Faith

One main kind of etiological challenge to the well-foundedness of someone’s belief is the consideration that if you had a different education/upbringing, you would very likely accept different beliefs than you actually do. Although a person’s religious identity and attendant religious beliefs are usually the ones singled out as targets of such “contingency” or “epistemic location” arguments, it is clear that a person’s place and time has a conditioning effect in all domains of controversial views, and over all of what (...) in the epistemology of disagreement are termed our nurtured beliefs. Still, given the absolutism that has often attended religious truth claims, together with the great contrariety of teachings based upon purported divine revelation, arguments from contingency have often been presented as having special force against religious ‘enthusiasts.’ Chapter Two argues that if we are to explicate the force of problems of religious luck, we need to think more carefully about the scope and force of skeptical arguments of this general type. Contingency problems are not often considered serious objections to faith, since there are narrative theological explanations about differences between “home” and “alien” religious traditions, which any adherent of a particular tradition might appeal to. But what I term the New Problem tries to present a qualified and re-focused set of concerns, rather than a sweeping sort of skepticism. First, I carefully delimit the scope of the de jure challenge which the contingency and insensitivity of belief suggests. In general terms, a de jure challenge implicates dereliction of epistemic duty, intellectual viciousness, or some other sense of epistemic unacceptability to some target class of religious belief, narrow or broad (Plantinga 1995). Next, I redirect that challenge through a new thought experiment aimed at clarifying how the mind-set of religious exclusivism is enabled only through counter-inductive or “pattern-breaking” thinking. Much more focused than any overbroad argument from continency, the New Problem of religious luck is presented as a strong de jure challenge to the reasonableness of religious exclusivist a) conceptions of faith and b) responses to religious multiplicity. (shrink)

Although there has been little written to date that speaks directly to problems of religious luck, described in other terms these problems have a long history. Contemporary contributors to the literature have referred to “soteriological luck” (Anderson 2011) “salvific luck” (Davidson 1999) and “religious luck” (Zagzebski 1994). Using “religious” as the unifying term, Part I of this monograph begins with the need a more comprehensive taxonomy. Serious philosophic interest in moral and epistemic luck took hold only after comprehensive taxonomies for (...) those kinds of luck were introduced, but this has not yet been done for religious luck. Even if incomplete, the more comprehensive taxonomy, as introduced in Chapter One enables better diagnostic questions to be raised for researchers. Emerging questions about potentially ‘luck leaning’ attributions of good/bad religious luck, and of the possibility and desirability of “luck free theologies,” are questions which I hope to motivate as of central interest to researchers in philosophy of religion, both secular and religious. The taxonomy highlights why we should take two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — to be inextricably connected. The connection between attributing good/bad luck and violating inductive norms is easy to see upon reflection. One related distinction common in recent work on epistemic luck is that between benign evidential luck (‘benign’ because consistent with justified belief and knowledge), and malign (positive epistemic status undercutting) veritic luck. How, philosophically, this distinction should be understood is an especially acute problem when it comes to testimonial trust, and to intellectually virtuous or vicious ways of assessing testimonial claims, and sources of claims. So the chapter concludes with development of the case of Tess, as an example of testimonial environmental veritic luck. The Tess case is constructed to be formally analogous to the environmental veritic luck operating in fake barn cases (where visual perception rather than reception of testimony is the source of the agent’s belief). There does seem to be an intrinsic connection between epistemic assessment of the agent’s beliefs and the inductive context in which their own and their religious community’s inquiry takes place. This will allow for some potentially powerful thought experiments in successive chapters, about luck, risk, and questions of epistemic in/justice as they pertain to religious faith ventures. (shrink)

An Address delivered to the Seattle G. K. Chesterton Society at the University of Washington Newman Center, May 2, 2013.

I mostly agree with most of what Paul Moser has said in his books in the Philosophy of Religion. The views he has defended are a needed corrective to the evidentialist paradigm in the philosophy of religion. At the same time, his development of his central ideas has resulted in views that are, somewhat idiosyncratic and extreme. In this essay I hope to present a different articulation of those ideas, also defensible from within a Christian perspective, that preserves their central (...) thrust without being so extreme. (shrink)

This paper explores belief-less, credence-based faith. I argue that such faith is both possible and plausible. After outlining some relevant background, I motivate the idea that faith can be grounded in credence rather than belief. I argue that if the contemporary view is correct that faith does not entail full belief, then credence-based faith offers a natural—perhaps the most natural—alternative picture. I then consider and respond to several objections, concerning thresholds (how high must one’s credence be for faith?), stability (can (...) credence-based faith preserve faith’s steadfastness?), error possibilities (would such faith be overly focused on the possibility of error?), and taking a stand (does credence take a stand in the way require for faith?). (shrink)

The various scandals have already been reported many times regarding the World Council of Churches and the supposed influx of interreligious dialogue.

Only when reason has been uplifted by faith may it spread its wings and ascend towards reality and truth. To sever the power of reason from the agency of faith is to render the mind idle—it is to condemn the mind to a state of dormancy and impotence. Far from being opposing and mutually exclusive faculties or departments of human experience, reason and faith reinforce each other—they are abstractly distinguishable factors of a single process that gradually unfolds throughout the course (...) of the mind’s conscious development. Indeed, on the mind’s pathway towards reality, reason cannot help but run on the rails of faith—a faith in its own efficacy. Now, the notion that reason and faith are inseparable and interpenetrating forces, rather than hostile foes, demands explanation. Our purpose in this brief essay is to illustrate how these two factors are complementary and mutually reinforcing movements in the life of mind. (shrink)

The Book of Job is often read as the Bible's response to theodicy's 'problem of evil.' As a resolution to the logical difficulties of this problem, however, it is singularly unsatisfying. Job's ethical protest against God is never addressed at the level of the ethical. But suggested in Job's final encounter with God is the possibility of a spiritual resolution beyond the ethical. In this paper I examine the Book of Job as a response to the spiritual problem of despair; (...) despair engendered by the ethical problem of evil. My reading is informed by Kierkegaard's analysis of despair in The Sickness unto Death, and Stephen Mitchell's extraordinary translation of the Book of Job, as well as his insightful commentary. (shrink)

I argue that textual variants pose a problem for religious belief. Specifically, the existence of hundreds of thousands of textual variants in the New Testament’s manuscript tradition, many of them large and ideologically motivated, should reduce a believer’s confidence in the Bible as a source of information. This problem is different from the problems of evil and divine hiddenness because, whereas those problems entail the falsity of a religious claim, such as theism, this problem poses an epistemic challenge instead.

This article deals with two types of Christian faith in the light of the challenges posed by the ethics of belief. It is proposed that the difficulties with Clifford’s formulation of that ethic can best be handled if the ethic is interpreted in terms of role-specific intellectual integrity. But the ethic still poses issues for the traditional interpretation of Christian faith when it is conceived as a series of discrete but related propositions, especially historical propositions. For as so conceived, the (...) believer makes claims that fall within the province of an intellectual discipline, history, that requires evidence and rules of procedure for the adjudication of such claims. It is noteworthy how few Christian theologians and philosophers of religion deal with the issue in these terms. Alvin Plantinga is a noteworthy exception and his views are examined and criticized because, among other things, his conclusion is that any believer without having any training in biblical languages or historical studies can know that the New Testament narratives are true. The article then considers a second conception of Christian faith in which this conflict does not arise. One finds it in the works of Schleiermacher, Wittgenstein, and, surprisingly, in the conception of faith found in the early writings of Karl Barth. (shrink)

The nature of propositional faith—whether it requires belief or can persist independently of it—remains a central issue in the philosophy of faith. (Malcolm and Scott, A Philosophy of Faith: Belief, Routledge, 2023) introduce the Sincere Endorsement Argument (SEA), asserting that nondoxastic theories, which posit faith without belief, collapse into either doxasticism or religious fictionalism, thereby undermining their purported distinctiveness. This article argues that John Schellenberg’s underexplored nondoxastic theory—here termed Schellenbergian nondoxasticism (SN)—provides a compelling counterpoint. I begin by outlining Malcolm and (...) Scott’s SEA and then clarify SN’s scientific and epistemic foundations. By highlighting SN’s adoption of an imaginative attitude grounded in a commitment to truth, along with its ability to maintain a truth-committed stance at the higher-level epistemic discussion, I show how it avoids a collapse into either of the competing theories. Moreover, SN’s serious motivational commitment to seeking truth provides a decisive criterion for distinguishing nondoxastic theories from religious fictionalism. (shrink)

Handbook Abstract: Beliefs play a central role in how we understand ourselves, each other, and the world. So it’s no surprise that decades of research across the social sciences have been dedicated to documenting the particular beliefs that people hold. But what makes something a belief, rather than a different kind of representation or commitment? What does it mean to believe? These questions have received a great deal of attention within philosophy, but without the benefit of systematic, empirical investigation. That’s (...) beginning to change as psychologists, anthropologists, and other cognitive scientists broaden the scope of empirical and theoretical work on belief. How does belief relate to perception and memory? Do we have control over what we believe? How did the capacity for believing evolve? Can nonhuman animals have beliefs? Does believing come in degrees? And do we have ethical obligations to believe certain things and not others? All these questions and more are addressed in this Handbook, which brings together state-of-the-art work in philosophy and the cognitive sciences—including, anthropology, cognitive psychology, computational modeling, political science, and more. The result is a resource for novices and experts alike, not only detailing recent progress, but also charting a course for further developments in the cognitive science of belief. (shrink)

This article examines the problem of divine absence from the perspective of the 4th century BC Confucian philosopher, Mencius. It provides an analysis of how Mencius experienced the problem of divine absence, and Mencius’ response to the problem. It discusses the concepts of faith and resentment in Mencian thought. The analysis provides new insights for contemporary discussions of the problem of divine absence.

Much opposition to the notion of dogma arises from fears that accusations of heresy or anathemas are inherently violent. Similarly, opposition to claims of churches having infallible dogmatic authority tend to arise from fears of fanaticism, close-mindedness, and mindless deference to human authority or tradition, and so on. This book justifies dogma but not violence, fanaticism, close-mindedness, or mindless deference. By appeal to philosophical considerations alone, it is argued that positions which call for principled rejection of dogma and/or dogmatic authority (...) are self-defeating for Christian theists to embrace. Discovering these facts then show us Christians ought to be united in commitment to the restoration of communion within one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This book thus proposes a new perspective on which anathemas and dogmatic authority are constitutive components of Christian charity toward others, including the anathematized themselves. This work also furthers ecumenical aims by showing that the best of each Christian theological tradition which insists on the truth and inspiration of Sacred Scripture finds its fulfilment in the future restoration of an undivided Church. (shrink)

I argue that in Sheridan Hough's book Kierkegaard's Dancing Tax Collector, the distinctive and novelistic literary form is not a playful, whimsical, or otherwise contingent feature, but a structure that's needed to convey the account of Kierkegaardian faith as practical in nature.

In this article, I consider the cases of religious Moorean propositions of the form ‘d, but I don't believe that d’ and ‘d, but I believe that ~d’, where d is a religious dogma, proposition, or part of a creed. I argue that such propositions can be genuinely and rationally asserted and that this fact poses a problem for traditional analysis of religious assertion as an expression of faith and of religious faith as entailing belief. In the article, I explore (...) the possibility of undermining these commonly held assumptions and argue that the assertability of religious Moorean propositions can be justified by an account of faith as an intention to form religious beliefs. In the end, I also consider the consequences of such a stance, especially concerning the debate on the ethics of religious belief and doxastic voluntarism. (shrink)

This is a response piece to the commentaries by Alberto Cavallarin and Hans Van Eyghen, Lluis Oviedo, and Konrad Szocik on my book _Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity_.

This précis summarizes my book _Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief_,_ Imagination_,_ and Group Identity_ for its book symposium in _Philosophia._.

Here I respond to the commentaries in the present book symposium on Relgion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity.

This piece is part of a book symposium in _Religion, Brain & Behavior_ on my recent book _Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity_. In it, I respond to commentaries by Bortolotti and Mameli, Funkhouser, Gow, Hong and Boudry, Lewis-Jong, Luhrmann, and van Elk. A key emphasis in this piece is on double coding, in which religious "believers" evince two strikingly different attitudes and behavioral repertoires toward the same phenomenon--the secular one of which seems to deny (...) precisely what the religious one claims. (shrink)

This entry explores the basic commitments of representational theories of belief—theories according to which belief states are representational states. I argue that representationalism fares better when it sheds three myths that often plague it. The first myth is that representationalism requires “sentences in a belief box.” The second is that representationalism implies that belief representations map neatly to belief reports in natural language. The third is that representationalism entails that beliefs always have determinate propositional contents. Shedding these myths shores up (...) representationalism against dispositionalist critiques and makes room for interesting methodological and empirical possibilities that should benefit future belief research. (shrink)

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) made important contributions to mathematics, the theory of probability, and several scientific fields, was one of the inventors of the first mathematical calculator, and was also a deeply religious thinker who grappled with issues concerning the existence of God, the possibility of human salvation, and the sinfulness of human life. His famous Wager is often discussed, but there is much else of interest and relevance in his thought which remains undiscovered. This book provides an accessible yet detailed (...) account of Pascal's philosophy and how it applies to important issues facing all of us today, as well as novel interpretations of Pascal's ideas. It will stimulate and challenge anyone who is interested in the role of the heart in rationality, human nature, our relation to reality and our individual and collective purpose, and the underexplored thoughts of one of history's greatest geniuses. (shrink)

The first part of this chapter reviews themes in my treatment of Wittgenstein in Problems of Religious Luck (2019). My account of the ethics of belief is permissive, but permissivism is only stable when able to provide criteria not just for the grounds of reasonable disagreement but also for its limits . With regard to grounds, I discuss the holistic nature of worldview evaluation, and with regard to limits I discuss concerns with the fideistic suspension of inductive norms, showing how (...) Wittgenstein draws attention to both. The second part shows how these issues apply to religious epistemics. Hinge-epistemology, Reformed Epistemology, and Belief-Credence dualism are distinct but overlapping strategies of insulation. Since the former have been much discussed, I focus on the latter, belief-credence dualism (Buchak, Jackson). A distinction between B-evidence and C-evidence should be amenable to Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion. But while granting the distinction, I also argue that Jackson's ‘dualism’ presents an unbalanced picture, one in which the relevance of aetiological evidence (A-evidence) and psychological research (whether supportive or challenging) is left largely out of view. The triangulated conception of religious epistemics that results from its inclusion balances concern with the form and content of religious belief, and thereby provides for common ground and improved dialogue between philosophers, theologians and psychologists. (shrink)

What is the nature of religious belief, and what factors influence an individual’s formation and maintenance of religious beliefs? This bibliography collects resources that address these questions. Since religious belief is a species of belief, we include resources on belief in general as well as on religious belief in particular. And since important work has been done on these topics in various social sciences as well as in philosophy, we include sources from several disciplines, although we emphasize empirical work from (...) the psychological sciences, with a secondary focus on philosophy. Thus this is not a bibliography on the rationality of religious belief or the epistemology of religious belief. We also set aside sources concerning the relationship between religion and well-being. Moreover, we focus here on religious belief rather than religious commitment, although some of the literature we include on factors influencing religious belief does rightly attend to the role of religious practice and commitment in sustaining belief. Psychologists have a loose taxonomy distinguishing four different aspects of human experience: the affective concerns feelings, the behavioral concerns action, the cognitive concerns thought processes, and the social domain attends to the importance of interpersonal and group dynamics. We use this taxonomy to organize our bibliography. After a list of reference works (section 1), we include key sources on the nature of belief in general and the nature of religious belief (section 2). Sections 3 – 6 then cover belief and affect, belief and behavior, belief and cognition, and belief and social factors, respectively. Section 7 surveys sources on the resilience of belief, and section 8 concerns whether and how human beings can exercise control over their beliefs. (shrink)

This paper examines whether a theological-domain question can remain philosophically admissible under the constraints of the Architecture of Limitation. It asks what follows if an infinite observer is explicitly presupposed while the observing agent remains finite. The paper does not argue for the existence of God, nor does it attempt to derive theological doctrine from a limitation-based framework. Instead, it investigates the structural relation between finite cognition and a presupposed infinite standpoint under conditions of probabilistic access, mediation, interpretation, consequence, and (...) stewardship. -/- The central claim is that presupposition does not become possession: finite relation to infinite observation, if admitted at all, must remain non-total from the finite side. The paper develops pressure surfaces, admissibility constraints, conditional theorems, and failure conditions concerning analogy inflation, theological reduction, non-transfer of infinite access, local orientation without shared adjudication, and stewardship non-immunity. It further situates the inquiry beside adjacent traditions in apophatic theology, learned ignorance, analogical predication, Kantian restraint, religious experience, divine hiddenness, Levinasian infinity, and phenomenology of excess. The result is a conditional stress test of finite reason before infinite reference, rather than a metaphysical closure. (shrink)

At various points in his long career, Schelling affirms central doctrines of Christianity (like the Incarnation) while claiming to do philosophy. His incorporation of religious doctrine into philosophy has long been controversial, and it raises questions about the relationship of reason to revelation, as well as the relationship of philosophy to faith. In this article, I focus on Schelling’s complex answers to such questions in his late philosophy, using as a guide a remarkable analogy he introduces in the Philosophy of (...) Revelation: knowing the truths of revelation is like seeing the moons of the planet Jupiter. My main interpretative claim is this: Schelling stakes out a position on revelation that is unique in the history of philosophy insofar as he makes revelation both essential and unessential for true philosophy. That paradoxical formulation reflects a fundamental tension in his approach to revelation that has largely been neglected by Schelling scholarship. In the last part of the paper, I pose critical questions about Schelling’s position that arise out of that fundamental tension. In particular, I ask whether, despite Schelling’s claims, his approach presupposes a faith commitment—and thus whether his philosophy of revelation would be more accurately labeled “philosophical theology.”. (shrink)

Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain mundane instrumental actions (e.g., Neil believes the switch is connected to the light, so he flipped the switch to illuminate the room). Sometimes people posit "beliefs" to explain group affiliation or identity (e.g., in order to belong to the Christian Reformed Church Neil must believe that God is triune). If we set aside the commonality of the word "belief," we can pose a crucial question: Is the cognitive attitude typically involved in the first "light (...) switch" sort of case the same as the cognitive attitude typically involved in the second "Trinity" sort of case? Or: Is mundanely believing the same cognitive relation as groupishly believing? In this essay, I argue that the answer is no. Mundane Beliefs play their instrumental roles well if they are true, and their manner of processing is accordingly sensitive to evidence. Groupish Beliefs play their identity-constituting roles well if they are distinctive, and their manners of processing accordingly allow for and often support distortions of evidence and truth. The manners of processing are thus so different that--despite the common word "belief"--philosophy of mind and epistemology would do well to recognize distinct cognitive attitudes. (shrink)

The position presented in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments” published under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus—crystallized in the infamous declaration that truth is subjectivity—has often been interpreted as dramatically upholding the rift between the Christian faith and common-sense reason. Through a comparison with Kant’s approach in philosophy of religion, I explain why such a response naturally arises. I then take a stab at making sense of Climacus’ position by comparing his account of faith in the historical God-man with contemporary analytic (...) accounts of hope. The structural similarity between the two suggests that divine incarnation may not be all that puzzling as an object of hope, as it can be judged as morally useful within the framework of Kant’s practical philosophy. The question, then, is whether Climacus is justified in going beyond demanding hope and calling instead for faith, an absolute yes to Jesus. His crucial move is to frame our proper relationship to this person as a case of unconditional love. I take this move to establish Climacus’ subjective truth as a sensible aspirational ideal within Kant’s bounds of mere reason, although it never comes into full possession of finite humans. (shrink)

基督教神秘主义是西方心性传统的重要一脉，其核心实践 “默观”以 “放下” 为根本特 征，即放下思虑、放下形象、放下概念，在静默中与上帝合一。这一实践路径与东方 心性传统，包括佛教禅修、道家坐忘、儒家静坐高度相似，却在西方思想史中长期被 神学话语遮蔽，被视为 “神秘体验” 而非普遍的心性修养。本文以 “一源多元论”“玄弦 论”“三相感”“各归其正” 为原创理论框架，对基督教神秘主义的 “默观” 传统进行系统 性解读与跨文化比较。研究指出，“默观” 的本质与玄弦论的 “放下” 完全一致，都是 让散乱的弦动回归玄静，止息心念攀缘，回归心之本体的清净状态。然而，基督教神 秘主义长期存在 “方法错位” 的困境，即将 “默观” 这一心性实践与 “神学” 这一文化 建构混为一谈，试图用神学教义替代默观实践，或认为默观必须依赖特定的神学信 仰。这种混淆，与朱熹以注经替代修心、以文化建构替代心性修养如出一辙。本文提 出修正方案：心性归心性，默观实践采用玄弦论 “放下” 的方法；文化归文化，神学教 义采用考据、逻辑、体系建构的方法，二者并行不悖、相互支撑。这一分析不仅澄清 了基督教神秘主义的本质与困境，也为东西方心性传统的对话与互鉴提供了方法论启 示。.

Cet ouvrage témoigne et explicite la richesse de l’acte théologique par lequel les théologiens d’hier comme d’aujourd’hui, en opérant un retour réflexif sur leurs méthodes et pratiques théologiques, cherchent à en saisir la normativité interne. Certes, cette entreprise est audacieuse et risquée : le théologien lui-même est profondément engagé dans le discours dont il cherche à saisir la rationalité. Mais cet engagement ne constitue t-il pas la condition nécessaire d’un discours authentiquement théologique ?

The traditional conception of belief in philosophy is that it is an attitude that aims at truth, typically involving high confidence, governed by a strong epistemic norm. Philosophers have recently challenged this longstanding view, sparking debate over how strong the epistemic norms governing belief are and how theoretical uses of the word diverge from its ordinary meaning. In this paper, I argue that the word ‘belief’ is polysemous in ordinary usage. I show that ordinary belief varies significantly both in the (...) strength of the attitude it expresses and in the epistemic norms that govern it. The word ‘belief’ can express a weak or a strong attitude that can be governed by weak, strong, or even no evidentiary norms. The ordinary uses of the word ‘belief’ also diverge significantly from its theoretical uses by philosophers, raising questions about how to best refer to the attitudes we want to discuss. (shrink)

Over the past fifty years, numerous research projects have helped to better articulate scientific and theological discourses on creation. Building on this work, the International Conference organized in 2024 at Lille Catholic University-the proceedings of which are published here-aimed at clarifying how the vision of integral ecology, dear to Pope Francis in Laudato Si', enriches the dialogue between science and theology at a time when digital technosciences (nano-bio-neurotechnologies) and artificial intelligence (AI) are developing. Here one will find the contributions of (...) theologians, philosophers and specialists in the humanities, in dialogue with scientists working in physics, biology, technosciences, and AI. Four plenary lectures introduce the work in the following areas: the theology of creation, the digital revolution, the question of scientific progress today, Christian anthropology, Christian social thought, and peace and fraternity in a context of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. The originality of the approach to the sciencetheology dialogue in the era of integral ecology gradually takes shape as we read through these proceedings and it is the subject of a final review in the form of a conference summary. (shrink)

This paper surveys the epistemology of two attitudes: faith and hope. First, I examine descriptive questions about faith and hope. Faith and hope are resilient attitudes with unique cognitive and conative components; while related, they are also distinct, notably in that hope’s cognitive component is weaker than faith’s. I then turn to faith and hope's epistemic (ir)rationality, and discuss various ways that faith and hope can be rational and irrational. Finally, I discuss the relationship between faith, hope, and knowledge: while (...) it’s controversial whether faith is compatible with knowledge, hope is not compatible with knowledge. (shrink)

The literature on faith has largely focused on the relationship between faith and belief, specifically the question: does faith entail belief? At the same time, it’s also widely held that faith involves a desire or pro-attitude, but more attention has been paid to the specifics of faith’s doxastic component than to faith’s affective component. This paper focuses on the relationship between faith and desire. I’ll argue that faith is weakly positive: while faith may not always involve a flat-out desire, faith (...) necessarily involves a positive desire-like attitude. (shrink)

Probably no part of Fear and Trembling has received more philosophical attention than Problema I, on the teleological suspension of the ethical. It is a dense, potent, and difficult section of argumentation. Unfortunately, beginning in the first paragraph, English translations have suf- fered from a peculiar difficulty in providing a clear and precise translation of its definitions and so also of the dialectical impetus of the section. In this article, I review existing translations, show the difficulties they introduce into the (...) argument, and suggest a better way of expressing Problema I in English. In conclusion, I show how getting the translation right draws Kierkegaard into the main philosophical debates about action theory alongside figures like Aristotle and Kant, and clar- ifies the scope of Silentio’s “paradox” as a particular challenge for understanding the practical reasoning of religious believers. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage collectif donne des exemples concrets illustrant comment l'université catholique de Lille (UCL), portée depuis 150 ans par le courant du catholicisme social, est une communauté « d'Église en sortie », selon l'expression du pape François.

It is commonplace to have faith that democracy will win out in the end, or that a friend will pass her exam. But it seems odd to have faith that all vixens are female foxes, or that 2 + 2 = 4. This paper offers an account of why some propositions, but not others, can be objects for propositional faith. It outlines a range of theories that have been defended on this issue, but shows that each account faces straightforward counterexamples. (...) The paper then proposes a new theory: that an agent can only have faith that p if she does not judge the truth of p to be irrefutable. This account is defended on the grounds that it makes better sense of a range of cases, that it follows from resilience – a constitutive property of faith – and that it fits within historically significant accounts of faith. (shrink)

“I wonder what it is that makes one person push on in the face of difficulty and makes someone else crumble in helplessness.” – Fred Rogers -/- In the movie Rocky IV (1985), heavyweight boxer Rocky Balboa reveals in a heart-to-heart talk with his son that sometimes in the ring he feels like giving up. But, he continues, “going that one more round when you don’t think you can—that’s what makes all the difference in your life.” Perseverance can be a (...) difference-maker, for ill and for good, and when for good, it is widely prized and often the sine qua non of human survival and flourishing. However, understanding when and why perseverance is valuable requires an answer to Mr. Rogers’s question about what it is. In section 1, we briefly answer that question, and we sketch a neo-Aristotelian view of when perseverance is a virtue. In section 2, we exhibit how perseverance shows up in the religious life, in the Hebrew and Christian traditions. In section 3, we show how perseverance infuses faith and faithfulness in both the portrayal of pístis in the Christian New Testament, which was written in Greek, and ʾĕmûnāh in the Hebrew scriptures. We then articulate, in section 4, a theory of faith and faithfulness that accommodates this portrayal, before showing in section 5 how the theory handles other religious data related to the connection between faith and faithfulness, on the one hand, and perseverance, on the other. (shrink)

A key premise in Schellenberg’s Hiddenness Argument draws on his principle Not Open. Schellenberg argues that this premise, which states that “If for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a personal relationship with S at t, then for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists,” “seems (...) clearly to be a necessary truth” (Schellenberg 2016). This paper argues against this claim by raising considerations against Not Open: against the synchronic condition, the attitudinal condition, and the methodological approach taken to support and apply this principle. (shrink)

I have previously argued that John Henry Newman’s seminal monograph, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, was an important influence on the notebooks that make up Wittgenstein’s final work, On Certainty. In particular, I’ve argued that Newman’s brand of anti-evidentialism is a major stimulus for the radical ‘hinge’ conception of the structure of rational evaluation that Wittgenstein offers in these notebooks. I’ve also contended that taking this influence seriously lends impetus to the application of hinge epistemology to (...) the religious case (a position I call quasi-fideism). Having made the case for Newman’s influence, I here consider some of the ways in which Newman’s anti-evidentialism diverges from a Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism, especially once we take seriously Newman’s proto-virtue epistemological remarks about how real assent can be the product of what he terms the illative sense. In an irenic spirit, I also consider what an epistemology of religious belief might look like that aims to incorporate insights from both Newman and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Although doubt (Tvivl) and despair (Fortvivlelse) are widely recognized as two central and closely associated concepts in Kierkegaard’s authorship, their precise relationship remains opaque in the extant interpretive literature. To shed light on their relationship, this paper develops a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the connection between despair and our agency over our beliefs, and its significance for Kierkegaard’s ethics of belief. First, I show that an important yet largely overlooked form of Kierkegaardian despair involves either failing to take (...) ethico-religious responsibility for one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs, or misusing one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs by refusing to recognize or comply with externally given ethico-religious norms governing belief. Second, I argue that Kierkegaard takes properly exercising one’s agency over one’s beliefs to matter because beliefs are partly constitutive of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) that Kierkegaard regards as the cure for despair. (shrink)

It is frequently claimed that an all-loving and good God cannot permit anyone to end up in hell. In this book, the author shows that this issue of God’s permission of hell has an intimate connection with age-old questions regarding why God would permit sin. Indeed, focus on why an all-loving and good God would permit hell is the best lens through which to explain sin. -/- Many arguments against the possibility of hell require affirming that God permits sin because (...) God could not achieve goods for us without allowing sin. The author argues that we have independent philosophical reasons to reject that sin is necessary for us in any way, and, further, we have similar reasons to hold that hell is necessarily possible if the God of classical theism exists. In the end, understanding why an all-loving and good God would permit hell reveals that there is always hope for us, even when things appear most hopeless. -/- The book will appeal to those working in metaphysics, theology, philosophy of religion, and medieval philosophy. (shrink)

This review critically engages Giulio Prisco’s Irrational Mechanics, a speculative and ambitious attempt to synthesise futurist science and metaphysical inquiry into a new religious vision. Prisco’s narrative reimagines Newtonian rationality through a quasi-theological framework that champions transcendent technologies—time travel, resurrection, faster-than-light propulsion—as the metaphysical infrastructure of a post-scientific age. The review situates Prisco’s work within the emerging discourse of space religions, drawing comparisons and contrasts with Astronism, particularly on issues of revelation, grace, morality, and institutional coherence. While praising the imaginative (...) scope and cosmic ambition of Irrational Mechanics, the review critiques its lack of revelatory grounding, ethical orientation, and structural clarity, suggesting these as essential components for any enduring religious system. The review positions Prisco’s work as a provocative, if incomplete, contribution to the growing constellation of philosophies and theologies seeking to unite science, spirituality, and the human future in space. (shrink)

In July 2024, the Astronist Institution published a video on TikTok that, within a week, amassed thousands of views and, up to that point, was the single largest exposure to the public that Astronism received after being founded in 2013. Since being posted, the video has received over 77,000 views, over 1,150 likes, over 120 comments and 297 shares on the platform. The mixed response to the video among members of the public prompts the question: How have people reacted to (...) Astronism so far online? By scouring the internet for reactions to the story of how Astronism was founded and Astronist beliefs and practices, this article answers that question. In turn, it develops an ethnography of Astronists and non-Astronists about their initial response to content published by the Astronist Institution. The article begins by focusing on the “What is Astronism?” video posted on TikTok but broadens its scope to address reactions to Astronism appearing on other platforms. The aim is to analyse comments on the TikTok video and elsewhere to understand early forms of Astronist self-identification, lines of criticism against Astronist doctrine and the themes that people tend to raise whenever they discuss Astronism. (shrink)