Anselm of Canterbury’s so-called ontological proofs in the Proslogion have puzzled philosophers for centuries. The famous description “something / that than which nothing greater can be conceived” is part and parcel of his argument. Most commentators have interpreted this description as a definition of God. We argue that this view, which we refer to as “definitionism”, is a misrepresentation. In addition to textual evidence, the key point of our argument is that taking the putative definition as what Anselm intended it (...) to be – namely a description of a content of faith – allows getting a clear view of the discursive status and argumentative structure of Proslogion 2–4, as well as making sense of an often neglected part of the argument. (shrink)

'Who is God?' becomes 'Where is God?' the shift in a question / Christian Duquoc -- 'Where is God?' the cry of the psalmists / Erhard S. Gerstenberger -- Sickness and the silence of God / Gregory Baum -- The presence and revelation of God in the world of the oppressed / Pablo Richard -- Guilty and without access to God / Andres Tornos -- Death, the ultimate form of God's silence / Pierre de Locht -- The metaphor of God (...) / Yves Cattin -- No more temple, no place for the spirit : tests for the institutional church / Isabelle Chareire -- 'We proclaim a crucified messiah' / Jose-Ignacio Gonzalez-Faus -- God sings in the night : ambiguity as invitation to believe / Richard G. Cote. (shrink)

The shift of interest from community to individuality and freedom brought by modernity challenged the central place once occupied by religion, pushing it to the outskirts of human life. All these led to an increased indifference towards any transcendental guarantor that could act in a neutral reason-governed space. In the case of Islam, such a situation is impossible to tolerate, because it would mean God’s desecration by reducing the Qur’an to the statute of a simple book like many others that (...) offer an opinion on a Supreme Being who does not decide the destiny of humanity any more, but becomes a simple matter of opinion. While Western Christianity adjusted to modernity reaching even to justify the developments which led to a dissolution of sacred, stating that they were consistent with its essence, Islam accepted modernity only to the extent of this one’s capacity to verify the realities stated by the Qur’an. (shrink)

Der Beitrag diskutiert die Rezeption des Werks von Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in den philosophischen und theologischen Debatten der sogenannten ‚Sattelzeit der Moderne‘. Vor dem Hintergrund von Jacobis Kritik am Gottesbegriff der rationalen Philosophie werden Johann Gottlieb Fichtes und Friedrich Schleiermachers Neubestimmungen von Religion und Gott thematisiert. Dabei zeigt sich, dass es in den Kontroversen über die göttlichen Dingen um die Sinngrundlagen einer sich modernisierenden Gesellschaft und Kultur geht.

Confronting fundamentalism: the dangerous God of "control and condemn" -- 1967: What the cake said -- God-talk 101: The art that is Christianity -- The Copernican turn of Christian humanism -- Quantum theology: the symbolic character of God-talk -- Theological weirdness (1): the symbolic claim that God is a person -- Poets as theologians: the moral imagination of Christian Humanist tradition -- Moses debates with a burning bush -- I AM v. I WILL BE: translation and the authority of (...) theologians -- Theological weirdness (2): the symbolic claim that God is necessarily impersonal -- What, then, can be said about God? (shrink)

In this paper, Anselm’s argument for the uniqueness of God or, more precisely, something through which everything that exists has its being is reconstructed. A first reading of the argument leads to a preliminary reconstruens with one major weakness, namely the incompleteness of a central case distinction. In the successful attempt to construct a more tenable reconstruens some additional premises which are deeply rooted in an Anselmian metaphysics are identified. Anselm’s argument seems to depend on premises such as that if (...) two things have the same nature, then there is one common thing from which they have this nature and in virtue of which they exist. Furthermore it appears that infinite regresses are excluded by the premise that if everything that exists is through something, then there is something through which it is “most truly”. (shrink)

This study is aimed at evaluating the influence of the god of iron on ironworking communities in Ǹsúkkā cultural area. In the study area, the Supreme God – Chúkwú Òkìkè, Chínēkè or Chúkwú Ábíàmà is believed to control the affairs of humanity. He is worshipped through intermediaries such as Ányánwù [Sun God], Àmádíòhà, Áhàjīōkù [fertility goddess], Àlà [earth goddess] and the god of iron, which is called by different names in the study area such as Ékwéñsū-Úzù, Òkóró-Údùmè, Chíkèrè Àgùrù and (...) Áshéné. But, how effective is the god of iron in the study area? To provide answers to this question, ethnographic research method, involving in-depth structured interviews, field observation and photographic documentations, was used to gather data on the subject matter while data collected were analysed descriptively. This article is of the view that the influence of the god of iron in the study area is whittling down as a result of Westernisation and Christianity.Contribution: The study indicates an increasing resistance to the Euro-centrism, which has suppressed beliefs in the god of iron and the associated practices. (shrink)

The present collection of essays is devoted to the Christian philosophy of the most prolific and most speculatively ambitious of the Cambridge Origenists, Henry More. Not only did More revere Origen, whom he extolled as a "holy sage" and "that miracle of the Christian world", but he also developed a philosophical system which hinged upon the Origenian notions of universal divine goodness and libertarian human freedom. Throughout his life, More subscribed to the ancient theology of the pre-existence of souls and (...) took issue with the early modern philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes and Baruch de Spinoza. His vision of God's goodness, experienced in his early school years at Eton, became the cornerstone of an Origenist rationalism which envisaged an extended world animated by divine thought and inhabited by self-moving rational agents. More's philosophy is the crowning attainment of the early modern rediscovery of Origen as well as a neglected major rationalist system in its own right which went on to exert decisive influence upon all subsequent western metaphysics. The essays collected in the first part provide a detailed introduction to More's voluminous writings. After a comprehensive general overview of his metaphysical and ethical system, the essays expound More's historical context and his philosophical development from his early poetry in the 1640s to his mature philosophical and theological prose works of the 50s, 60s and 70s. In addition, the reception of More and Origen in the later Cambridge Origenists and in Isaac Newton is outlined. The second part contains several excerpts from More's influential Latin works first translated into English by the editor. (shrink)

On his website, Robert Cummings Neville makes an interesting remark: My serious intellectual life began in 1944 at the age of five when a kindergarten classmate told me that God is a person. I checked with my father about this, and he said, “No, Jesus was a person but God is more like electricity or light.” This seemed reasonable and triggered in me a decisive love of God. Electricity makes things go, like my electric train, and my father explained that (...) God makes everything go, which remains my theology to the present day.1 The question I want to discuss in this paper goes back to the very early beginnings of Neville’s outstanding academic career. Over.. (shrink)

In _God, the Flesh, and the Other, _the philosopher Emmanuel Falque joins the ongoing debate about the role of theology in phenomenology. An important voice in the second generation of French philosophy’s “theological turn,” Falque examines philosophically the fathers of the Church and the medieval theologians on the nature of theology and the objects comprising it. Falque works phenomenology itself into the corpus of theology. Theological concepts thus translate into philosophical terms that phenomenology should legitimately question: concepts from contemporary phenomenology (...) such as onto-theology, appearance, reduction, body/flesh, inter-corporeity, the genesis of community, intersubjectivity, and the singularity of the other find penetrating analogues in patristic and medieval thought forged through millennia of Christological and Trinitarian debate, mystical discourses, and speculative reflection. Through Falque’s wide-ranging interpretive path, phenomenology finds itself interrogated—and renewed. (shrink)

This is a study of how American theologian Jonathan Edwards battled deist arguments about revelation and God's fairness to non-Christians. Author Gerald McDermott argues that Edwards was preparing before his death a sophisticated theological response to Enlightenment religion that was unparalleled in the eighteenth century and surprisingly generous toward non-Christian traditions.

This paper reconstructs and discusses a proof of God’s existence by Anselm of Canterbury’s friend Ralph of Battle, developed in his recently edited De nesciente, a fictitious dialogue between a Christian and an atheist. Without precedent in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Ralph’s proof has never been examined in detail. It combines a “cogito” argument with a two-part cosmological argument. The paper first presents the textual basis and an exegetical interpretation of Ralph’s reasoning, classifies the parts of the proof historically (...) and systematically, and then compares these with the proofs of God’s existence as well as other arguments in Anselm’s Proslogion and Monologion. Finally, it points out some similarities between Ralph’s “cogito” argument and a passage in the Liber pro insipiente, which may suggest that this anonymous critique of Anselm’s Proslogion proof was authored not by Gaunilo, as traditionally thought, but by Ralph. (shrink)

The present volumes unites papers which explore the European image of god in an intercultural context. They range from classical antiquity to contemporary philosophy and science.

NDPR Review of Baggett and Walls's book.

For theologians, to conceive of God in terms of light has some undeniable advantages, allowing a middle-of-the road position between the two extremes of thinking about God in terms of a purely disembodied, unfathomable, unsensible being, and of crediting Him with a body, possibly even a human body. This paper first reviews the reasons why God, in early medieval Islam, was never fully theorized in terms of light. It then proceeds to discuss light-related narratives in two major, late-medieval compilations of (...) hadiths about the afterlife, by al-Suyuti and al-Majlisi, suggesting that eschatology was the area in which God’s light continued to shine in Islam, and the backdoor through which a theology of light, in the thought of al-Suhrawardi and his followers, made a triumphant re-entry into Islamic thought. (shrink)

The arrival of Muslim rulers who were insistent on the unity of God among Christians who testified to the unity of God in His triune nature introduced a considerable challenge to those Christians who were in the ascendency throughout the Middle East. Now they were on the defensive, needing to stem the movement of members of their own community to Islam which would eventually lead to Muslims becoming the majority. In the period of gradual transfer from majority to minority status (...) Christian theologians attempted both to make their faith in the Trinity intelligible to Muslim intellectuals with whom they debated, and to give reasons to Christians for holding firm to their faith. These theologians are hardly known to the global church of the 21st century and it is the purpose of this paper to make them come alive for Christians who are witnessing to their faith before Muslims in our time in the hope that a contemporary testimony to the Triune God can be encouraged. (shrink)

Within a German sample, the current cross-sectional questionnaire study conducts interreligious and interdenominational comparisons between Catholics, Protestants, free-church Protestants, Bahá’ís, Muslims, Spiritualists, i.e., religiously unaffiliated persons who label themselves as “spiritual,” and religious/spiritual “nones.” The comparisons refer to self-ratings of religiosity and spirituality, centrality of religiosity, as assessed by the Centrality of Religiosity Scale, and God concepts. The study is largely exploratory in nature, but also aims at identifying contexts of faith in which the term “spiritual” is typically used as (...) a self-description. The results show that only Spiritualists and free-church Protestants substantially label themselves as “spiritual.” However, they differ in many respects from each other, thus representing two distinct contexts of faith. The results further reveal a medium position of Catholics and Protestants in between the other subgroups, commonalities as well as specific differences between free-church Protestants, Bahá’ís, and Muslims, and some religious/spiritual approaches even within the “nones.”. (shrink)

Cet article analyse le problème de l’« athéisme » prétendu de Prodicos. Un ré-examen des sources à notre disposition et, surtout, une nouvelle reconstruction des témoignages fournis par le Sur la piété de Philodème, dont l’un est consacré à la théologie du stoïcien Persaïos, démontre que Prodicos n’était pas un athée mais un critique virulent de la conception traditionnelle des dieux.

This paper explores Thomas Aquinas’ and Richard Swinburne’s doctrines of simplicity in the context of their philosophical theologies. Both say that God is simple. However, Swinburne takes simplicity as a property of the theistic hypothesis, while for Aquinas simplicity is a property of God himself. For Swinburne, simpler theories are ceteris paribus more likely to be true; for Aquinas, simplicity and truth are properties of God which, in a certain way, coincide – because God is metaphysically simple. Notwithstanding their different (...) approaches, some unreckoned parallels between their thoughts are brought to light. (shrink)

The present volumes unites papers which explore the European image of god in an intercultural context. They range from classical antiquity to contemporary philosophy and science.

Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion with philosopher Christian Miller, neuroscientist Heather Berlin, and historian of science Michael Shermer to examine our moral ecology and its influence on our underlying assumptions about human nature.

Cet article réexamine la totalité des témoignages sur la pensée démocritéenne de l’origine du culte divin. Une étude approfondie de ces témoignages nous autorise à affirmer que, dans l’esprit de Démocrite, le culte des dieux ne dérivait pas seulement d’une peur des phénomènes naturels hostiles, mais aussi de la reconnaissance pour les événements favorables à la survie des humains. Il est à présent possible de réinterpréter cette conception selon un point de vue polémique : Démocrite n’aurait pas nié l’existence des (...) dieux, mais plutôt exposé les mécanismes psychologiques qui conduisent les hommes ordinaires à croire dans les dieux traditionnels. Contre la croyance superstitieuse, il démontre, en s’aidant également de la théorie des εἴδωλα, que les seuls dieux qui existent sont pourvus de la même « raison » que celle à l’œuvre dans la nature et grâce à laquelle les hommes peuvent comprendre ses phénomènes aussi suprenants que variés. (shrink)

The doctrine of creation and the knowledge of nature have come into tension in modernity. Against this background, the article discusses the basic problems of a theology of nature starting from a systematic theology of religious communication. Dogmatic statements about the world as God’s creation are not about a description of nature and reality but about a reflexive account of Christian–religious communication. The object of the doctrine of creation is thus the world-related contents of the Christian religion as well as (...) the function these have in it. Thus, both the critique of the representational version of the doctrinal tradition’s conception of creation and its reflexive turn in 20th-century Protestant theology are taken up and carried forward in such a way that the belief in creation is not understood as a general qualification of the world but is related to the concrete contents of religious communication. Contribution: The article proposes a new formulation of the traditional doctrine of creation on the basis of a systematic theology of religious communication. This approach is intended to avoid a coexistence of religious belief in creation and scientific explanation of the world, as well as their being pushed into one another. By transferring the belief in creation to Christian–religious communication, the latter thematises how religious contents are created in the Christian religion. (shrink)

Interviewed by Christian Sheppard about Richard Kearney’s book The God Who May Be (2001), and speaking also of Kearney’s On Stories (2002) and Strangers, Gods and Monsters (2002), David Tracy remarks on Kearney’s development of the possible as a major philosophical and theological category. Showing the importance of the idea of the infinite, he speaks of the need for a hermeneutical moment to follow the initial encounter, and of a call for general criteria of judgment of the Other. He discusses, (...) too, the dangers and the rewards of doing both theology and philosophy at the same time. To him the category of the Impossible enters into the possible and is not only positive but desired. In a conversation that ranges widely - Derrida and Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Angelus Silesius, Kierkegaard, Nicholas of Cusa, Heidegger and Ricoeur, and, in the call for plurality, William James - the two speakers discuss both poetic sensibility and the call for justice. Reflecting on fragmentation, Tracy speaks of the need to focus on suffering and the importance of attaining a sense of ‘the entire story, all of the metaphors’. (shrink)

Constructivist positions in meta-ethics are on the rise in recent years. Similarly, there has been a flurry of activity amongst theistic philosophers examining the relationship between God and normative facts. But so far as I am aware, these two literatures have almost never intersected with each other. Constructivists have said very little about God, and theists working on religious ethics have said very little about constructivist views in meta-ethics. In this paper, I draw some connections between the two literatures, and (...) hopefully will inspire others to continue to investigate this sadly neglected area. My main conclusion will be that theists should be hesitant about accepting any of the leading versions of constructivism in the contemporary meta-ethics literature. (shrink)

This paper is part of a six paper exchange with Michael Shermer. This is my critical commentary on Michael Shermer's paper “Morality is real, objective, and natural.” Shermer and I agree that morality is both real and objective. Here I raise serious reservations about both Shermer's account of where morality comes from and his account of what morality tells us to do. His approach to the foundations of morality would allow some very disturbing behaviors to count as moral, and his (...) approach to what morality says does not provide the action guidance we need from a moral theory. (shrink)

This audio recording contains a lecture led by Dr. William Christian, Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, and Dr. Stanley R. Hopper on November 20, 1965 as a part of the America and the Future of Theology Lecture Series. Dr. William Christian discusses the possibility of interaction between metaphysics and theology, the concept of God in Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics, the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Platonism, and the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Christian theology. Dr. Guthrie responds to Dr. Christian by (...) accepting the interaction of metaphysics and theology as a possible subject and how metaphysics is necessary to theology, but only as an instrument not a dictator. Dr. Stanley responds to Dr. Christian by posing two questions: Can the relationship between theology and philosophy or theology and metaphysics be adequately represented when the concept of God has a strong family resemblance according to Whitehead, and What is the relationship between metaphysics and theology? Lastly, Dr. Christian responds to both Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Stanley. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article presents two letters from the Glaswegian theologian John Simson (1667–1740) to his former student Archibald Campbell (1691–1756), professor of ecclesiastical history at St. Andrews as of 1733. After Simson’s condemnation for heresy in 1727–1728, Simson was in regular contact with Campbell, who also came to be scrutinised by a Committee for Purity of Doctrine in 1735–1736. The two letters by Simson address Campbell’s claim that without the support of divine revelation, natural reason is unable to discover any (...) essential religious truths. Campbell presented this claim as directed against the Deists, but was accused by conservatively orthodox theologians of undermining the tenet of postlapsarian mankind’s inexcusability. In his letters, Simson argues for a stronger conception of natural reason – however not to protect inexcusability, but to argue for God’s goodness. In different ways, Simson and Campbell may thus both be seen to make elbow room for justification by works, and to encourage religious tolerance. (shrink)

The key to understanding Dionysius is the methodical acceptance of the literary fiction involved in reading an author who tries to recreate the immediateness of the first encounter of pagan wisdom and Christian doctrine. Dionysius’s method consists of the presentation of a Platonic ontology by way of biblical theonyms. These theonyms express whatever we can grasp of God by His self-communication toward us, yet they ultimately cannot reveal Him as He is. It is rewarding to compare biblical theonym and author’s (...) allonym at this point: the allonym “Dionysius Areopagita” expresses how the author wants to be read and received but not who he really is. Th us the Dionysian writings present themselves as if they were the communication of an early Christian author whose objective it is to proclaim the “unknown God” to philosophically educated Greeks, naming Him with the biblical theonyms and explaining them in a Platonic way. (shrink)

What views are the primary target of Moore’s fallacy and his open question argument? A common answer, I suspect, would be naturalistic approaches to morality. It is the naturalistic fallacy, after all. But in fact both his fallacy and his argument apply just as straightforwardly to supernatural approaches to morality as well. In this chapter, I focus specifically on how philosophers of religion have tried to grounds morality in God in ways that are clearly relevant to Moore’s project.

In my original paper, I claimed that our moral obligations are real, objective, and grounded in the supernatural. In particular, I endorsed the claim that God's will is the basis or source of our moral obligations, where “God” is to be understood as the theistic being who is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, who created the universe, and who is still actively involved in the universe after creating it. In his critical article, Michael Shermer has raised a number of important challenges (...) to my view. Here I try to defend the position and respond to at least his most serious objections. (shrink)

Jacques Ellul’s analysis of biblical violence is resolutely Christocentric: all manifestations of violence must be seen in the perspective of the Revelation in Christ. There are no subtypes of violence, and all manifestations of violence are expressions of necessity. In turn, violence, which stands in stark contrast with language, leads to servitude and this circle can be broken only by the freedom brought by the violence of God’s unconditional love. This love is both the ultimate spiritual violence, as it is (...) a victory over the necessity of death, and the promise of universal salvation. (shrink)