God’s Willing Knowledge argued that Scotus should be seen as offering a non-libertarian view of freedom. Some critics of this interpretation point to Scotus’s texts that offer a synchronic view of possibility, which is seen as necessarily implying a libertarian view. Other critics point to the debt that Scotus owes to his libertarian predecessors and argue that Scotus follows their view. In order to address these critics, in the first section of the paper, some of the thinkers Scotus draws (...) upon or reacts to in forming his views about freedom are examined. It turns out that Scotus’s non-libertarian view of freedom as it relates to divine omniscience is rather typical of medieval views. In the subsequent sections of the paper, Scotus’s texts are examined to show his non-libertarian views. Moreover, various criticisms offered against the argument of God’s Willing Knowledge are answered. (shrink)

Pedro Alfonso y Raimundo de Marsella intentaron justificar la teoría y la práctica de la astrología en medio de un clima de escepticismo y de oposición. Ambos defendieron con firmeza el arte de la adivinación celeste, afirmando que forma parte del plan racional trazado por Dios para el Universo. Atacaron a sus oponentes (los practicantes de la astrología inferior y el clero opuesto a la astrología), llamándolos ciegos, pervertidos y bestias irracionales. Sus discusiones contribuyeron a entender la importancia de la (...) recepción de la ciencia árabe en la Europa latina durante el siglo XII y a que se apelase cada más a la razón. (shrink)

This book argues that Kierkegaard, influenced by Kant's critique of metaphysics, did not attempt to integrate human and divine agencies in any speculative theory. Instead, Kierkegaard deploys them to encourage different passions and dispositions that can be integrated in a coherent human life.

The religious legitimacy of medical practice was an issue of serious contention amongst medieval Jewish scholars. For Nahmanides, altering the patient's fate through manipulation of natural causality amounts to circumventing divine judgment. For Maimonides, however, human accomplishment is part of God's providential design; this view generally prevails in contemporary Jewish bioethics. But the doctrine of deligitimizing human intervention continues, even while unacknowledged, to underlie certain contemporary positions. These include arguments within Jewish bioethics about end-of-life decisions, which are therefore imbued with (...) inconsistencies. It is suggested that, given the overall endorsement of modern medicine, the Nahmanidean approach must be explicitly confronted. Keywords: euthanasia, Jewish bioethics, Nahmanides, naturalism, nature, Maimonides, providence CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Human traffickers use various methods to maintain and control their victims, including physical, economic, and psychological restraints. Specifically focusing on the psychological aspect of control, this paper seeks to address the role of religion and how it can be exploited as a tool of coercion. Employing case study methodology, this paper will focus on examples of Islam, House of Judah, and Scientology, and how belief systems facilitated victim coercion. The purpose is threefold: to establish religion as a tool of (...) coercion at the interpersonal level, to examine specific trafficking cases in which religion was the method of coercion, and to discuss the challenge of prosecuting cases in which the act was the result of religious coercion. (shrink)

Gerrie ter Haar oi James J. Busuttil (eds.), The Freedom to Do God’s Will. Religious Fundamentalism and Social Change Routledge, London and New York, 2003.

I analyze an argument by Aquinas on God’s will mutability (Summa Theologica), which presupposes the collective predication on the term ‘man’. This explains why God repents of having made the collection of men, but not some men. The argument is valid, but its second premise and its conclusion are false.

El artículo recuerda la filosofía de Nietzsche, su crítica a la religión cristiana y sus propuestas: nihilismo, voluntad de poder… Recuerda el error del análisis y el vacío de su propuesta. Nietzsche se confunde a la hora de interpretar el hombre y el cristianismo. El Sermón de la montaña y las bienaventuranzas no nacen del resentimiento hacia la vida, sino de la alegría de la auténtica vida humana y personal. This paper reminds Nietzsche’s philosophy and his critique to the Christian (...) religion and his offers: nihilism, will of power … Reminds the mistake of the analysis and the emptiness of his offer. Nietzsche gets confused at the moment of interpreting the man and the Christianity. The Sermon of the mountain and the Beatitudes are not born of the resentment towards the life, but of the happiness of the authentic human and personal life. (shrink)

Most agree that Scotus is a voluntarist of some kind. In this paper we argue against recent interpretations of Scotus’s ethics (and metaethics) according to which the norms concerning human actions are largely, if not wholly, the arbitrary products of God’s will. On our reading, the Scotistic variety of voluntarism on offer is much more nuanced. Key to our interpretation is keeping distinct what is too often conflated: the reasons why Scotus maintains that the laws of the Second (...) Table of the Decalogue are (a) contingent (a modal distinction) as well as (b) not universal (a categorical distinction). A proper interpretation of Scotus must also take seriously the fact that these Second Table laws are natural laws “exceedingly in harmony with” (multum consona) the necessary laws, and are distinct from and not reducible to divine positive laws. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims that we as body-subjects have an immediate sensational understanding of the world. A body that perceives and experience the world before any thought and word can render it. The words we use describing sensations are interpretations of sense-experiences, and will never render the total bodily understanding of the world. This article gives a brief insight of what an understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject implies for the researcher in body-phenomenological studies of toddlers.

In 1896 William James published an essay entitled The Will to Believe, in which he defended the legitimacy of religious faith against the attacks of such champions of scientific method as W.K. Clifford and Thomas Huxley. James's work quickly became one of the most important writings in the philosophy of religious belief. James Wernham analyses James's arguments, discusses his relation to Pascal and Renouvier, and considers the interpretations, and misinterpretations, of James's major critics. Wernham shows convincingly that James was (...) unaware of many destructive ambiguitities in his own doctrines and arguments, although clear and consistent in his view that our obligation to believe in theism is not a moral but a prudential obligation -- a foolish-not-to-believe doctrine, rather than a not-immoral-to-believe one. Wernham also shows that the doctrine is best read as affirming the wisdom of gambling that God exists, a notion which James failed to distinguish from believing and which, among other things, he explicitly identified with faith. James's pragmatism, a theory concerning the meaning of truth, is shown to be quite distinct from the doctrine of The Will to Believe. In concentrating on a careful analysis of this doctrine of the will-to-believe, Wernham not only makes a major contribution to understanding James's philosophy, but also clarifies issues in the philosophy of religion and in the analysis of belief and faith. (shrink)

Nieprzezwyciężona wola Boga i tajemnica wolności stworzonych bytów. Komentarz do książki Opatrzność Boża, wolność, przypadek Dariusza Łukasiewicza Artykuł jest komentarzem do książki Dariusza Łukasiewicza Opatrzność Boża, wolność, przypadek. Zasadniczą jego tezą jest to, że nie istnieje wolność ludzka jako nie-kauzalny generator wolnych aktów. Prawdziwej wolności doświadczymy tylko w życiu wiecznym, a stanie się ona dla nas czymś realnym dopiero wtedy, gdy zostanie nam ujawniona nasza indywidualna istota. Życie wieczne polegać będzie, między innymi, na ujrzeniu, w jaki sposób wszystkie nasze działania (...) wypływają z naszej indywidualnej istoty. (shrink)

Pascal's work is punctuated by a paradox. On the one hand, only a handful of the texts that constitute it are explicitly political; on the other hand, it is haunted by a constant political concern. To resolve this paradox, the paper shows that Pascal incites us to rethink the very definition of politics. Emerging on the basis of a double human nature marked by the Fall, violence is an ontological problem that arises from the need to preserve an infinite object (...) for human love. For this reason, its solution lies in affective self-regulation, which makes politics an exclusively behavioralist field that cannot be a part of the intimacy of individuals who belong to another order. Thus, Pascalian politics does no more than serve the same gesture of the divine creation of the human being that keeps him alive to praise God. Pascalian politics is, then, an indirect way of realizing God’s will: its _différance_. (shrink)

This little volume, using a combined approach of phenomenology, history, philosophy, and theology probes deeply into questions of belief and commitment. The book is valuable for scholars who possess the background and sensitivity to appreciate the three essays which constitute it. The first of these, "The Structure of Jewish Experience," takes up the epistemological problem of belief in a God who is present in history and who can consequently be the object of worship by modern man just as he was (...) thousands of years ago. The second essay, "The Challenge of Modern Secularity," deals with current theological issues, including the Subjectivist Reductionism, the "Death" of God, and faith as "immediacy after reflection." The third and most impassioned essay, "The Commanding Voice of Auschwitz," deals with themes which have been the preoccupation of Elie Wiesel, to whom the book is dedicated. There have not been many Jewish writers since the holocaust, who have been willing to write about their faith. Fackenheim speculates that it must be difficult to justify such faith to oneself in light of the fate of the Jews in recent history. In this book, and particularly in the last essay, the author attempts to justify such faith, and he does it intelligently and eloquently.--S. J. B. (shrink)

Why would God create a world at all? Further, why would God create a world like this one? The Neoplatonic framework of classical philosophical theology answers that God’s willing is an affirmation of God’s own goodness, and God creates to show forth God’s glory. Mark Johnston has recently argued that, in addition to explaining why God would create at all, this framework gives extremely wide scope to divine freedom. Timothy O’Connor objects that divine freedom, on this view, (...) cannot be so wide as Johnston supposes: the creation of a fundamentally unjust world, for instance, could not be a way of affirming the divine goodness. I argue that O’Connor does not go far enough. While the Neoplatonic framework helps to explain why God would create at all, it does nothing to secure God’s freedom to create less than the best. (shrink)

The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing (...) approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas. (shrink)

A new version of the incompatibilist argument is developed. Knowledge is justified true belief. If God’s divine knowledge must be justified knowledge, then humans cannot have the “alternative possibilities” type of free will. This incompatibilist argument is immunized against the application of the hard-soft fact distinction. If divine knowledge is justified, then the only kind of facts that God can know are hard facts, permitting this incompatibilist argument to succeed.

In a recent book and article, James Sterba has argued that there is no free will defense. It is the purpose of this article to show that, in the most technical sense, he is wrong. There is a version of the free will defense that can solve what Sterba (rightly) takes to be the most interesting and severe version of the logical problem of moral evil. However, I will also argue that, in effect (or, we might say, (...) in practice), Sterba is correct. The only working version of the free will defense requires embracing a view that entails consequences theists traditionally have not and cannot accept. Consequently, the one and only free will solution is not viable. Unless some other solution can be found (Sterba argues there is none), the logical problem of evil, as Sterba understands it, either commits one to atheism, or a version of theism that practically all theists would regard as a heresy. (shrink)

My assertion is that God’s biblical image may not reflect entirely His existence in itself as well as His revealed image. Even if God in Himself is both transcendent and immanent at the same time, and He is revealing accordingly in the history of humankind, still the image of God constructed in the writings of the Old Testament is merely the perspective made upon God by His followers to whom the He has revealed. That could be the reason why (...) for centuries God’s biblical image seems to emphasize more His immanence, starting with Pentateuch, where God cohabites with Adam on Earth, then He reveals Himself to Abraham and Moses and so on. Somewhere, after the Babylonian exile, the image suffers slightly differences tilting towards God’s transcendence. In a path already created and grounded by Israel’s ancestors, even this new color of transcendence bears the nuances of immanence. How can this be possible? Let’s take a look on the revelation received by Abraham from God and see how this can fit the profile. Instead of the transcendence of God regarded by others in the differentness of Yahweh appointed by Abraham in his walking out of Mesopotamia, I will prove otherwise, that Abraham is on the contrary proving God’s immanency in this very differentness of His in relation with other gods by providence and omnipresence, indwelling His creation. (shrink)

The problem of God's action in the world is at the heart of debates today on the relationship between science and religion. By analysing the issue through the lens of analytic philosophy, Marek Slomka reveals how philosophy can successfully bridge science and theology to bring greater clarity to divine action. This book identifies essential aspects from various branches of theism, starting with traditional Thomistic approaches, through to their modified forms such as Molinism and contemporary varieties such as free-will theism (...) and probabilistic theism. Analysing crucial elements of God's nature including omnipotence, omniscience, his relation to time and the tension between immanence and transcendence, Slomka reveals the difficulties in proposing a single conception of God through one theistic tradition. Instead of simplistically juxtaposing particular theistic trends, he highlights the value of pluralistic insights that also draw on important scientific theories, including Darwin's evolution, quantum mechanics and cosmology. By taking a renewed stance on theism that takes into account modern scientific knowledge, this book argues for a new presentation of the problem of God's action in the world and justifies the need for further discussion on contemporary manifestations of internal and external criticism of theism. (shrink)

God’s being is becoming – the title is the thesis. The first section of this paper will be dedicated to the problem of radical historicity in sketching three dogmatic approaches dealing with the relation between God and history. After critically introducing the concept of relational – in contrast to intrinsic – properties in the second section I will apply a revised version of this concept theologically in integrating it into the architecture of Trinitarian thinking. Accordingly, and on (...) that basis, the last section can address the ambivalent as well as precarious question in which sense God’s ultimate being is in real coming. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Father’s Will: Christ’s Crucifixion and the Goodness of God by Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P.Roger W. NuttThe Father’s Will: Christ’s Crucifixion and the Goodness of God. By Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 270. $99.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-19-968858-6.The centrality that Christ’s death by crucifixion has in Christian life, doctrine, and culture is scarcely in need of elaboration. Nevertheless, the relation (...) between the will of the Father and the violent and humiliating manner of Christ’s death raises substantive questions concerning the internal coherence of Christian claims about the love, goodness, and justice of God. In The Father’s Will: Christ’s Crucifixion and the Goodness of God, Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P., confronts these questions, openly acknowledging their difficulty and seriousness, and provides a philosophically precise and theologically fresh response to the challenges they pose to the credibility of the Christian message.The ten chapters of The Father’s Will are divided into tripartite units that progress in logical sequence from “philosophical prolegomena” (part 1) to “New Testament evidence” (part 2), culminating with a “theological [End Page 317] evaluation” (part 3). The question at the heart of the book is how to reconcile the Christian doctrine that God and evil are incompatible with the theology of the Cross, which seems to require that God’s will is implicated in the evil actions that bring about Christ’s death.The first five chapters (part 1) provide a philosophical analysis of intention (chap. 1), value and obligation (chap. 2), double-effect reasoning (chap. 3), the ethical problems associated with self-sacrifice (chap. 4), and God’s will in relation to the crucifixion (chap. 5). Drawing on his analysis of intention and employing the principle of double effect, Lombardo establishes that it is not necessary to conclude that God wills the evils that are attendant on Christ’s death. “Actions performed by rational intentions,” Lombardo explains, “are not only intended; they are also willed. Rational intending implies rational choice, and rational choice is an act of the will” (32). This understanding of intention and willing, as distinguishable from intentional action, provides a foundation upon which the moral goodness of actions can be determined. “For an action to be good,” Lombardo argues, “it must do more than simply advance our natural inclinations: it must also avoid frustrating them. Only actions that both advance our natural inclinations and avoid frustrating them are morally good” (49). When moral actions have good effects and nonintended bad effects that do not outweigh the good effects—as in cases of self-defense or the use of medicine and medical procedures—these complex actions retain their moral goodness, notwithstanding the bad effects. The reason for this is that the bad effects are not included in the agent’s intention. Lombardo presents the crucifixion of Christ as one of these complex cases in which the bad effects can be separated from the agent’s intention. Chapter 3 explores the reasoning associated with the principle of double effect to clarify how actions implicated in bad or evil effects can be judged to be morally good. Lombardo is hesitant to identify double effect as an isolated principle that is applicable within unique circumstantial cases. Rather, he presents double effect as “merely an algorithm for applying basic concepts to morally ambiguous actions” (72). For example, in addition to affirming that the intended effects of the action are consistent with our natural inclinations, in cases of double-effect reasoning “the action’s positive, intended effects [must] outweigh the action’s negative, nonintended effects” (73). This material, in turn, connects logically with the conclusion of chapter 4 on the ethics of self-sacrifice: “double effect reasoning shows that it can be acceptable, and even heroic, to cause our own death non-intentionally for the sake of some greater good” (79). The last chapter in part 1 applies these distinctions to the problem of God’s will and the moral evil involved in Christ’s crucifixion. Here, the basic dilemma that the book addresses is succinctly restated: “Being all good, God never wants... (shrink)

The distinction between hard and soft facts has been used by compatibilists to argue that God's divine foreknowledge is not incompatible with human free will. The debate over this distinction has ignored the question of the justification of divine knowledge. I argue that the distinction between hard and soft facts is illusory because the existence of soft facts presupposes that justification exists. Moreover, if the hard fact /soft fact distinction collapses, then God justifiably knows all future events, and human (...) beings cannot possess free will. (shrink)

Gordon Kaufmann's recent book, God the Problem, provokes reflection on the notion of the world os God's body. He is concerned to indicate the intelligibility in a secular age of discourse about God's transcendence. The thrust of his position is clearly toward the concept that the world is God's body, but he rejects abruptly any suggestion that this is acceptable. In the following pages I will look briefly at Kaufmann's own position, raise some questions about it, and propose Whiteheadian (...) thought as being more faithful to some of Kaufmann's intentions. (shrink)

One of the main points of interests in the apocalyptic literature is the salvation of God’s people. The topic is shown from a variety of perspectives. One of them is exceptional and very prominent in the apocalyptic genre – this is God’s victory. The theme of victory is a complex one. It consists of not only terminology and imagery of war, fight, rivalry, but also judgement, competition and kingdom. All of these motifs are being intertwined in the apocalyptic (...) victory of God. The problem of God’s victory can be seen as schematic, which is present in many texts from the apocalyptic genre. Altering variables inside this scheme results in a different outlook on the salvation. It is used to give the shape of the narrative in the text. From the variety of apocalyptic literature, an exceptional place is given to the Apocalypse of John. The theme of God’s victory there, although it uses the Jewish traditions, is rewritten and upgraded to a new unique form. The goal of this article is to investigate how the mentioned schematic realises through different examples of apocalyptic texts and how it is incorporated and redefined in the Book of Apocalypse. What is God’s victory? Who is being conquered? With what means? What does it all mean to the salvation of people? These are the questions, which the author will try to answer in the article. (shrink)

In 1896 William James published an essay entitled The Will to Believe, in which he defended the legitimacy of religious faith against the attacks of such champions of scientific method as W.K. Clifford and Thomas Huxley. James's work quickly became one of the most important writings in the philosophy of religious belief. James Wernham analyses James's arguments, discusses his relation to Pascal and Renouvier, and considers the interpretations, and misinterpretations, of James's major critics. Wernham shows convincingly that James was (...) unaware of many destructive ambiguitities in his own doctrines and arguments, although clear and consistent in his view that our obligation to believe in theism is not a moral but a prudential obligation -- a foolish-not-to-believe doctrine, rather than a not-immoral-to-believe one. Wernham also shows that the doctrine is best read as affirming the wisdom of gambling that God exists, a notion which James failed to distinguish from believing and which, among other things, he explicitly identified with faith. James's pragmatism, a theory concerning the meaning of truth, is shown to be quite distinct from the doctrine of The Will to Believe. In concentrating on a careful analysis of this doctrine of the will-to-believe, Wernham not only makes a major contribution to understanding James's philosophy, but also clarifies issues in the philosophy of religion and in the analysis of belief and faith. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that the best explanation for the origin of embodied human consciousness is grounded in God as understood through the doctrine of divine simplicity. First, I will present a modern expression of Aquinas’ understanding of divine simplicity. I will focus on one of Aquinas’ main contentions, namely, the impossibility that God possesses any spatial or temporal parts. Second, I will offer a modern version of a cosmological argument that will fortify (...) the doctrine of divine simplicity with respect to the implied transcendent cause. Third, for embodied consciousness to arise, given modern science, it must arise through an evolutionary process of some sort. I will take a theistic evolutionary approach. Such an understanding will be explored while providing a connection to Jacques Maritain’s view of human evolution as expressed in his sixth chapter of Untrammeled Approaches titled “Toward a Thomist Idea of Evolution.” From there I will tie the main three threads of this paper together. (shrink)

Whether God has a knowledge is a controversial issue both philosophy and theology. Does God have a knowledge? If He has, does He know the particulars? When we assume that God knows particulars, is there any change in God’s essence? In the theistic tradition, it is accepted that God is wholly perfect, omniscience, omnipotent and wholly good. Therefore, it is not possible to say that there is a change in God. Because changing is a kind of imperfection. On (...) class='Hi'>God’s knowledge, another controversial issue is whether God knows particulars or not. Most of theist thinkers argued that God is wholly perfect; because of perfectness, He must have perfect attributes. Knowing and goodness are a kind of perfect attributes. Ignoring and evil are a kind of imperfectness. If God is perfect being, He should have the perfect attributes and must know the particulars. For me in this subject, there are some similarities between al-Ghazālī and Maimonides. In this study I took into consideration the idea of al-Ghazālī and Maimonides on this subject. Based on Griffel and Stroumsa’s argument, I tried to show similarity between al-Ghazālī and Maimonides on God’s knowledge. Summary: Whether God has a knowledge is a controversial issue both philosophy and theology. Does God have a knowledge? If He has, does He know the particulars? When we assume that God knows particulars, is there any change in God’s essence? In this study I took into consideration the idea of al-Ghazālī and Maimonides on this subject. Based on Griffel’s and Stroumsa’s arguments, I tried to show similarity between al-Ghazālī and Maimonides on God’s knowledge.In the theistic tradition, it is accepted that God is wholly perfect, omniscience, omnipotent and wholly good. Therefore, it is not possible to say that there is a change in God because changing is a kind of imperfection. On God’s knowledge, another controversial issue is whether God knows particulars or not. Most of theist thinkers argued that God is wholly perfect; because of perfectness, He must have perfect attributes. Knowing and goodness are a kind of perfect attributes. Ignoring and evil are kinds of imperfectness. If God is perfect being, He should have the perfect attributes and must know the particulars. Based on God’s immutability, some thinkers argued that God does not knows particulars. Particulars occurs due to the matter. Matter and its functions are continually changing. Therefore, to know the particulars requires changing in God’s essence. If God is the most perfect being, it is impossible that He is subject to affection. Thus, God does not know the particulars. Other thinkers, like Avicenna, argued that God knows the particulars as a universal way. For example, God knows only humanity and He cannot know Zayd as a particular person. al-Ghazālī criticizes Avicenna’s idea in Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) and argues that God is a perfect being and He should know particulars as a particulars. For al-Ghazālī, God should know everything, and His knowledge is different from our knowledge. In order to explain this matter, he says in Ninety-Nine Names of God;“But this can be understood only through an example. Perhaps you have seen the clock which informs one of the hour of worship. If you have not seen it, then, generally speaking, (it is constructed in this manner). There must be a mechanism in the form of a cylinder which contains a known amount of water. There must also be another hollow mechanism which is placed within the cylinder (but) above the water, and a string which has one of its ends tied to this hollow mechanism. The other end is tied to the part of a small container which is placed above the hollow cylinder. In (this container) there is a ball. Under the ball there is another bowl (placed) in such a manner that if the ball drops will fall into the bowl, and its jingle will be heard. Then the bottom of the cylindrical mechanism must be pierced to a determined extent so that the water can escape through it little by little…. All of this can be determined by a determination of the extent of cause which neither increases nor decreases. It is possible to make the falling of the ball into the bowl a cause of another action and this other action a cause of a third action, and to continue this process indefinitely so that from it are generated remarkable and predetermined movements (actions) of circumscribed extent. The first cause was the falling of the water in a determined quantity…. All of that happens in a determined quantity and to a determined extent which causes the determination of all of it by (adding at this point) the determination of the first movement which is the movement of the water. When you understand that these mechanisms are the principles from which movements must result, and that the movement must be determined if the result is to be regulated, then certainly that which has been determined must proceed from them….Even as the movement of the mechanism, the string, and the ball are not external to the will of the inventor of the mechanism -on the contrary, that is what He willed when He invented the mechanism- so also all the events which occur in the world, both the evil and the good and the beneficial and harmful, are not external to the will of God Most High. Rather (all of) that is the intention of God Most High for the sake of which He has planned its causes.” For Maimonides, as in al-Ghazālī, God is a perfect being and He must have the perfect attributes. Because of knowing is a perfect attribute, He should know everything, and His knowledge is different from human knowledge. In order to explain the difference between God’s knowledge and human knowledge Maimonides gives a parable in The Guide of the Perplexed. “Suppose a thing is produced in accordance with the knowledge of the producer, the producer was then guided by his knowledge in the act of producing the thing. Other people, however, who examine this work and acquire a knowledge of the whole of it, depend for that knowledge on the work itself. An artisan makes a box in which weights move with the running of the water, and thus indicate how many hours have passed of the day and of the night. The whole quantity of the water that is to run out, the different ways in which it runs, every thread that is drawn, and every little ball that descends -all this is fully perceived by him who makes the clock; and his knowledge is not the result of observing the movements as they are actually going on; but, on the contrary, the movements are produced in accordance with his knowledge. But another person who looks at that instrument will receive fresh knowledge at every movement he perceives; the longer he looks on, the more knowledge does he acquire; he will gradually increase his knowledge till he fully understands the machinery…Our knowledge is acquired and increased in proportion to the things known by us. This is not the case with God. His knowledge of things is not derived from the things themselves; if this were the case, there would be change and plurality in His knowledge…” As can be seen from above, when Maimonides is explaining the difference of God’s and human knowledge, he uses the same example what al-Ghazālī used. Even though Maimonides does not mention al-Ghazālī’s name in his works, it could be seen that there are a lot of similarities between al-Ghazālī’s and Maimonides’s ideas. Based on Griffel and Stroumsa’s argument, in this paper, I tried to show that there is a similarity between al-Ghazālī’s and Maimonides’s ideas on God’s knowledge. In my opinion, therefore, in the formation of Maimonides’s thought, as he thanks to Muslim philosophers like al-Farābī, Avicenna and Averroes, he also thanks to al-Ghazālī. (shrink)

In a recent article in Faith and Philosophy, Wesley Morriston argues that Plantinga’s Free Will Defense is incompatible with his version of the ontological argument because the former requires that God be free in a sense that precludes a requirement of the latter---that God be morally perfect in all possible worlds. God’s perfection, according to Morriston, includes moral goodness, which requires that God be free in the sense that entails that in some possible worlds God performs wrong actions. (...) I argue that Morriston’sintention is based upon a faulty conception of both God’s perfection and His freedom. God’s perfection does not entail that He has moral obligations which in some possible worlds He fails to discharge, and His freely performing an action does not entail that there are possible worlds in which He does not perform it. (shrink)

Paton, Margaret It was the unfamiliar word dewfall that kept my attention and the relation of dewfall to God's Spirit. It will fall on the bread and wine like dew falling. What is it that connects God's Spirit with dew falling that makes it so memorable for me? It is because in the midst of Mass dewfall is a symbol of the powerful outpouring of God's love for Christ crucified and for me, as I praise Him for His goodness. (...) There is also the sheer beauty of dew when it is first seen in the morning that can overwhelm me with its pristine freshness and purity of shimmering brightness with not a mark of a footprint on it. Dew can freshen our spirits, making them receptive. However, the question remains, What does dew have to do with the Spirit of God? What is the likeness between dewfall and the Spirit of God? (shrink)

Washington eludes us, even in the city named for him. Other leaders are accessible there—Lincoln brooding in square-toed rectitude at his monument, a Mathew Brady image frozen in white, throned yet approachable; Jefferson democratically exposed in John Pope’s aristocratic birdcage. Majestic, each, but graspable.Washington’s faceless monument tapers off from us however we come at it—visible everywhere, and perfect; but impersonal, uncompelling. Yet we should remember that this monument, unlike the other two, was launched by private efforts. When government energies were (...) stalled, in the 1830s, subscriptions kept the project alive. Even when Congress took over the project, stones were added by the citizenry, those memorial blocks one can study while descending the long inner stairway. The classical control of the exterior hides a varied and spontaneous interior—an image of the puzzle that faces us, the early popularity of someone lifted so high above the populace. The man we can hardly find was the icon our ancestors turned to most easily and often. We are distanced from him by their generosity, their willingness to see in him something more than human.The larger they made Washington, the less they left us to admire—until, in Horatio Greenough’s George Washington, he becomes invisible by sheer vastness. Greenough took for his model what the neoclassical period believed was the greatest statue ever created, by the greatest sculptor who ever lived—the Elean Zeus of Phidias. Since that chryselephantine wonder was no longer extant, artists had to rely on the description given by Pausanias in the Description of Greece, and on coins of Elis that celebrated the work. Here is what Pausanias had to say.The seated god is himself fashioned from gold and ivory; the garland on his head appears to be real olive shoots. In his right hand he holds a Victory, also of gold and ivory, offering a ribbon, a garland on her head. In the god’s left hand there is a scepter, encrusted with every kind of metal, and the bird on the tip is an eagle.1 1. Pausanias Description of Greece 5. 11. Garry Wills, a prize-winning author and journalist, is Henry R. Luce Professor of American Culture and Public Policy at Northwestern University. Among his many books are Nixon Agonistes , Inventing America , and The Kennedy Imprisonment . His forthcoming book, Cincinnatus: George Washington in the Englightenment, will appear in June 1984. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry was “Critical Inquiry in Clausewitz”. (shrink)

Whitehead’s position regarding God’s power is rather unique in the philosophical and theological landscape. Whitehead rejects divine omnipotence (unlike Aquinas), yet he claims (unlike Hans Jonas) that God’s persuasive power is required for everything to exist and occur. This intriguing position is the subject of this article. The article starts with an exploration of Aquinas’s reasoning toward God’s omnipotence. This will be followed by a close examination of Whitehead's own position, starting with an introduction to his (...) philosophy of organism and its two-sided concept of God. Thereupon, an analysis of Whitehead’s idiosyncratic view on God’s agency will show that, according to this conception, God and the world depend upon each other, and that God’s agency is a noncoercive but persuasive power. The difference between coercion and persuasion will be explained as well as the reason why God, according to Whitehead’s conception, cannot possibly coerce. Finally, a discussion of the issue of divine almightiness will allow for a reinterpretation of divine almightiness from a Whiteheadian perspective, which will show how, despite Whitehead’s rejection of God’s omnipotence, his concept retains essential elements of God as pantokrator (and thus markedly differs from Hans Jonas's concept). (shrink)

Remind little ones that God will always be there to love, support, and comfort them--no matter the situation--with this uplifting, reassuring board book. This powerful little book is filled to the brim with hope and comfort. Simple, child-friendly verse outlines relatable moments of crisis, uncertainty, and fear common to a child's life, and asks who helps us in each of those scenarios. "God, that's who" is the reliable answer, forming a pattern kids will quickly pick up on. Each (...) answer reinforces the book's deeply comforting message: God is always there for us. He loves us, He knows us, and He cares about our needs. As they listen to the book and look at the reassuring illustrations, little ones will learn that they can lean on God when they are upset or frightened, or anytime at all. (shrink)

This book stands in the tradition of philosophers who advance the rationality of faith. Yet, this book goes beyond their accounts, for it not only defends the view that faith can be termed rational, but it also considers the different senses in which faith can be termed rational. While this book advances the idea that faith as a general category can be termed rational, it does not investigate in a detailed way whether there are arguments for the rationality of particular (...) faiths which would go beyond the arguments for the rationality of faith as a general category. Besides discussing whether betting on God in Pascal’s wager and believing in miracles are forms of the rationality of faith, I will provide unique solutions to the problem of evil and the paradoxes of omnipotence and omniscience. (publisher). (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the legitimacy of the principle, "The per accidens necessarily implies the per se," as it is found in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Special emphasis will be placed upon the function of this principle in the proofs for God's existence. The relevance of the principle in this latter context can be seen at once when it is observed that it is the key to the solution of the well known "prob (...) lem of infinite regress. " The investigation of the principle in question will be divided into two Parts. A preliminary examination of the function of the principle will be made in Part I: Domains Other Than That of Creature-God. The domains to be considered in this Part are those of accident-substance, change, and knowledge. Employing what is learned of the function of the principle in these areas of application, Part II: The Domain of Creature-God will analyze the role of the principle in the proofs for God's existence. This latter Part will constitute the greater portion of the book, since the domain of creatures in their relation to God is the most significant application of the principle in the writings of St. Thomas. In the course of this investigation, relevant analyses by St. Thomas' commentators - both classical and contemporary - will be considered. Finally, in light of the insights offered by St. (shrink)