Against Theistic Personalism: What Modern Epistemology does to Classical Theism

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Pouivet
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Theology ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
The Trinity

Is God a person, like you and me eventually, but only much better and without our human deficiencies? When you read some of the philosophers of religion, including Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, or Open Theists, God appears as such a person, in a sense closer to Superman than to the Creator of Heaven and Earth. It is also a theory that a Christian pastoral theology today tends to impose, insisting that God is close to us and attentive to all of us. But this modern account of God could be a deep and even tragic mistake. One God in three persons, the formula of the Trinity, does not mean that God is a person. On this matters we need an effort in the epistemology of theology to examine more precisely what we can pretend to know about God, and especially how we could pretend to know that God is person.

Redefining progress in Trinitarian theology: Stephen R. Holmes on the Trinity

2014 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-20
Author(s):  
Fred Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Constructive Work ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
The Trinity

This essay examines some of the implications for contemporary constructive work on the doctrine of the Trinity if Steve Holmes is correct in his judgments about the direction taken by the recent revival of interest in the doctrine. Holmes raises serious questions about the exegetical basis of the doctrine, and raises the question of what God has revealed in the sending of the Son and the Spirit. Some areas of maximal divergence between the classic tradition and the recent revival are probed, such as the recent lack of interest in the elaboration and defense of divinity unity, and also of the divine attributes as explored by classical theism. Finally, Holmes’s work raises questions about the proper relationships between systematic theology and allied theological disciplines such as historical theology and analytic theology.

Faith and Goodness

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
The Relationship

Recent work on the subject of faith has tended to focus on the epistemology of religious belief, considering such issues as whether beliefs held in faith are rational and how they may be justified. Richard Swinburne, for example, has developed an intricate explanation of the relationship between the propositions of faith and the evidence for them. Alvin Plantinga, on the other hand, has maintained that belief in God may be properly basic, that is, that a belief that God exists can be part of the foundation of a rational noetic structure. This sort of work has been useful in drawing attention to significant issues in the epistemology of religion, but these approaches to faith seem to me also to deepen some long-standing perplexities about traditional Christian views of faith.

Classical Theism and the Doctrine of the Trinity

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Charles J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God.1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism (CT) still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune.2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses.3

Godsgeloof in het tijdperk van wetenschap: Een epistemologisch drama

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-195
Author(s):  
Herman Philipse
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Religious Believer ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In this article it is argued that all religious beliefs to the effect that a specific god exists are prima facie implausible for two reasons: traditional sources of religious knowledge, or methods of religious investigation, such as revelations, prayer, and the interpretation of ‘signs’, have turned out to be unreliable, and religious beliefs are implausible given the background knowledge provided by modern science and scholarship. Four contemporary apologetic strategies for the religious believer, developed in detail by analytic philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga or Richard Swinburne, are discussed and criticized. It is further argued that the 18 objections against my argument for universal strong disjunctive atheism in ‘Atheïstisch manifest. De onredelijkheid van religie’ (Amsterdam, 1995, 2004), put forward by René van Woudenberg and Rik Peels (NTT 62/1:24-44), are inconclusive.

God's creation of morality

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. MAWSON
Keyword(s):  
Strong Form ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Third ◽  
Euthyphro Dilemma ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In this paper, I argue that classical theists should think of God as having created morality. In form, my position largely resembles that defended by Richard Swinburne. However, it differs from his position in content in that it evacuates the category of necessary moral truth of all substance and, having effected this tactical withdrawal, Swinburne's battle lines need to be redrawn. In the first section, I introduce the Euthyphro dilemma. In the second, I argue that if necessary moral truths are seen as analytically/logically so, then, pace Swinburne, they cannot be regarded as substantive principles. Thus, seeing necessary moral truths as analytically/logically necessary and independent of God does not threaten God's power or sovereignty and leaves open the possibility that all value is contingent upon His will. In the third section, I turn to consider how the claim that all value is contingent upon God's will might best be understood, arguing that classical theists will want to commit themselves to a relatively strong form of objectivism about moral value (even though this is not needed in order to solve the Euthyphro dilemma). I then give and defend an account of God's creation of contingent moral truths which coheres with what I argue is the most plausible form of this commitment. In the following section, I argue that this account avoids the charge that God is arbitrary in His choice of values and, finally, I argue that it avoids the charge that God may not be said to be good without vacuity. Thus, I conclude that the Euthyphro dilemma does not threaten classical theism.

scholarly journals INTRODUÇÃO AO PENSAMENTO REFORMACIONAL DE HERMAN DOOYEWEERD

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-138
Author(s):  
Davi Tavares Viana
Keyword(s):  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
William Alston ◽  
Richard Swinburne

Este artigo apresenta o pensamento introdutório de Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), jusfilósofo membro da Academia Real Holandesa de Ciências e Artes pouco conhecido no Brasil, porém notabilizado internacionalmente por significativa contribuição para a filosofia e outras áreas do conhecimento. O artigo está dividido em quatro momentos. No primeiro, apresentam-se como possíveis soluções à crítica positivista ao discurso metafísico dooyeweerdiano a resposta realista (pós-positivista) defendidas por Alvin Plantinga, William Alston e Richard Swinburne. No segundo, serão tratados sucintamente as principais contribuições do seu pensamento manifestadas através da filosofia da ideia cosmonômica cujo principal objetivo foi a tentativa de reformar a razão. Logo em seguida, será apresentada a crítica do filósofo americano PhD pela Universidade de Havard, Nícolas Wolterstorff, ao filósofo holandês. E, por fim, visando conferir um efeito prático à teoria reformacional dooyeweerdiana será indicada uma possível solução para a polaridade existente na filosofia política entre o poder político e a justiça.

Gale on God: The Return of Philo?

Dialogue ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 685-692
Author(s):  
William Hasker
Keyword(s):  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
William Alston ◽  
Return Visit ◽  
The Past ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
Biblical Religion

Richard Gale, noting the “startling resurgence of theism within philosophy during the past thirty years or so” (p. 2) led by William Alston, Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, concludes that “there is need for a return visit from Hume's Philo.” But fans of Philo may be disappointed with the present version. To be sure, Gale as Philo possesses both the wit and the critical acumen to make him a worthy successor to the original. What is lacking, however, is the animus and the scornful rejection of biblical religion which so notably motivated both the original Philo and his creator.

Trinity or Tritheism?

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Richard Swinburne ◽  
The Trinity

In The Christian God (hereafter CG), Richard Swinburne offers a series of arguments which a priori support the necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity. If his arguments are successful, he has dramatically narrowed the field of logically possible religious beliefs to (Christian) trinitarianism. I contend that Swinburne's arguments necessitate the existence of more than one quasi-independent divine being; indeed Swinburne's arguments move us in the direction of tritheism rather than orthodox trinitarianism.

Montanism and Its Trinitarian Significance

1956 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Pelikan
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
The Trinity

It has become almost a commonplace of both historical and systematic theology to interpret the doctrine of the Trinity as an elaboration of the christological faith and formulations of the early church. That is true of such radically divergent interpreters of that doctrine's origin as Adolf Harnack and G. L. Prestige. Both these scholars agree in seeing the trinitarian dogma as a response to the question whether, in Harnack's words, “the divine that has appeared on earth and reunited men with God is identical with that divine which created heaven and earth, or whether it is a demigod.” Or, as Prestige elaborates the thesis: “If the godhead was not unitary, it was as simple to conceive of three Persons as of two; hence the deity of Christ carried the weight of trinitarian controversies without any necessity for extending the range of dispute, and as a matter of history, the settlement of the problems connected with the Father and the Son was found to lead to an immediate solution of the whole trinitarian difficulty.”

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