Faith and Philosophy

Using Pierre Hadot’s idea of “philosophy as a way of life,” I argue that Christian philosophy of religion is ultimately about the practical task of living our lives. But I contend that this task is two-fold: it is includes both theory and practice. While analytic philosophy of philosophy of religion (APR) tends to emphasize theory and continental philosophy of religion (CPR) tends to emphasize practice (admittedly, these generalizations are only true to a certain extent), APR and CPR are both part of a two-fold task. Throughout the paper, I put into question any hard distinction between theory and practice.

The inductive argument from evil contains the premise that, probably, there is gratuitous evil. According to traditional formulations, the argument for this premise involves an inference—a “noseeum” inference—from the proposition that we don’t see a good reason for some evil to the proposition that it appears that there is no good reason for that evil. One brand of skeptical theism involves using a principle—CORNEA—to block the inference. Recently, however, the common sense problem of evil threatens the relevance of these skeptical theists’ project. Proponents of the common sense problem of evil hold that there need not be any inference to justify the belief that there is gratuitous evil. Rather, someone can have non-inferential prima facie justification, or at least a pro tanto reason, for her belief that there is gratuitous evil. In this paper, I argue that the common sense problem of evil doesn’t avoid CORNEA and that CORNEA, or a reformulated version of it, helps prevent anyone from having any justification for the belief that there is gratuitous evil.

Human beings are typically regarded as having more value than sheep; they are said to bear the image of God or have unique value and dignity. But to specify what grounds this unique value proves quite difficult. Robert Adams argues that a traditional account that grounds this value in rationality will not do, since it cannot satisfy a number of desiderata. But I develop a broadly Aristotelian account of rationality and show that it can indeed account for the rich phenomena Adams points us towards. Moreover, unlike Adams’s “complex package” view, my view is able to provide a unified explanation for why these phenomena manifest human beings’ unique value.

Perfect being theologians try to fill out the concept of God by working out what it would take to be perfect—in various respects, or tout court. Jeff Speaks’s “The Method of Perfect Being Theology” raises two problems for perfect-being thinking. I reply to these.

In two recent papers, Dean Zimmerman has argued that the vagueness of ordinary physical objects poses a challenge for “garden variety” materialism (roughly, the view that the subject of conscious experiences is identical with the brain or the whole human organism), and that emergent substance dualism can deal more successfully with the problem of vagueness. In this paper I try to show that emergent dualism is vulnerable to the challenge of vagueness to the same extent as is “garden variety” materialism.

J. L. Schellenberg has formulated two versions of a new logical argument from evil, an argument he claims to be immune to Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense. The first version assumes that God created the world to model God’s goodness, and the second to share with the world the good that already existed. In either case, the good of the world, like that of God, should not require or allow any evil. I argue that the new argument, if correct, would pay a heavy price to avoid the free will defense. I then go on to show that neither version of the argument is sound. So, there is no new problem of evil.

In a recent paper, Eleonore Stump argues that Aquinas thinks the acquired virtues are “not real at all” because they do not contribute to true moral life, which she argues is the life joined to God by the infused virtues and the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. Against this, I argue in two stages that Aquinas thinks the acquired virtues are real virtues. First, I respond to Stump’s four arguments against the reality of the acquired virtues. Second, I show four ways in which the acquired virtues contribute to the highest ethical life for Aquinas.

This paper appeals to the phenomenon of dreaming to provide a novel defense against arguments from evil. The thrust of the argument is as follows: when we wake up after a nightmare, we are often filled entirely with relief, and do not consider ourselves to have actually suffered very much at all; and since it is epistemically possible that this whole life is simply a dream, it follows that it is epistemically possible that in reality there is very little suffering. This epistemic possibility decisively undermines a key premise of both logical and evidential arguments from evil.

This paper provides a defense of the thesis that God has a sense of humor. First, I sketch the four main theories of what it is to have a sense of humor that we find in the literature. Next, I argue that three arguments against the thesis that God has a sense of humor fail to convince. Then, I consider what one might take to be four biblical reasons to think that God has a sense of humor and argue that none of them are convincing. Subsequently, I give three philosophical reasons to think that God (if he exists) has a sense of humor, that is, reasons that any person who grasps the concept of God should be willing to embrace. These arguments differ in strength, but I argue that, jointly, they provide us with sufficient reason to think that God has a sense of humor. Finally, I spell out three implications of the idea that God has a sense of humor.

In Perceiving God, William Alston briefly suggests the possibility of perceiving God indirectly through the perception of another object. Following recent work by C. Stephen Evans, we argue that Thomas Reid’s notion of “natural signs” helpfully illuminates how people can perceive God indirectly through natural beauty. First, we explain how some natural signs enable what Alston labels “indirect perception.” Second, we explore how certain emotions make it possible to see both beauty and the excellence of the minds behind beauty. Finally, we explain how aesthetic emotions can involve indirect perception of God via the natural sign of natural beauty.

Few arguments have enjoyed as strong a reputation for philosophical success as Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense (FWD). Despite the striking reputation for decisiveness, however, concerns about the success of the FWD have begun to trickle into the philosophical literature. In a recent article in this journal, Alexander Pruss has contributed to this flow with an intriguing argument that a proposition necessary to the success of Plantinga’s FWD is false. Specifically, Pruss has argued, contrary to the FWD, that, necessarily, God is able to actualize a world containing at least one significantly free creature who never does anything morally wrong. Thus, Pruss purports to demonstrate that it is not possible that every creaturely essence suffers from transworld depravity. Since the possibility of universal transworld depravity is essential to Plantinga’s defense, Pruss concludes that the defense in its Plantingian form ultimately fails. After presenting Pruss’s argument, I argue that the free will defender can resist it, in large part because the free will defender can quite reasonably reject the dominance principle on which the supposed counterexample depends.

In a recent paper, Guy Kahane asks whether God’s existence is something we should want to be true. Expanding on some cryptic remarks from Thomas Nagel, Kahane’s informative and wide-ranging piece eventually addresses whether personal anti-theism is justified, where personal anti-theism is the view that God’s existence would make things worse overall for oneself. In what follows, I develop, defend, but ultimately reject the Meaningful Life Argument, according to which if God’s existence precludes the realization of certain goods that seem to an agent to constitute a meaningful life, it is rational for an agent both to believe that personal anti-theism is true and to prefer that God not exist.