Divine Attributes, Misc

If the transcendence tree to which our world belongs has a root, and that root is a mind, then what can be known about that mind? It seems there are two sources of knowledge, theology (that mind may have revealed itself to us) and philosophy (we may be able to reason about it from first principles). Here we shall look into that latter aspect.

The issue of God's Attributes has always been one of the most important topics in theological discussions in the history of Islamic thought. In fact, Muslim theologians and philosophers have dealt with this issue from different angles, including the division of His Attributes into essential and actual ones and exploring whether such attributes are identical with His Essence or are added to it. However, one of the basic questions in this regard is: 'How do we know about these attributes and (...) how do we define them when attributing them to the Truth?'. (shrink)

In the literature on toleration, epistemic arguments are commonly equated with John Stuart Mill's fallibilism according to which toleration of opinions is a necessary means to the attainment of truth. This conflation does not capture the variety of those arguments and it results from the fact that a proper analysis of epistemic arguments for religious toleration and a systematic account of their different types are still lacking. The purpose of this article is to provide such an analysis and to argue (...) that those arguments come in four different types, which I name fallibilism, religious belief-forming process, epistemic parity, and differentiated access to religious truth or divine message. I also offer a mapping of those different types of arguments using the standard epistemic notions of justification, truth, and belief coupled with a distinction of focus in the epistemological approach – whether individually or socially focused. (shrink)

Christian thinkers in the patristic era were not reluctant to integrate classical philosophy with biblical theology as they addressed the seeming incompatibility of free will and determinism (fate). This paper compares and contrasts Tertullian and the Stoics as they explain three issues relating to freedom and fate: 1) The operation of the Logos, 2) Theological Anthropology, and 3) Teleology. While in agreement with the Stoics on several key points, Tertullian crucially departs from them as he argues it is not by (...) necessity—but rather by voluntary collaboration between humanity and the Logos—that the Creation arrives at its determinate end. (shrink)

Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729) British theologian and philosopher. Widely regarded as the leading metaphysician in Britain after the death of John Locke (1632-1704) (Vailati 1998, p. xxxiv), Clarke’s most important apologetic contributions are contained in his Boyle Lectures (delivered in 1704 and 1705).

Patrick Grim advances arguments meant to show that the doctrine of divine omniscience—the classical doctrine according to which God knows all truths—is false. In particular, we here have in mind to focus on two such arguments: the set theoretic argument and the semantic argument. These arguments due to Grim run parallel to, respectively, familiar paradoxes in set theory and naive truth theory. It is beyond the purview of this article to adjudicate whether or not these are successful arguments against the (...) classical doctrine of omniscience. What we are here interested in is a way in which these arguments can be generalized. In particular, we show how generalizations of those arguments can target, explicitly, alternatives to the classical doctrine of omniscience, including what we here call 'restricted omniscience' and 'open future open theism'. As a corollary, considerations of Grim-style arguments do not support these alternatives to the classical doctrine of omniscience over the classical doctrine. We conclude that what is paradoxical is not the classical doctrine of omniscience just as such; rather, what is paradoxical is a core commitment shared by the classical doctrine and its more modest alternatives, namely, the thesis that God is a perfectly logical reasoner. (shrink)

James Anderson and Greg Welty have resurrected an argument for God’s existence, which we will call the argument from logic. We present three lines of response against the argument, involving the notion of necessity involved, the notion of intentionality involved, and then we pose a dilemma for divine conceptualism. We conclude that the argument faces substantial problems.

On my view, every bone, every fossil, and every putrid whiff of carrion that one smells on a hike in the country is just as good evidence for a divine intervention as it is for the suffering of an animal.

In this Introduction, we begin with two relatively uncontroversial matters: the broad contours of the history of discussion of ontological arguments, and the major topics that require discussion in connection with ontological arguments. We then move on to consideration of the much more difficult task of the characterisation of ontological arguments—i.e. the task of saying exactly what ontological arguments are and explaining how they differ from, say, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the existence of God—and then the equally contested (...) question of the provision of general objections to ontological arguments, including, in particular, attempts to show that there could not possibly be a successful ontological argument. Finally, we consider some often-neglected questions about how to assess the merits of arguments, with a particular eye on the assessment of the merits of ontological arguments. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the incompatibility of three claims, each of them quite attractive to a theist. First, the doctrine of deep dependence: the universe depends for its existence, in a non-causal way, on God. Second, the doctrine of true transcendence: the universe is wholly distinct from God; God is separate and apart from the universe in respect of mereology, modes, and mentality. Third, the doctrine of robust creaturely freedom: some creature performs some act such that he could (...) have done other than he in fact did. After laying out the claims, I show that their conjunction has its adherents—most clearly, the medieval Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. I then argue in detail that the claims are in fact incompatible. I conclude with a discussion of which of the claims is best jettisoned, drawing in part on the work of the Absolute Idealist, Mary Calkins. (shrink)

Lewisian theism is the view that both traditional theism and Lewis’s modal realism are true. On Lewisian theism, God must exist in worlds in one of the following ways: God can be said to have a counterpart in each world; God can be said to exist in each world in the way that a universal can be said to exist in worlds, i.e. through transworld identity; God can be said to be a scattered individual, with a part of God existing (...) in each world; and, God can be said to exist in each world, through His existing from the standpoint of each world. In the literature, – have been rejected as viable options. I grant that and are not viable. However, I believe that and have been too hastily rejected. Herein, I develop ways to respond to objections to and, and conclude that is a viable option for Lewisian theists. (shrink)

I defend an account of God’s ineffability that depends on the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental truths. I argue that although there are fundamentally true propositions about God, no creature can have them as the object of a propositional attitude, and no sentence can perfectly carve out their structures. Why? Because these propositions have non-enumerable structures. In principle, no creature can fully grasp God’s intrinsic nature, nor can they develop a language that fully describes it. On this account, the ineffability (...) of God is explained in terms of the inability of our language and mental capacities to grasp God as he really is. I will motivate my account by distinguishing it from a rival proposal. According to this rival, there are no fundamentally true propositions about God’s intrinsic nature. I argue that this rival proposal faces problems that my account does not face. And unlike this rival and other accounts of ineffability, my account provides a fitting explanation of why God is ineffable. God is ineffable because the structure of his intrinsic nature is infinite. (shrink)

I begin this essay by articulating capitalism’s problematic work ethic, to which a host of contemporary theologians are rightfully responding. I then establish a pattern that structures a host of those contemporary theological responses. Theologians working out of the “God as Worker” model aim to address work‐related problems by calling for workers to imitate God’s work. Making use of Augustine’s doctrine of transcendence, I problematize that mode of response on two fronts: (1) those proposals are based on too quick an (...) appeal to theories of divine action, which the authors problematically assume provides a model for ideal forms of human action; (2) those proposals lack clarity regarding the precise nature of “work” and thus fail to develop a proper analysis of the cursed mode of agency. Thinking with Augustine and a classical theological schema wherein God is the transcendent cause (and final end) of all creatures thus prohibits the attempt to address questions of work by identifying just modes of work in God’s productive agency. In contrast to this model, I argue that an Augustinian response must treat work as both a distinctly creaturely and a cursed activity. (shrink)

In this article I explore the relation between God's absolute governance of the world and ecclesial dominion over other communities in a shared political forum that seeks the greatest good of all. On this question I compare the positions of Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson, and Edward Schillebeeckx as representatives of three distinct political theologies. Whereas Gunton's reservation regarding the participation of the church's politics in divine governance shows excessive deference to human sinfulness, Jenson on the contrary tends to absorb God's (...) Rule into ecclesial politics. Drawing upon Schillebeeckx's Christology, I argue that God's absolute Rule is compatible with ecclesial sovereignty; however, this does not allow for unilateral ecclesial dominion over others, inasmuch as God's Rule is disclosed as forgiveness. (shrink)

A number of theologians and philosophers have found theodical value in the theme of divine solidarity with human suffering. To further develop this theme, I examine what it would mean to assert that Christ on the cross participated in a representative sample of human suffering. Particular attention is paid to Christ’s cry of dereliction. I argue that if God through Christ identified with the very worst kinds of human suffering on the cross, then the cry of dereliction should be interpreted (...) as indicating an epistemic break between God and Christ, and not merely an attentional disruption. According to this account, Christ’s death cry expressed his temporary inability to grasp the significance of his passion and death. In this way, Christ on the cross suffered the full effects of divine hiddenness, thus sharing with horror-sufferers the experience of meaning-negating suffering. (shrink)

This paper seeks to demonstrate why the existence of suboptimal design in biology does not offer a reason for Christians to reject the biological case for Intelligent Design. In it, I argue that Christians who critique ID based upon alleged deficiencies within biology fail to imagine the various ways in which a divine designer might bring about certain biological effects. That is, such critics presumably envision a simplistic notion of divine causation—where God either directly brings about every biological effect, or (...) is not involved in any biological effect. Such either or thinking, I maintain, is theologically unnecessary. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a growing interest in narrative both in certain areas of philosophy and in the study of religion. The philosophy of religion has not itself been at the forefront of this narrative turn, but exceptions exist—most notably Eleonore Stump’s work on biblical stories and the problem of suffering. Characterizing Stump’s approach as an apologetic orientation, this article contrasts it with pluralistic orientations that, rather than seeking to defend religious faith, are concerned with doing conceptual justice to the (...) range of possible human perspectives, both religious and nonreligious. By discussing various examples, the article makes a case for narrative philosophy of religion, especially in its pluralistic form. (shrink)

David Macarthur has assembled not only a fascinating collection of essays from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam that spans two decades but also a collection that makes a compelling series of arguments about what pragmatism has been, is, and may yet become. This is all the more impressive since it weaves together the voices of two scholars who shared both an intellectual commitment and a life. As a longtime admirer of Hilary Putnam’s work, I was excited to take a (...) deep dive into the thought of Ruth Anna Putnam, and, truth be told, her essays in this volume deliver the stronger notes. Not only do readers gain a glimpse into the fascinating conversations that took place between these two philosophers over the years... (shrink)

In this essay, I propose two arguments from Thomas Aquinas’s reflection on theism and faith to rebut Schellenberg’s claim that divine hiddenness justifies atheism. One of those arguments, however, may be employed so as to re-propose Schellenberg’s conviction, which is crucial to his argument, that there are ‘non-resistant’ or ‘inculpable’ unbelievers. I then advance what I call the suffering unbeliever argument. In short, the unbelievers mentioned by Schellenberg are expected to suffer because of their non-belief, which—as Schellenberg says—prevents them from (...) achieving the greatest possible well-being. If they suffer, however, they cannot consider themselves unbelievers, since one cannot suffer from not having been given a certain good if one believes that the good in question has never existed. If they do not suffer, on the other hand, there is simply nothing for which they can consider themselves inculpable. (shrink)

The word ‘God’ is typically thought to be a proper name, a name of a defined entity. From another position it appears to be a description that is fundamentally synonymous to ‘the first of all causes’, or ‘the font et origo of the structure of possibilities’, or ‘the provenience of being’, or ‘the generator of existence’. This lends credence to the view that ‘God’ is a truncated definite description. However, this article proposes that ‘God’ is a name given to whatever (...) is that which is the first of all causes, the font et origo of the structure of possibilities, the provenience of being, the generator of existence. If so, then it is a descriptive name. Yet even among descriptive names ‘God’ is unique, for it is neither convertible to a proper name, nor to a definite description. ‘God’ is an inveterate descriptive name. (shrink)

This chapter examines Kant's account of the nature of nonhuman and human animals in the "Critique of the Power of Judgement". It discusses how Kant thought that a complete account of the forms of explanation commit one to belief in God. It concludes, firstly, that Kant's account implies an unhealthy anthropocentrism and an Enlightenment prejudice in the form of the overestimation of reason, and secondly, that the Kantian model of God lacks one of the main characteristics of the Christian conception (...) of God: the universal divine love, a power that unifies and embraces all beings, including nonhuman and human animals and their orders. (shrink)

Eleonore Stump and Katherin Rogers have recently defended the doctrine of divine timelessness in separate essays, arguing that the doctrine is consistent with libertarian free will and that timeless divine knowledge is providentially useful. I show that their defenses do not succeed; a doctrine of eternity having these features cannot be saved.

Michael Tooley’s latest argument against the possibility of divine foreknowledge trades on the idea that, whichever theory of time is true, the ontology of the future—or lack thereof—gives rise to special problems for God’s prescience. I argue that Tooley’s reasoning is predicated on two mischaracterizations and conclude that, on at least some theories of time, the possibility of divine foreknowledge appears secure.

On the face of it Aquinas stands in the mainstream of Western mystical theology, and in particular is a noteworthy proponent of negative theology. This view, however, is challenged within anglophone philosophical theology. The clearest attack on the view that Aquinas is an apophatic theologian is to be found in Eleonore Stump's Aquinas. This paper lays out Stump's reasons for reading Aquinas as non-apophatic, and shows that they are not convincing. Aquinas, it concludes, meant what he said when he claimed (...) that we do not know what God is. (shrink)

This paper explores a variety of perfect being theism that combines Yujin Nagasawa’s maximal God thesis with the view that God is not atemporal. We argue that the original maximal God thesis still implicitly relies on a “static” view of divine perfections. Instead, following the recent re-evaluation of divine immutability by analytic philosophers, we propose that thinking of divine great-making properties as fluctuating but nevertheless remaining maximal either for every time t or across all times strengthens the original maximal God (...) thesis. Furthermore, we show that “temporalising” Nagasawa’s maximal God and adopting what we call the fluctuating maximal God thesis provides more effective ways of responding to objections to perfect being theism, in particular, the argument from evil and some conceptual problems pertaining to the Incarnation. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposal is compatible with Christian Scriptures and coheres with numerous biblical passages better than Nagasawa’s original proposal does. (shrink)

Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any argument employing moral principles or the idea of God as morally perfect is fallacious. In particular, any argument contending that the occurrence of pointless evil presents strong evidence against the existence of God is flawed, as God morally owes his creation nothing. This appeal to divine sovereignty, however, fails to rescue any theistic tradition proclaiming that God loves (...) humans, as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved. (shrink)

This paper examines the coherence of naturalistic personal pantheism in an attempt to reconcile pantheism, naturalism, and a personal concept of God. NPP proposes that i) God is identical with the universe, ii) the universe is entirely natural, and iii) God is personal. Several critics of accounts of a God such as this have voiced concerns about a natural — as opposed to a supernatural — God, since a natural God cannot be worship-worthy. In response, I propose a controversial premise (...) — physical primacy — to justify the worship-worthiness of a natural God. Physical primacy maintains that physical existence is a great-making property, therefore a God that exists naturally is greater than a God that exists supernaturally. I maintain that NPP is an attractive alternative to other theisms because it bypasses the pairing problem, presents a worship-worthy concept of God, and boasts ontological simplicity. (shrink)

This paper describes the central role of peace in the Bahá’í Faith. For Bahá’ís, peace begins at the level of the individual and migrates outward to the community, nation, and the world. The article explains how the Bahá’í Faith outlines a covenant – an agreement between Bahá’ís and between Bahá’ís and the world – made manifest in an Administrative Order in which the ascertainment of peaceful principles and the establishment of peaceful practices are developed. The paper explains how concepts like (...) the oneness of humanity, the symbiosis between science and religion, and the unity of religion and God combine with ideals like justice, equality, and consultation to form a Bahá’í approach to the creation and maintenance of peace. Integration and disintegration – broad-structured, dynamic effects that shift societies and the world – will help to usher in two main aspects of a present and future Bahá’í order: the Lesser Peace and the Most Great Peace. The Lesser Peace is defined by the efforts of nations and international actors to form a broad-based, global peace. The Most Great Peace describes the arrival and ascendance of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, which will result in an unprecedented level of global peace and security. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the Hasidic view, namely, that human flaws do not function as a barrier between a fallen humanity and a perfect deity, since the whole of creation stems from a divine act of self-contraction. Thus, we need not be discouraged by our own shortcomings, nor by those of our loved ones. Rather, seeing our flaws in the face of another should remind us that imperfection is an aspect of the God who created us. Such a positive approach (...) to human fallibility arouses forgiveness, mutual acceptance, and a hope for repair, and, therefore, has much to recommend itself. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the notion of a perfect God derives from the Greeks rather than the Hebrew Bible. A review of classical philosophies and the idea of God’s imperfection is followed by a consideration of several Jewish attempts to resolve the dichotomy between Divine perfection and an imperfect creation. I focus on Lurianic Kabbalah, Hans Jonas, and on the Hasidic concept of "Ayin " or “nothingness” as the very source of redemption. This Hasidic idea, which was further expanded upon by the Baal Shem Tov’s students, appears in a tale recounted by his great-grandson R. Nachman of Bratslav called “The Hanging Lamp.” I focus on the tale, which illustrates the idea that knowledge of human imperfection is itself a means of perfection and redemption. (shrink)

The monastic movement originated among laity who recognized within themselves the potential to embody the Christian gospel. That a practice so central to early Christians and their Scriptural understanding would undergo such a decline contemporarily gives pause for reconsideration. This article posits that the kind of asceticism at the core of Christian monasticism maintains relevance as a transformative Christian practice in the contemporary world, as well. The argument draws on a tripartite model of spirituality in accord with Gregory of Nyssa’s (...) notion of epektasis. This suggests asceticism’s contemporary appropriation as an ethic of Christian spiritual development oriented toward perpetual ascent. Asceticism will be analyzed as a form of spiritual struggle; that is, physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual exertion aiming to progress in knowledge, similitude, and intimacy with Jesus Christ, for God and for others. The three stages of this ethic of Christian spiritual growth – 1) detachment from fleshly passions, 2) strengthening of the soul, and 3) union with God – find parallels in the three themes at the core of asceticism: sexuality, angelification, and divine indwelling. Situating asceticism within a framework of spiritual struggle creates an opportunity to recover and re‐envision a well‐established Christian practice in a contemporary context. (shrink)

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)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms the existence of a divine woman, a Heavenly Mother as a companion to a Heavenly Father. Feminist philosophers of religion have argued for the importance of a divine feminine as a challenge to patriarchal religion, yet the Heavenly Mother tradition has not created an egalitarian religion in Mormonism. Mormon feminists have charged that relative silence about this teaching is a primary cause of this discrepancy. This paper explores the performative dynamics of (...) speech and silence and their relationship to presence and absence in a feminist analysis of power. (shrink)

Tolkien uses the terms “primary creation” and “secondary creation” in his works with reference to divine and human creation respectively. In the first part of this paper, I argue that one criterion to distinguish the former from the latter is their completeness or incompleteness. The primary creation is complete because it is thought of and created by God. The secondary creations like human fictions are incomplete since the human intellect is finite and does not have the capacity to grasp the (...) entire structure of its own creation. In the second part, I will examine this distinction in relation to Tolkien’s Christian background, and reformulate and systematise it in the metaphysical framework of G.W. Leibniz. Finally, I offer a definition of a human fiction as a part of a divine fiction, i.e. as a part of a possible world in a Leibnizian sense. (shrink)