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articles

1. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Robert J. Hartman

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Someone owes gratitude to God for something only if God benefits her and God is morally responsible for doing so. These requirements concerning benefit and moral responsibility generate reasons to doubt that human beings owe gratitude to God for their own moral goodness. First, moral character must be generated by its possessor’s own free choices, and so God cannot benefit moral character in human beings. Second, owed gratitude requires being morally responsible for providing a benefit, which rules out owed gratitude to God because God must do what is best. Both reasons are unpersuasive. I argue that God can benefit morally good character in human beings with and without their free choices. Subsequently, I argue against views of moral responsibility that preclude divine moral responsibility and argue that influential accounts of moral responsibility preserve it. Thus, these two requirements generate no problem for owed gratitude to God.
2. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Stuart Jesson

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I provide a Nietzschean reading of the way that moral concerns shape and structure discussion of the problem of evil, through consideration of Nietzsche’s account of nihilism and compassion. Although, on this account, all theodicy is nihilistic in one sense, in another sense theodicy actually inhibits the fully-fledged nihilism of despair, which “judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist.” I go on to apply Nietzsche’s account of “devaluation” to moral critique of theodicy. Such critique is rooted in compassion, but in such a way that it is self-undermining: once the “protest” that motivates compassion rules out any appeal to a world that transcends earthly suffering, protest against suffering is revealed as a purely negative posture; this is what one would expect, if compassion were a nihilistic value from the beginning.
3. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Allison Krile Thornton

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On the standard understanding of petitionary prayer, the purpose of prayer is to make a difference to what God will do. In this article, I argue that such an activity does not make sense.
4. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Brian Leftow

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This paper defends a definition of sin. I begin by defending the project of trying to do so. I then suggest that the Bible does not clearly define it. I then consider some candidate definitions, pointing out ways they fall short. I finally introduce my method for coming up with a better definition. I use the method to evaluate a recent proposal. Finally I offer my own. I suggest that the method favors mine over the other proposal I discuss.
5. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Levi Durham

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There is a tension for those who want to simultaneously hold that Abraham’s disposition to sacrifice Isaac is epistemically justified and yet hold that a contemporary father would not be justified in believing that God is commanding him to sacrifice his son. This paper attempts to resolve that tension. While some commentators have correctly pointed out that one must take Abraham’s long relationship with God into account when considering Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son, they do not entertain the possibility that his hearing this commandment is evidence against the hypothesis that Abraham is speaking to God. I grant this possibility. But I argue that when God commands Abraham to do the unthinkable, Abraham’s previously acquired evidence could still be sufficient to justify his belief that he is speaking with God. And in making this argument, I attempt to show what differentiates Abraham from the contemporary father who thinks that God is commanding him to sacrifice his son.
6. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Luke Wilson

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Rationalist models of divine agency typically ascribe perfect freedom to God, where this is understood as a freedom from external causal influences and non-rational influences, including desires or preferences not derived from reason alone. Paul Draper has recently developed a rationalist model of God’s agency on which God faces “hard choices” between options differing in moral and non-moral value. He argues that this model is preferable to rival rationalist models because it is compatible with God’s having significant freedom and being maximally worthy of praise and gratitude. I argue that on an alternative model of divine agency, which rejects perfect freedom and holds that God makes hard choices on the basis of brute preferences, God would be more worthy of praise and gratitude. However, a probabilistic problem for theism which Draper identifies for his model also applies to the brute preference model.

book reviews

7. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Rebecca K. DeYoung

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8. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Alicia Finch

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9. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Alexandra T. Romanyshyn

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10. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Joshua Golding

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11. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Larson Powell

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12. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 2
Selmer Bringsjord

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articles

13. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Daniel J. McKaughan, Daniel Howard-Snyder

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Can faith be valuable and, if so, under what conditions? We know of no theory-neutral way to address this question. So, we offer a theory of relational faith, and we supplement it with a complementary theory of relational faithfulness. We then turn to relationships of mutual faith and faithfulness with an eye toward exhibiting some of the ways in which, on our theory, faith and faithfulness can be valuable and disvaluable. We then extend the theory to other manifestations of faith and faithfulness, we propose a way to unify them under a theory of faith and faithfulness simpliciter, and we explain how they can be neo-Aristotelian virtues and vices. We close with our solution to the value problem and avenues for further research.
14. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Travis Dumsday

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While Anselm’s famous ontological argument from the Proslogion receives the great bulk of attention from philosophers of religion and historians of philosophy, the case for theism that he begins to develop in the opening three chapters of the Monologion is also of considerable interest. Like the ontological argument, the opening arguments of the Monologion have also received substantial criticism. Here I suggest that one important line of critique (namely that supplied by Visser and Williams (2009)) can be deflected if those arguments are read (or rather, creatively re-read) using the distinctive interpretive lens and theological resources of Palamism.
15. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Eric J. Silverman, M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Crystal Park, Jason McMartin, Kelly Kapic, Laura Shannonhouse, Jamie Aten, Alexis Abernethy

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We argue that the good of a meaningful life has a role in theodicy by serving as a contributory reason for an all-good, all-powerful God to allow the existence of evil. If a meaningful life is a more valuable good than competing goods such as pleasure, power, etc., then the good of a meaningful life could have some theodical value for explaining a world where personal pleasure and power are often threatened and undermined. Thus, a world including deeply meaningful personal lives along with the existence of evils like pain and suffering, could be superior to a world without pain and evil but with less meaningful lives. This view is especially plausible if our argument successfully demonstrates that certain kinds of evils are necessary conditions for certain kinds of more valuable, more meaningful lives.
16. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Joshua R. Sijuwade

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This article aims to provide an explication of the Christian doctrine of eternal generation. A model of the doctrine is formulated within the ground-theoretic framework of Jonathan Schaffer and E. Jonathan Lowe, which enables it to be explicated clearly and consistently, and two often raised objections against the doctrine can be successfully answered.
17. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Blake Hereth

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Kenneth Einar Himma (2009, 2016) argues that the existence of Hell renders procreation impermissible. Jason Marsh (2015) contends that problems of evil motivate anti-natalism. Anti-natalism is principally rejected for its perceived conflict with reproductive rights. I propose a theistic solution to the latter problem. Universalism says that all persons will, postmortem, eventually be eternally housed in Heaven, a superbly good place wherein harm is fully absent. The acceptance of universalism is now widespread, but I offer further reason to embrace one variant of it. If universalism is true and there are opportunities to procreate in Heaven, then reproductive autonomy is largely preserved for everyone. Assuming Heaven is a harm-free place, there are no risks to children born in Heaven, unlike Earth or Hell. While this requires human persons to accept temporary restrictions on procreation during our premortem lives, the bulk of reproductive autonomy is preserved since one will have infinite opportunities to reproduce in Heaven.
18. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Christopher Hauser

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The coherence objection to the doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that it is impossible for one individual to have both the attributes of God and the attributes of a human being. This article examines Thomas Aquinas’s answer to this objection. I challenge the dominant, mereological interpretation of Aquinas’s position and, in light of this challenge, develop and defend a new alternative interpretation of Aquinas’s response to this important objection to Christian doctrine.

book reviews

19. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Andrew M. Bailey, Kenny Boyce

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20. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 39 > Issue: 1
Rebecca Chan, Travis Darnold

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