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1. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Rowan A. Greer Augustine’s Transformation of the Free Will Defence
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Augustine’s first conversion is to the Christian Platonism of his day, which brought along with it a free-will defence to the problem of evil. Formative as this philosophical influence was, however, Augustine’s own experience of sin combines with his sense of God’s sovereignty to lead him to modify the views he inherited in significant ways. This transformation is demonstrated by setting Augustine’s evolving position against that of Gregory of Nyssa.
2. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Ian T. E. Boyd The Problem of Self-Destroying Sin in John Milton’s Samson Agonistes
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In this paper, I argue that John Milton, in his tragedy Smason Agonistes, raises and offers a solution to a version of the problem of evil raised by Marilyn McCord Adams. Sections I and II are devoted to the presentation of Adams’s version of the problem and its place in the current discussion of the problem of evil. In section III, I present Milton’s version of the problem as it is raised in Samson Agonistes. The solution Milton offers to this problem is taken up in section IV and examined in section V. Last, in section VI, I explore briefly the existential aspect of Milton’s solution.
3. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Derk Pereboom Kant on God, Evil, and Teleology
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In his mature period Kant maintained that human beings have never devised a theory that shows how the existence of God is compatible with the evil that actually exists. But he also held that an argument could be developed that we human beings might well not have the cognitive capacity to understand the relation between God and the world, and that therefore the existence of God might nevertheless be compatible with the evil that exists. At the core of Kant’s position lies the claim that God’s relation to the world might well not be purposive in the way we humans can genuinely understand such a relation. His strategy involves demonstrating that the teleological argument is unsound - for this argument would establish that the relation between God and the world is purposive in a way we can grasp - and showing that by way of a Spinozan conception we can catch an intellectual glimpse of an alternative picture of the relation between God and the world.
4. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Jerry L. Walls “As the Waters Cover the Sea”: John Wesley on the Problem of Evil
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John Wesley explained the existence of evil in moral rather than metaphysical terms. His understanding of the fall was fairly typical of western theology and he also enthusiastically embraced a version of the felix culpa theme as essential for theodicy. Unlike many influential western theologians, he also relied heavily on libertarian freedom to account for evil. His most striking proposal for theodicy involves his eschatalogical vision of the future in which he believed the entire world living then will be converted. I argue that his theodicy is implicitly universalist, especially in its eschatalogical speculations, and show that this is in tension with his strong libertariancommitments.
5. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Robert Merrihew Adams Schleiermacher on Evil
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Schleiermacher’s theology of absolute dependence implies that absolutely everything, including evil, including even sin, is grounded in the divine causality. In addition to God’s general, creative causality, however, he thinks that Christian consciousness reveals a special, teleologically ordered divine causality which is at work in redemption but not in evil. He identifies good and evil, respectively, with what furthers and what obstructs the development of the religious consciousness in human beings. Mere pains and natural ills are not truly evil, in his view, apart from a connection with some obstruction of the God-consciousness. These themes are explored in the present essay.
6. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Nicholas Wolterstorff Barth on Evil
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In this paper I offer an interpretation of Karl Barth’s discussion of evil in volume III/3 of his Church Dogmatics. It is, I contend, an extraordinarily rich, imaginative and provocative discussion, philosophically informed, yet very different from the mainline philosophical treatments of the topic---and from the mainline theological treatments as well. I argue that though Barth’s account is certainly subject to critique at various points, especially on ontological matters, nonetheless philosophers are well advised to take seriously what he says. It offers a powerful attack on many standard lines of thought.
notes and news
7. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Notes and News
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index
8. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Index Volume 13, 1996
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articles
9. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Bruce Langtry God and the Best
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The paper reaches two main conclusions: Firstly, even if there are one or more possible worlds than which there are none better, God cannot actualise any of them. Secondly, if there are possible worlds which God can actualise, and than which God can actualise none better, then God must actualise one of them. The paper is neutral between compatibilist and libertarian views of creaturely freedom.
10. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Theodore Gulesarian Can God Change His Mind?
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A temporal perfect being is best conceived of as having essentially the power to change his mind-even from doing a morally right act to doing one that is morally wrong. For, this power allows him to increase his moral worth by constantly refraining from changing his intentions to do the right thing. Such a being could not possess the power to form an unalterable intention to do the right thing. Could an omnipotent, omniscient being have this power to change his mind and yet know what his future intentions will be? Four arguments that imply a negative answer are considered and rebutted.
11. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
David W. Aiken Kierkegaard’s “Three Stages”: A Pilgrim’s Regress?
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The purpose of this paper is to explore an hypothesis rather than draw any unassailable conclusions. I argue that there is a fundamental tension between the sub-Christian account of the “Three Stages” presented in the earlier pseudonymous writings and the explicitly Christian account presented in the Anti-Climacean and later acknowledged writings. The earlier version is that of a progress from spiritless “immediacy” toward more complete integrations of the self, culminating in authentic religious faith; while the later is that of a regress from lesser to ever greater forms of spiritual peril, culminating in a disordered religiosity that vainly seeks to overthrow the established ecclesiastical order. Tracing the conflict between these two perspectives also enhances our understanding of the purpose underlying Kierkegaard’s project by suggesting the possibility that the authorship constitutes a literary confession of Kierkegaard’s own spiritual regress.
12. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Alvin Plantinga Science: Augustinian or Duhemian
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This paper is a continuation of a discussion with Ernan McMullin; its topic is the question how theists (in particular, Christian theists) should think about modern science---the whole range of modern science, including economics, psychology, sociobiology and so on. Should they follow Augustine in thinking that many large scale scientific projects as well as intellectual projects generally are in the service of one or the other of the civitates? Or should they follow Duhem, who (at least in the case of physics) held that proper science is independent of metaphysical, theological or (broadly) religious concerns? The focus of the discussion is biology; I support the Augustinian line of thought, while McMullin is more inclined to the Duhemian. I conclude by defending the idea that the epistemic probability of the Grand Evolutionary Scenario on Christian theism together with the empirical evidence is somewhat less than 1/2.
13. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
David P. Hunt Frankfurt Counterexamples: Some Comments on the Widerker-Fischer Debate
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One strategy in recent discussions of theological fatalism is to draw on Harry Frankfurt’s famous counterexamples to the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) to defend human freedom from divine foreknowledge. For those who endorse this line, “Frankfurt counterexamples” are supposed to show that PAP is false, and this conclusion is then extended to the foreknowledge case. This makes it critical to determine whether Frankfurt counterexamples perform as advertised, an issue recently debated in this journal via a pair of articles by David Widerker and John Martin Fischer. I suggest that this debate can be avoided: divine foreknowledge is itself aparadigmatic counterexample to PAP, requiring no support from suspect Frankfurt counterexamples.
14. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Roderick M. Chisholm, Dean W. Zimmerman On the Logic of Intentional Help: Some Metaphysical Questions
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In this note, we explore certain aspects of “the logic of helping”; offer an account of the metaphysics of helping God; and suggest a way in which God’s help differs from human help.
15. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzmann An Objection to Swinburne’s Argument for Dualism
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16. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Richard Swinburne Reply to Stump and Kretzmann
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Stump and Kretzmann object to my argument for substance dualism on the ground that its statement involves an implausibly stringent understanding of a hard fact about a time as one whose truth conditions lie solely at that time. I am however entitled to my own definitions, and there is a simple reason why the “standard examples” of hard facts which they provide do not satisfy my definition - they all concern instants and not periods of time.
17. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
David Widerker, Charlotte Katzoff Avoidability and Libertarianism: A Response to Fischer
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Recently, Widerker has attacked Fischer’s contention that one could use Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities to show that even from a libertarian viewpoint an agent might be morally responsible for a decision that he could not have avoided. Fischer has responded by: (a) arguing that Widerker’s criticism presupposes the falsity of Molinism and (b) presenting a version of libertarianism which avoids Widerker’s criticism. Here we argue that: (i) Fischer’s first response is unconvincing and undermines Molinism itself; (ii) the version of libertarianism he presents is fallacious, and (iii) even on the version of libertarianism he proposes, avoid ability remains a necessary condition for moral responsibility.
18. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Frances Howard-Snyder, Daniel Howard-Snyder The Real Problem of No Best World
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Jove, an essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient and morally good being, faced with a choice of which world to create (where for any he might create there is a better) randomly selects no. 777. Is he, therefore, morally surpassable? William Rowe says “yes”. For Thor, an essentially omnipotent and essentially omniscient being in Jove’s predicament who does not randomly create but selects no. 888 because he is prepared to select no world less than no. 888, has a degree of moral goodness that exceeds Jove’s. By exploring two options---either Thor has a reason for being so prepared or he doesn’t---we question the coherency of Rowe’s Thor.
book reviews
19. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Michael J. Murray Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist
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20. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 3
Michael Bergmann Evil and the Evidence for God: The Challenge of John Hick’s Theodicy
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