also in cosmology, anthropology, and spiritual doctrine. For him, the main distinction between beings that articulates all reality is not that of intelligible and sensible, but the one between infinite God and creatures. This paper, dealing with some selected texts regarding the creation of man, points out the main roots of Gregory’s theism: a high (...) comprehension of God’s transcendence and a proper philosophy of time and creation. From here, Gregory’s understanding of the hierarchy of beings as a non-dialectic unity of creation supported by a transcendent participation in God, and his articulation of Eternity and Time within the unique creative action of God, could be seen as a deep Christian comprehension of reality that is still intriguing for contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (‘PSR’), every fact has an explanation for why it obtains. If the PSR is true, there must be a sufficient reason for why God chose to create our world. But a sufficient reason for God’s choice plausibly necessitates that choice. It thus seems that God could not have done otherwise, and that our world exists necessarily. We therefore appear forced to pick between the PSR, and the contingency of creation and divine (...) choice. I show that a third option remains open, and thus that it is possible to preserve the contingency of creation and divine choice even while endorsing the PSR. My solution depends on the coherence of a restricted modal realism. On this modal realism, there is more than one possible morally optimal created world, and for each such world there is an existing possibility in which God creates that world. (shrink)

Though Kierkegaard's ethic in "Works of Love" frequently has been a target of harsh — and often uncharitable — criticism, a number of recent treatments have sought to defend both its viability and its relevance to the contemporary discussion. Increasingly, the literature is replete with interpretations that situate it within the traditions of virtue ethics and/or divine command theory. I evaluate these readings, focusing primarily on the issue of moral obligation in Kierkegaard's writings. I argue that both the virtue (...) and divine command interpretations are deficient, though Kierkegaard's ethic indeed shares significant points of contact with both traditions. I explicate and defend an alternative account of moral obligation that seems to me most to warrant the label, "Kierkegaardian," and attempt to expand the view, taking Kierkegaard's ethic as a foundation upon which to build a theoretically rigorous account of moral obligation. The resulting view, I argue, captures the best of both virtue ethics and divine command theory, while avoiding the most serious problems of each. (shrink)

This paper presents a philosophical argument for divine providence by Aquinas. I suggest that upon returning to Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics to prepare his commentaries on these texts, Aquinas recognized that his stock argument from natural teleology to divine providence (the fifth way and its versions) needed to be filled out. Arguments from natural teleology can prove that God’s providence extends to what happens for the most part, but they cannot show that God’s providence also includes what happens (...) for the least part. In order to prove the latter, Aquinas claims that one must argue from a higher science, which he then does with all characteristic clarity. This paper presents this argument, discusses what this means for his previous arguments from teleology, and discusses the argument’s relevance to the contemporary discussion about creation and evolution. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that Plotinus denies deliberative forethought about the physical cosmos to the demiurge on the basis of certain basic and widely shared Platonic and Aristotelian assumptions about the character of divine thought. We then discuss how Plotinus can nonetheless maintain that the cosmos is «providentially» ordered. -/- [Note: This paper is a French translation (prepared by Mathilde Brémond) of a paper that appears in A. Marmodoro and B. Prince (eds.), Causation and Creation in Late (...) Antiquity (Cambridge, 2015).]. (shrink)

This paper will be a limited attempt to make sense of divine causation in Leibniz. I will not be able to discuss whether divine causation is immanent causation, nor explore the metaphysics of creation, emanation, and miracles in detail. Rather, I will focus on adjudicating the degree to which Leibniz’s famous denial of the interaction of substances bears on his views of divine causation. (edited).

This article descriptively discusses the divine purpose in the creation of the world and especially the human being, and the value analysis of the concepts, expressing this purpose in the light of the views of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1024), who was from the Basra School, and systemized the five doctrinal principles of the Mu'tazila. Accordingly, it answers the question why God created the human on the basis of the purpose/aim in divine actions and examines the qualitative (...) value of the non-compulsory cause (dā’ī) that motivates God to create. In addition, the article shows that 'beneficence', the central concept in the purpose of the creation, is formulized as ‘tafaḍḍul’ (disinterested or gratuitous beneficence) with the title of wisdom before the creation and as ‘thawāb’ (reward) and ‘iwaḍ (compensation) with the title of wājib (necessary or obligatory) in the resurrection. It also emphasizes that ‘iqāb (punishment) is not a value for the beginning of creation, and therefore it is 'legal good' required by the resurrection. It also touches on that the concepts, expressing all this purposefulness are based on the values of 'benefit and good' (maṣlaḥa and ḥusn). This article concludes that while the main purpose of the beginning of creation is beneficence and its actual value is tafaḍḍul; the main purpose of re-creation is benefit and good, and the actual value is wājib. (shrink)

I defend the claim that Avicenna explains the creation of the universe in terms of emanation modeled on Neoplatonic emanation by exploring Avicenna’s account of creation by emanation in detail. I address what appears to be an obvious problem for the application of this model to creation—namely, that creation as emanation seems to be non-voluntary and has been understood to be non-voluntary by several prominent interpreters. I explore how Avicenna contends that God emanates voluntarily and non-necessarily. (...) Avicenna is able to make this claim because of his distinction between an action done of natural necessity, done voluntarily, and done with an intention. I then address whether this means that God creates freely—without any constraint whatsoever—and I conclude that God is not free not to create because God has an immutable will and has already acted to create. While God is not under any initial compulsion to create, from the fact that the universe now exists, God cannot act otherwise than to create. (shrink)

Partie de l’homme et de sa poièsis pour en nier les limites et se représenter un produire supérieur, la création digne du Dieu créateur du ciel et de la terre, la philosophie occidentale a fini par l’appliquer à l’homme-artiste : partie d’une conception trop anthropomorphique de la production divine, elle a fini par promouvoir une conception théomorphique de la création humaine. On érige en méthode un tel théomorphisme afin de voir d’abord comment les diverses conceptions de la création (...) class='Hi'>divine éclairent effectivement la création humaine. On explore ensuite la relation de l’œuvre au principe créateur : qu’est et que devient l’œuvre une fois qu’elle est créée? Et que peut nous apprendre sur la création même le destin du créé? (shrink)

The paper discusses al-Kindī's response to doctrines held by contemporary theologians of the Mu‘tazilite school: divine attributes, creation, and freedom. In the first section it is argued that, despite his broadly negative theology, al-Kindī recognizes a special kind of “essential” positive attribute belonging to God. The second section argues that al-Kindī agreed with the Mu‘tazila in holding that something may not yet exist but still be an object of God's knowledge and power. Also it presents a new parallel (...) between al-Kindī and John Philoponus. The third section gives an interpretation of al-Kindī as a compatibilist, in other words as holding that humans may be free even though their actions are necessitated. In all three cases, it is argued, al-Kindī is close to the Mu‘tazilite point of view, though he departs from them in the arguments he gives for that point of view. (shrink)

In a document penned under the direction of its then-president Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission observed that many neo-Darwinian materialists and their Christian critics share a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. This article explores the thought of Joseph Ratzinger in view of proposing the features of a path that seeks to eschew these faulty understandings of how God causes evolutionary change within our world, thus providing an alternative to the Intelligent Design movement’s approach to (...) creation.. Ratzinger has a deep respect for the integrity of nature, rejecting the notion that God is a “craftsman” who “tinkers” with the world. According to Ratzinger, evolutionary change occurs “precisely in the processes of a living being” even as human beings are “not the mere product of development.” Finally, the emeritus pontiff insists that creation is an ever-present act that unfolds “in the manner in which thought is creative,” a dynamic that he describes variously as a story, drama, melody, and symphony. Wedding these and other key insights, this article submits that Ratzinger’s thought on evolution should lead us to conceive of creation less along the lines of an intelligently designed machine and more as a masterpiece story that is continually being told as its plot unfolds naturally over the course of time. (shrink)

Il Commento di Rufo alla Metafisica aristotelica è tradito integralmente nel Vat. lat. 4538 e parzialmente in altri quattro mss.: Erfurt, Bibl. Amplon., Q. 290 ; Praha, Archiv Prazského Hradu, M. 80 ; Oxford, New College, 285 ; Oxford, Bodl. Libr., misc. lat. C. 71 . Per l'ed. dello Scriptum sono stati utilizzati V, E, e N. In questa sezione del Commento , dove il francescano inglese si propone di conciliare la dottrina dell'immutabilità divina con la dottrina della creazione e (...) dei futuri contingenti, l'A. individua la presenza di argomenti utilizzati da Roberto Grossatesta nel De libero arbitrio. (shrink)