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articles
1. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Robert Merrihew Adams God, Possibility, and Kant
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In one of his precritical works, Kant defends, as “the only possible” way of demonstrating the existence of God, an argument from the nature of possibility. Whereas Leibniz had argued that possibilities must be thought by God in order to obtain the ontological standing that they need, Kant argued that at least the most fundamental possibilities must be exemplified in God. Here Kant’s argument is critically examined in comparison with its Leibnizian predecessor, and it is suggested that an argument combining the strengths of both of them has much to be said for it
2. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
William F. Vallicella Does the Cosmological Argument Depend on the Ontological?
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Does the cosmological argument (CA) depend on the ontological (OA)? That depends. If the OA is an argument “from mere concepts,” then no; if the OA is an argument from possibility, then yes. That is my main thesis. Along the way, I explore a number of subsidiary themes, among them, the nature of proof in metaphysics, and what Kant calls the “mystery of absolute necessity.”
3. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
John E. Hare Kant on Recognizing Our Duties As God’s Commands
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Kant both says that we should recognize our duties as God’s commands, and objects to the theological version of heteronomy, ‘which derives morality from a divine and supremely perfect will’. In this paper I discuss how these two views fit together, and in the process I develop a notion of autonomous submission to divine moral authority. I oppose the ‘constitutive’ view of autonomy proposed by J. B. Schneewind and Christine Korsgaard. I locate Kant’s objection to theological heteronomy against the background of Crusius’s divine command theory, and I compare Kant’s views about divine authority and human political authority.
4. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Jacqueline Marina Transformation and Personal Identity In Kant
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This paper explores how Kant’s development of the idea of the disposition in the Religion copes with problems implied by Kant’s idea of transcendental freedom. Since transcendental freedom implies the power of absolutely beginning a state, and therefore of absolutely beginning a series of the consequences of that state, a transcendentally free act is divorced from the preceding state of an agent, and would thus seem to be divorced from the agent’s character as well. The paper is divided into two parts. First I analyze Kant’s understanding of the disposition and discuss the ways in which it allows us to understand a person’s transcendentally free actions in terms of that person’s character. I then discuss Kant’s resources for understanding the Socratic injunction to care for the soul in light of his concept of the disposition.
5. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Allen Wood Religion, Ethical Community and the Struggle Against Evil
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This paper deals with the motivation behind Kant’s conception of “religion” as “the recognition of all our duties as divine commands”. It argues that in order to understand this motivation, we must grasp Kant’s conception of radical evil as social in origin, and the response to it as equally social - the creation of a voluntary, universal “ethical community”. Kant's historical model for this community is a religious community (especially the Christian church), though Kant regards traditional churches or religious communities as suitable to their moral vocation only if they undergo Enlightenment reform. The paper concludes with a plea for the Enlightenment view of religion, and an indictment of the common failure to understand it correctly.
6. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Philip L. Quinn Kantian Philosophical Ecclesiology
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This paper begins with an outline of some of the main themes in the ecclesiology Kant presents in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. It then discusses implications of Kant’s ecclesiology for issues concerning scriptural interpretation and religious toleration. With the help of these implications, an objection to Kant’s ecclesiology is developed, and a Kantian ecclesiology modified in response to the objection is sketched out. The Roman Catholic ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council is compared to both Kant’s ecclesiology and the modified Kantian ecclesiology. It is argued that on some points the ecclesiology of Vatican II represents movement in the direction of Kant’s ecclesio]ogy while on others tension between Kant and Vatican II can be reduced by the modified Kantian ecclesiology.
7. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Kelli S. O’Brien Kant and Swinburne on Revelation
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Immanuel Kant’s position on special revelation is a matter of debate. Here I discuss Kant’s position in detail and compare it to that of Richard Swinburne. I examine both philosophers’ views on the assertability of special revelation, its contingency, whether it is necessary, the possibility of error, and appropriate methods of interpretation. I argue that, like Swinburne, Kant finds belief in special revelation to be acceptable, even beneficial, under certain circumstances.
8. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
James K. A. Smith Re-Kanting Postmodernism?: Derrida’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone
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This essay considers the legacy of Kant’s philosophy of religion as appropriated by Jacques Derrida in his recent, “Foi et savoir: les deux sources de la ‘religion’ aux limites de la simple raison.” Derrida’s adoption of this Kantian framework raises the question of how one might describe this as a postmodern account of religion, which in turn raises the question of the relationship between modernity and postmodernity in general, and Derrida’s relationship to Kant in particular. Following an exposition of Derrida’s notion of a formal “ethical” religion as a repetition of Kant’s critique in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, I offer a critique of Derrida’s (and Kant’s) “formalization” of religion and the relationship between faith and reason, arguing that a more persistent postmodernism requires a de-formalization of the modern concern for justice, appreciating its determinate prophetic origin.
notes and news
9. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Notes and News
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index
10. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 4
Index of Volume 17, 2000
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articles
11. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Caleb Miller Character-Dependent Duty: An Anabaptist Approach to Ethics
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I propose a theory of moral obligation that is inspired by the way obligation has been understood in the Anabaptist tradition. I use the resources of the theory to explain and defend the appropriateness of the Anabaptist claim that Christian ethics is unique. I also use the theory to show that some of the standard objections to Christian pacifism, the most visibly distinctive feature of Anabaptist ethics, are misplaced when pacifism is understood as an application of the theory I defend. Finally, I suggest some theological and theoretical advantages this theory.
12. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Eric Reitan Does the Argument from Evil Assume a Consequentialist Morality?
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In this paper, I argue that the some of the most popular and influential formulations of the Argument from Evil (AE) assume a moral perspective that is essentially consequentialist, and would therefore be unacceptable to deontologists. Specifically, I examine formulations of the argument offered by William Rowe and Bruce Russell, both of whom explicitly assert that their formulation of AE is theoretically neutral with respect to consequentialism, and can be read in a way that is unobjectionable to deontologists. I argue that, in fact, this in not the case. Finally, I look at the implications of the consequentialist assumptions of AE for theodicies based on free will.
13. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Mark D. Linville A Defense of Human Dignity
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The traditional doctrine of human dignity has fallen on hard times. It is said that that doctrine is “speciesist to the core” and “the moral effluvium of a discredited metaphysics.” Those of us who would defend the view that humans enjoy greater moral standing than nonhuman living things must answer the question, “What’s so special about humans?” In this paper, I argue that moral agency is a great-making property that confers special worth on its bearer.
14. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Nicholas Everitt Substance Dualism and Disembodied Existence
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In a number of places, Richard Swinburne has defended the logical possibility of perception without a body; and has inferred from this logical possibility that substance dualism is true. I challenge his defence of disembodied perception by arguing that a disembodied perceiver would not be able to distinguish between perceptions and hallucinations. I then claim that even if disembodied perception were possible, this could not be used to support substance dualism: such an inference would be either invalid or question-begging.
15. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Theodore Guleserian Divine Freedom and the Problem of Evil
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The traditional theistic philosopher is committed to hold that God has a perfect will essentially, and that this is better than having a free will. It will be argued that God, being omnipotent, would have the power to create creatures who also have a perfect will essentially. This creates a problem for the traditional theist in solving the problem of moral evil. The problem of actual moral evil will not then be solvable by reference to the value of our moral freedom, in accordance with the Free Will Defense. This favors the view that moral freedom is an excellence in both man and God.
16. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Charles J. Klein On the Necessary Existence of an Object with Creative Power
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I present an argument which is related to the ontological argument which has a more plausible premise and a weaker conclusion. I assume two postulates concerning the meaning of ‘x creates y’. I then prove that the proposition possibly, something (non-vacuously) creates everything entails, in quantified S5, that there is a necessarily existing object with creative power - an object which creates all (and some) contingently existing objects in some possible world.
essay review
17. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
John Hare Creating the Kingdom of Ends
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book reviews
18. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
John J. Davenport Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility
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19. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
John Dupré The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
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20. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 17 > Issue: 3
Dan D. Crawford God and Contemporary Science
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