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symposium on divine causation

1. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Gregory E. Ganssle

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God’s regular causal activity is traditionally held to include his creation of the world, his conserving all created things in being and his concurrence with the causal activities of finite causes. Divine causation requires that God is an agent. In this paper, I apply E. J. Lowe’s view of human agency to God. This application requires certain adjustments. Lowe takes it that when a person acts for reasons, these reasons are lacks of some kind. I argue that his account can apply to God if we think of the reasons for God’s action as connected to purposes rather than to needs.
2. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Joel Archer Orcid-ID

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Most historical Jesus scholars agree that Jesus was regarded by his contemporaries as a great miracle worker. However, many of these same scholars deny that they can pronounce on the truth of the miracle stories as historians. There are at least two arguments for this position. One is based on an alleged empirical constraint on historical practice, which excludes divine causation. The other argument is rooted in the presumption that it is anachronistic to impose modern understandings of miracles on ancient authors. I argue that both objections are unsuccessful.

articles

3. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Paul K. Moser Orcid-ID

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Religious epistemology can benefit from the widely neglected perspective of the apostle Paul that humans can “have the mind of Christ.” This article considers whether humans can apprehend divine reality, if only partly, from a divine vantage point. Perhaps humans then can apprehend the reality and goodness of God in a salient manner, thereby gaining a vital perspective on ultimate reality. The article aims to identify the viability of a “God’s-eye standpoint” for humans in “the mind of Christ.” It contends that this standpoint draws from influential volitional and affective traits of God’s personality, including “the fruit of the Spirit.”
4. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Drew Smith

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In his 2013 monograph Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson develops and defends a view he terms necessitism. According to necessitism, everything that exists does so necessarily (alternatively, necessarily everything is necessarily something). I demonstrate that necessitism is incompatible with the conjunction of two doctrines rooted in the broadly Nicene tradition: God’s metaphysical sovereignty and freedom. First, I exposit and formalize the two doctrines in question. Next, I expound Williamson’s theory of necessitism. Third, I demonstrate the formal incompatibility of the conjunction of the two doctrines with necessitism. Finally, I conclude with reflections on the implications of this incompatibility.
5. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Thomas Duttweiler

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Sarah Coakley, drawing on the insights of John of the Cross, has recently argued that God may have redemptive moral and epistemic purposes in remaining hidden from people during a “dark night of the soul,” and that experiences of spiritual darkness can be taken as a mode of religious experience. In this paper, I explore what sort of epistemic model of religious experience is needed to underwrite Coakley’s argument. I argue that one influential externalist model—that of William Alston—is unsatisfactory, and advance in its place an internalist, phenomenal conservative approach bolstered by considerations from responsibilist virtue epistemology. I argue that such an approach can much more satisfactorily accommodate contemplative experiences than can that of Alston and thus can buttress Coakley’s response to the problem of divine hiddenness.

book reviews

6. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Andrew Hollingsworth Orcid-ID

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7. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Joshua R. Farris Orcid-ID

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8. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
James N. Anderson Orcid-ID

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9. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Christopher Michael Cloos

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10. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2
Michael W. Austin

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11. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 2

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12. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Ross D. Inman

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articles

13. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Christopher E. Franklin

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I aim to show that the practice of reading excellent literature is an excellent form of moral education. I offer a two-stage defense. First, I call attention to central features of the human self (especially the emotions) involved in moral growth. I argue that the central components of emotions are construals (or ways of seeing) and loves. Second, I show that literature has distinctive resources both to train our construals by affording us practice in seeing the world in new ways and to cultivate our loves by affording us practice in imitating the loves of others.
14. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
R. T. Mullins Orcid-ID

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Sam Lebens offers an intriguing set of arguments from theism to idealism. In this paper, I shall focus on the argument from perfect rationality to Hassidic Idealism. I will offer a critical analysis of this argument and draw out a series of conflicts between Hassidic Idealism and divine freedom, the divine ideas, and creation ex nihilo.
15. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Samuel Lebens Orcid-ID

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Ryan Mullins argues that, assuming Hassidic Idealism, God is forced to create all possible worlds (either as a single all-inclusive multiverse, or as an exhaustive array of discrete possible worlds, no one of which is more inherently actual than the other). This process, because unfree, doesn’t amount to creation so much as emanation. I argue that there are numerous ways to reconcile Hassidic Idealism with a robust doctrine of a free Divine creation ex nihilo. We must distinguish between a God who thinks a world into being, and One who, as in the book of Genesis, speaks it into being.
16. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Colin Ruloff

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According to Stephen Law’s “X-claim argument,” the theist’s acquiring (what I call) an “x-claim defeater” automatically provides the theist with a reason to give up her x-claim belief. Contrary to Law, I argue that, even if the theist acquires such a defeater, it does not follow that the theist ought to give up her x-claim belief. This is because the degree of justification possessed by the theist’s belief may be sufficient to epistemically insulate itself against the x-claim defeater that was initially brought against it. Hence, the theist may be justified in maintaining her x-claim belief.

philosophical notes

17. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Matthew Owen

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Joanna Leidenhag’s research monograph Minding Creation: Theological Panpsychism and the Doctrine of Creation argues that theologians should seriously consider and perhaps even support panpsychism. In light of rekindled interest in panpsychism amongst philosophers of mind and a noteworthy minority of cognitive neuroscientists, which comes in the wake of physicalism’s faltering, Leidenhag’s thesis is timely. This work briefly analyzes some key aspects of Minding Creation.
18. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Joel Ballivian

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Paul Copan and Wes Jamison’s recent book, What Would Jesus Really Eat?, attempts to offer moral and theological vindication for the factory farm industry and, more generally, for eating animals. It thereby aims to provide “comfort” for Christians to “overlook animal suffering” and, if they choose, to continue eating factory-farmed meat. In this review, I argue that various key arguments in the book rest on questionable premises and elide relevant distinctions. As a result the key thesis of the book—that Christians are permitted to eat meat, including from factory farms—has not been vindicated over against arguments to the contrary. I finish by offering a few strategies for pursuing a more conscientious diet and suggest that Christian philosophers can do more to serve the aims of conscientious consumption.
19. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Robert A. Larmer Orcid-ID

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In “Breaking Laws of Nature” published in this journal in 2017, Jeffrey Koperski defended a position he termed “decretalism” in which he claimed that the laws of nature should be understood as the decrees of God. In “Decretalism and the Laws of Nature” also published in this journal in 2017, I argued that Koperski’s decretalism amounts to occasionalism. In his recent book, Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature, Koperski has responded to my criticisms by changing his account of the laws of nature. In this article, I argue that his new account of the laws of nature is more problematic than his first rendition.
20. Philosophia Christi: Volume > 25 > Issue: 1
Jeffrey Koperski Orcid-ID

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In “Koperski’s New (Improved?) Decretalism,” Robert Larmer argues that my version of nomological realism about the laws of nature logically entails occasionalism. Here I clarify and defend my view against this charge. The main disagreement is whether a proper account of the laws of nature must involve dynamic production—what is commonly called oomph.