scholarly journals Editorial: God's Nature and Attributes

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Ide Lévi ◽  
Alejandro Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Divine Perfection ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

In Western theism, different attributes have classically been ascribed to God, such as omnipotence, omniscience, wisdom, goodness, freedom and so on. But these ascriptions have also raised many conceptual difficulties: are these attributes internally coherent? Are they really compossible? Are they compatible with what we know about the world (e.g. the existence of evil, human freedom, the laws of nature etc.). These traditional questions are part of the inquiry on God’s nature as it is carried out in contemporary philosophy of religion. Another part of this inquiry is constituted by theological and philosophical questions raised by more precise or particular religious conceptions of God – e.g. the doctrine of Trinity in Christianity, or other specific credentials about the right way to understand God’s perfection and absolute transcendence in Judaism, Christianity or Islam. In this issue, we propose to follow these two directions of the inquiry about God’s nature and attributes through historical and systematic studies, in the perspective of contemporary philosophy of religion and analytical theology. While the three papers specifically dedicated to the problem of the Trinity pertain mainly to the second part of the examination (the conceptual analysis of specific credentials and theological doctrines), the three others offer new perspectives and arguments on traditional questions about God, like the problem of evil, perfect goodness, or the problem of divine perfection and God’s freedom.

scholarly journals Libertarianism and Classical Theism: Historical and Conceptual Interrelations

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Mishura ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Process Theology ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Libertarian Freedom ◽  
Divine Perfections ◽  
Libertarian Free Will ◽  
Divine Goodness

This paper aims to highlight the historical and conceptual interrelations between libertarianism and classical theism (CT). In the first part of the paper, I show that the concept of CT was introduced in the contemporary philosophy of religion by the proponent of process theology Ch. H. Hartshorne to criticize European philosophical and theological tradition. Hartshorne himself thought that classical theism contradicts the libertarian understanding of free will. I further propose two hypotheses to explain the existing association between libertarianism and classical theism in the contemporary philosophy of religion. In the second part, I explore conceptual dependencies and contradictions between libertarianism and CT. I argue that although libertarianism is more suited to address the problem of evil and the doctrine of eternal damnation than theological compatibilism, it nevertheless faces serious problems on the way of reconciliation with CT. To explain evil and eternal damnation libertarian free will have to be understood as having a great value. However, the value of libertarian freedom might be challenged by exploring its contradictions with such divine perfections as divine goodness and divine foreknowledge and the doctrine of divine conservation. I further argue that to solve theological puzzles one needs to develop explicitly theological libertarian understanding of free will that depends on theological values and does not pretend to be compatible with naturalism and atheism.

Is God Necessarily Who God Is? Alternatives for the Trinity and Election Debate

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-220
Author(s):  
Kevin Diller
Keyword(s):  
States Of Affairs ◽  
External Constraint ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
Divine Freedom ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

AbstractAs a contribution to discussions of the relationship between trinity and election, in this article I explore the helpfulness of a return to ancient modal and metaphysical theological distinctions. At the forefront of trinity/election debates has been Bruce McCormack's controversial claim that election could be conceived as logically prior to, and the motivation for, God's being triune. Steering clear of questions about the right interpretation or trajectory of Karl Barth's theology, I attempt to identify the motivating theological convictions of this debate's interlocutors and find constructive options which maintain or address those convictions. One option I defend is the possibility that triunity is not logically prior to election.I begin with an analysis of three central theological convictions which seem to be at the heart of the trinity/election debates. They are: (1) a revelation axiom – that knowledge of God's nature is governed by the particular historical revelation of God in Christ; (2) a nuanced commitment to divine immutability; and (3) divine libertas a coactione – God's being free in nature and action from external constraint. I then contend that if more attention is paid to modal and metaphysical options with respect to the existence and essence of God, one will see that there are a number of viable positions which respect these convictions.I argue that at least some of the conceptual difficulties of McCormack's position can be eliminated if we properly distinguish kinds of necessity in reference to God's being and if we dispense with any notion of priority between God's essence and God's willing God's essence. With respect to kinds of necessity, I recall the ancient distinction between properties that are (a) necessary consequents of God's essence, (b) contingent and (c) a necessary consequence of God's essence given certain contingent states of affairs. Those distinctions, along with clarifications about the nature of divine freedom vis-à-vis his essence and actions, allow us to see the range of theological positions which remain faithful to the relevant concerns of the revelation axiom, divine immutability and divine freedom.I conclude that, while it is problematic to defend the logical priority of election over triunity, McCormack is justified in his claim that granting election as part of God's essence does no violence to divine freedom and he is perfectly entitled to the view that God's essential properties, including both God's fit-for-election-hypostatic-configuration and God's being the electing God are mutual aspects of God's single self-caused being.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right

The Introduction sets the philosophical stage for the volume as a whole by describing the present state of play in contemporary philosophy of religion and situating the authors’ own conception of the subject, and making clear how this conception bears upon the supposed divide between analytic and continental philosophy. It then turns to the naturalistic strand of the authors’ thinking, distinguishing it from scientism, and clarifying its theistic implications. This “expansive” naturalism is seen to be compatible with Cottingham’s “humane” philosophy of religion, and it grants us the right to say that the concept of the divine is already implicated in our understanding of nature. There follows an account of how the different chapters are to be related and distinguished.

C. S. Lewis on the Problem of Divine Hiddenness

2015 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Travis Dumsday
Keyword(s):  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Divine Hiddenness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Open Relationship

Along with the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness has become one of the most prominent arguments for atheism in the contemporary philosophy of religion. Roughly it is this: if there is a loving God, surely he would make his existence apparent to us, and in a way that we could not rationally doubt. Why? (i) Because it is of the nature of love that the lover will seek open relationship with the object of love, and (ii) because on most traditional theisms it is claimed that our ultimate well-being requires having a positive relationship with God, which relationship presupposes belief in God's reality. Yet as a matter of fact many people fail to believe in God, and that through no fault of their own. Such nonbelief is incompatible with the truth of theism. Therefore God does not exist. Here I explore how the writings of C. S. Lewis (probably the twentieth century's most popular Anglican author) can be brought to bear on the problem.

Inverse Correlation: Comparative Philosophy in an Upside Down World

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-116
Author(s):  
Mark T. Unno
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Human Limitation ◽  
Final Work

Kitarō Nishida introduces the concept of “inverse correlation” (Jp. gyakutaiō 逆対応) in his final work, The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, which he uses to illuminate the relation between finite and infinite, human and divine/buddha, such that the greater the realization of human limitation and finitude, the greater that of the limitless, infinite divine or buddhahood. This essay explores the applicability of the logic and rhetoric of inverse correlation in the cases of the early Daoist Zhuangzi, medieval Japanese Buddhist Shinran, and modern Protestant Christian Kierkegaard, as well as broader ramifications for contemporary philosophy of religion.

Beyond Self-Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Right ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

This chapter introduces the long-standing idea that inappropriate motives, such as self-interest, can militate against virtuous motivation (acting for the right reasons). Some theorists have tried to show that we are universally egoistic by appeal to empirical research, particularly evolutionary theory, moral development, and the neuroscience of learning. However, these efforts fail and instead decades of experiments on helping behavior provide powerful evidence that we are capable of genuine altruism. We can be motivated ultimately by a concern for others for their own sake, especially when empathizing with them. The evidence does not show that empathy blurs the distinction between self and other in a way that makes helping behavior truly egoistic or non-altruistic. Whether grounded in Christian love (agape) or the Buddhist notion of no-self (anātman), such self-other merging proposals run into empirical and conceptual difficulties.

scholarly journals Kant and the forms of realism

Synthese ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Heidemann
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Philosophical Questions

AbstractRealism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical (i.e. nonmetaphysical) and transcendental (metaphysical) realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits.

“Philosophy, Therefore, Is within Yourself”

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-187
Author(s):  
Elad Carmel
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Advanced Form ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

The connection that Hobbes makes between reason, method, and science renders reason a faculty that is not only natural but also acquired and even somewhat exclusive. This idea might pose a serious problem to Hobbes’s political theory, as it relies heavily on the successful use of reason. This problem is demonstrated in Hobbes’s account of the laws of nature, for which some equality in human reason is clearly needed, but Hobbes is not explicit about the relationship between that and the more advanced form of reason that eventually leads to science. This article suggests that Hobbes’s account of reason is developmental. The seed of natural reason is common to everyone, and is sufficient for the establishment of the commonwealth. Thereafter, peace and leisure provide the necessary conditions for developing the rational skill, that is, fulfilling the human potential for rationality. Consequently, under the right circumstances, knowledge and science are expected to progress dramatically for the benefit of society, an open-ended vision which Hobbes nevertheless leaves implicit. Following Hobbes’s account of reason and philosophy closely can therefore show that he might have had great hopes for humankind, and that in this sense he was a key member of an English Enlightenment.

scholarly journals Consumer right to product accessibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1433-1452
Author(s):  
Andrej Mićović
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Border Trade ◽  
The Right

In order to reduce barriers in cross-border trade, stimulate the functioning of the internal market, increase the availability of certain products, enable all consumers to have access to certain products on an equal basis, Directive (EU) 2019/882 on the accessibility requirements for products and services has been adopted. With regard to product accessibility article provides an overview of the origins and development of the right to access(ibility), as well as terminological and conceptual analysis of universal design as an constitutional element of the accessibility right and finally article analyzes the rules contained in the Directive regarding: scope of the rules governing product accessibility; accessibility requirements; elements that exclude application of the accessibility requirements.

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