The objective of this paper is to reflect on the proper way for Christians to do philosophy, in respect of which I have been inspired by a!phrase attributed to Cardinal Newman: “We do not need Christian philosophy. We need Christians making good philosophy.” This sentence can appear controversial, but I believe it is not, if its content is made explicit in an appropriate way. To better develop what I understand Newman to be proposing here, I have added another category to his statement, with the consequence that my own text falls into three sections: 1) on Christian philosophy; 2) on Christian philosophers; 3) on Christians who do philosophy. This is the scheme that we will use to position ourselves as regards the complex issue of the relationship between philosophy and Christianity.

Analytic theology is a thriving research program at the intersection of theology and analytic philosophy. Prior to Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea’s launch of “analytic theology” in 2009, the discipline functioned under the moniker “philosophical theology.” Considerable ink has been spilled on what is analytic theology in the past decade, and most recently by William Wood (2021). Some theologians (e.g., Abraham 2009) have argued that it is systematic theology while others (e.g., Coakley 2013) have been content to remain in a family resemblance class rooted in philosophical theology. At the same time, analytic theology has welcomed Christian philosophers (e.g., Beall 2021) who have migrated into Christian doctrine via philosophy of religion. These philosophers are not systematic theologians, but, rather, philosophical theologians. This essay analyzes the relation between analytic theology, philosophical theology, and philosophy by examining their starting points and how they perceive and access truth, and then proposes a spectrum to graph their overlapping zones of research. I conclude that philosophical theology stands at the heart of the disciplines and thus remains an appropriate term for analytic theologians and Christian philosophers working somewhere in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare two concepts which tend to be treated as synonymous, and to show the difference between them: these are critical thinking and logical culture. Firstly, we try to show that these cannot be considered identical or strictly equivalent: i.e. that the concept of logical culture includes more than just critical thinking skills. Secondly, we try to show that Christian philosophers, when arguing about philosophical matters and teaching philosophy to students, should not focus only on critical thinking skills, but rather also consider logical culture. This, as we argue, may help to improve debate both within and outside of Christian philosophy.

Philosophy has always been parasitic on other bodies of knowledge, especially religious thought. Greek philosophy in Italy emerged as a purification of Orphic religious traditions. Orphic votaries adopted various disciplines in the attempt to become divine, which led Pythagoras and Empedocles to define philosophy as a path to divinity. According to Plato and Aristotle, the goal of philosophy is to become “as much like a god as is humanly possible.” Classical Greek philosophy is not the study of the divine but the project of becoming divine, a!project which it shares with Christianity. Greek philosophy and Christianity have different paths to the divine, but they share a common aspiration.

In this essay, I evaluate the extent to which some currents in classical Christian mysticism might count as properly “Christian” against the rules of faith and theological methodology of thinkers like Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr. I begin by expounding this methodology as it relates to non-Christian philosophical traditions, and from there explore the rules these thinkers offer, suggesting that the beating heart of these rules is not a string of propositions to affirm so much as it is a commitment to a certain rendition of biblical narrative grammar. After exploring this grammar, I turn to a brief discussion of the foundations of Christian mysticism and the thought of Evagrius Ponticus. The aim here is to illustrate the theoretical foundations of much Christian mysticism, as well as to provide a test case to evaluate how far some prominent elements of this discourse might, or might not, cohere with the biblical narrative grammar elucidated above. I argue that there is ample room to question the legitimacy of Evagrius’s claim to properly Christian theorizing, and suggest this has serious implications for future Christian work in the philosophy of mysticism.

Jaegwon Kim’s pairing problem argument asserts that causal intersections require two pairing entities. Mental properties of souls being distinct are causally irrelevant since they are not reducible to physical properties. Because souls are non-spatial physical entities, they do not enter into paired causal relations. Thus, souls or irreducible mental causal interaction, is false. The author assesses and argues against Kim’s pairing problem for substance dualism. Kim assumes that reality is fundamentally a physical one. Thus, the metaphysics of persons and causality is a strict physical one. The author argues from a Thomistic dualists view and a powers ontology perspective to show that agentive causality is fundamental. Lastly, physicalists have not given an adequate account of various mental states and its properties such as knowledge, phenomenal properties and free will which are subjective in nature and therefore known by the first-person point of view. Since physicalism fails to give an adequate account of the nature of consciousness and its possessor, it follows that physicalism is false. Since physicalism is false, Kim’s argument against substance dualism is also false. The paper concludes that one is justified in holding to substance dualism and the coherence of mental causation.

I show how those with Kantian habits of mind—those committed to maintaining certain kinds of universality in ethics—can still get involved in the project of securing the distinctiveness of Christian ethics by highlighting parts of his moral philosophy that are amenable to this project. I first describe the interaction among James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, and Samuel Wells surrounding the issue of the distinctiveness of Christian ethics, to explain why Kant is generally understood as the opponent of this project in this discourse. Then I lay out his discussions of how his moral argument for postulating divine existence can have beneficial moral-psychological results, and of how we can find moral satisfaction, the sense of pleasure in our moral strivings, as two elements in his moral philosophy that can be turned into a distinctively Christian ethics with revisions that should be allowed within the broad confines of Kantian moral philosophy. I also point out that his own answer to the question of moral satisfaction is already distinctively Christian, in that it is inspired by the Christian tenets of the imputation of righteousness and the assurance of salvation.

This article presents the views of Paolo Valori (1919–2003), a little known philosopher and Italian Jesuit who was one of the first scholars in Italy to deal with Husserl’s thought. Valori belonged to the so-called “second wave” of Italian phenomenology. His critical analysis of Maurice Blondel’s views, and his reflections on contemporary philosophy, led him to the conclusion that a dialogue between Christian philosophy and contemporary thought is called for. One aspect of this dialogue may be the opening up of Christian philosophy to the search for truth in the human sciences, and to various tendencies in philosophy and theology. Such an opening can be called “the search for truth everywhere.” The article presents the sources of Valori’s views and his understanding of interdisciplinary dialogue. This analysis is supplemented by a!presentation of his concept of truth, and the text ends with an example of the practical application of this approach within his conception of phenomenological ethics.