The main part of the paper describes the deep connections between the concepts of vices, corruption, and misanthropy. I argue that the full significance of the concept of human vices or failings is only fully appreciated when it is connected to an account of the ways that our social practices and institutions are corrupting, in the sense of facilitating or encouraging the development and exercise of those failings. Moreover, reflection on failings and corruption can lead us to misanthropy, defined in a revisionary sense as a negative, critical verdict on the collective moral character and performance of humankind as it has come to be. At the end of the paper, I tentatively ask if there can be forms of Christian misanthropy.
{"title":"From Vices to Corruption to Misanthropy","authors":"I. Kidd","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i2.66863","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i2.66863","url":null,"abstract":"The main part of the paper describes the deep connections between the concepts of vices, corruption, and misanthropy. I argue that the full significance of the concept of human vices or failings is only fully appreciated when it is connected to an account of the ways that our social practices and institutions are corrupting, in the sense of facilitating or encouraging the development and exercise of those failings. Moreover, reflection on failings and corruption can lead us to misanthropy, defined in a revisionary sense as a negative, critical verdict on the collective moral character and performance of humankind as it has come to be. At the end of the paper, I tentatively ask if there can be forms of Christian misanthropy.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81517744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Augustine’s privation theory of evil maintains that something is evil in virtue of a privation, a lack of something which ought to be present in a particular nature. While it is not evil for a human to lack wings, it is indeed evil for a human to lack rationality according to the end of a rational nature. Much of the literature on the privation theory focuses on whether it can successfully defend against counterexamples of positive evils, such as pain. This focus of the discussion is not surprising, given that the privation theory is a theory about the nature of evil. But it is also a theory that protects venerable theological concerns, namely, that God is the good creator of everything, and that everything is good. It is the purpose of this article to further this discussion on both fronts. I argue that the counterexample of pain still defeats the privation theory despite the most recent defense. What is more, I suggest, this is not theologically disastrous. The individual who rejects the privation theory is not obligated to reject the theological theses which motivate it. To show how a rejection of the privation theory is a live option, I offer an alternative view of evil that also maintains these theological theses and encompasses both privative and positive evils.
{"title":"On the Privation Theory of Evil","authors":"Parker Haratine","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i2.65803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i2.65803","url":null,"abstract":"Augustine’s privation theory of evil maintains that something is evil in virtue of a privation, a lack of something which ought to be present in a particular nature. While it is not evil for a human to lack wings, it is indeed evil for a human to lack rationality according to the end of a rational nature. Much of the literature on the privation theory focuses on whether it can successfully defend against counterexamples of positive evils, such as pain. This focus of the discussion is not surprising, given that the privation theory is a theory about the nature of evil. But it is also a theory that protects venerable theological concerns, namely, that God is the good creator of everything, and that everything is good. It is the purpose of this article to further this discussion on both fronts. I argue that the counterexample of pain still defeats the privation theory despite the most recent defense. What is more, I suggest, this is not theologically disastrous. The individual who rejects the privation theory is not obligated to reject the theological theses which motivate it. To show how a rejection of the privation theory is a live option, I offer an alternative view of evil that also maintains these theological theses and encompasses both privative and positive evils.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"120 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87721663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: For many species that reproduce sexually, how sex is expressed at different points across lifespan is highly contingent and dependent on various environmental factors. For example, in many species of fish, environmental cues can trigger a natural process of sex transition where a female transitions to male. For many species of turtle, incubation temperature influences the likelihood that turtle eggs will hatch males or females. What is the case for Homo sapiens? Is human sex expression influenced by contingent environmental factors like we see in fish and turtles, with whom we share common ancestry and DNA? Our paper explores the current biological science of sex determination and how it applies to philosophical and theological accounts of the human person. We argue that while human sex determination is not susceptible to environmental cues to the same degree we see in other species, there is sufficient variability among the pathways of human sex development to complicate simplistic biological categories of male and female.
{"title":"Sex Determination and the Human Person","authors":"M. Penner, A. M. Cordero, A. J. Nichols","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i1.65183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i1.65183","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: For many species that reproduce sexually, how sex is expressed at different points across lifespan is highly contingent and dependent on various environmental factors. For example, in many species of fish, environmental cues can trigger a natural process of sex transition where a female transitions to male. For many species of turtle, incubation temperature influences the likelihood that turtle eggs will hatch males or females. What is the case for Homo sapiens? Is human sex expression influenced by contingent environmental factors like we see in fish and turtles, with whom we share common ancestry and DNA? Our paper explores the current biological science of sex determination and how it applies to philosophical and theological accounts of the human person. We argue that while human sex determination is not susceptible to environmental cues to the same degree we see in other species, there is sufficient variability among the pathways of human sex development to complicate simplistic biological categories of male and female.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"5 8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83508410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dean Zimmerman has made significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion. In this paper, I set my focus on Zimmerman’s approach to God, time, and creation. Zimmerman has defended a model of God called open theism on which God is essentially temporal. In this paper, I will first articulate open theism. Then I will explore a series of puzzles related to God’s perfect rationality and creation. These can be stated as the following three questions. Why didn’t God create sooner? Why did God create anything at all? Why did God create this universe in particular?
{"title":"Open Theism and Perfect Rationality","authors":"R. Mullins","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i3.73573","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i3.73573","url":null,"abstract":"Dean Zimmerman has made significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion. In this paper, I set my focus on Zimmerman’s approach to God, time, and creation. Zimmerman has defended a model of God called open theism on which God is essentially temporal. In this paper, I will first articulate open theism. Then I will explore a series of puzzles related to God’s perfect rationality and creation. These can be stated as the following three questions. Why didn’t God create sooner? Why did God create anything at all? Why did God create this universe in particular?","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91035065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the first half, I suggest that Kant’s conception of our moral life goes through a significant shift after 1793, with reverberations in his eschatology. The earlier account, based on the postulate of immortality, describes our moral life as an endless pursuit of the highest good, but all this changes in the later account, and I point out three possible reasons for this change of heart. In the second half, I explore how the considerations Kant brings up to argue for his accounts can inform our process of formulating positions with respect to the afterlife. I argue that, in the absence of a convincing theoretical proof for or against the afterlife as well as apodictically certain knowledge of how demanding the moral law is, the Kantian strategy would be to ask which account of our moral life delivers the kind of contentment that can sustain our moral resolve. I also point out a way theists might be able to find contentment despite their moral failures by imagining God’s moral kenosis.
{"title":"Examining a Late Development in Kant’s Conception of Our Moral Life","authors":"J. Woo","doi":"10.14428/thl.v8i1.65623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v8i1.65623","url":null,"abstract":"In the first half, I suggest that Kant’s conception of our moral life goes through a significant shift after 1793, with reverberations in his eschatology. The earlier account, based on the postulate of immortality, describes our moral life as an endless pursuit of the highest good, but all this changes in the later account, and I point out three possible reasons for this change of heart. In the second half, I explore how the considerations Kant brings up to argue for his accounts can inform our process of formulating positions with respect to the afterlife. I argue that, in the absence of a convincing theoretical proof for or against the afterlife as well as apodictically certain knowledge of how demanding the moral law is, the Kantian strategy would be to ask which account of our moral life delivers the kind of contentment that can sustain our moral resolve. I also point out a way theists might be able to find contentment despite their moral failures by imagining God’s moral kenosis.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78222345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I argue that the aesthetic theoretical virtues of beauty, simplicity, and unification, as well as the evidential virtue of explanatory depth, can transform theistic-friendly personal cause (PC) arguments—like the kalām cosmological argument (KCA) and the fine-tuning argument—into stand-alone arguments for monotheism. The aesthetic virtues allow this by providing us with the grounds to rationally accept a perfect personal cause (i.e., God) as the best PC to believe in given the success of some PC argument. Using the KCA as an example, I argue that, once the KCA is accepted and a PC believed in, then a theory that posits a perfect PC as the cause of the universe is more beautiful, simpler, and has more unification and explanatory depth than the imperfect PC normally posited by the KCA’s standard conceptual analysis. And the same would hold true for any imperfect PC. Thus, once a PC argument has been accepted, the perfect PC theory is preferable to hold over any other PC theory. Finally, I address various objections to this reasoning.
{"title":"From Aesthetic Virtues to God:","authors":"R. Miksa","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i2.64083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i2.64083","url":null,"abstract":"I argue that the aesthetic theoretical virtues of beauty, simplicity, and unification, as well as the evidential virtue of explanatory depth, can transform theistic-friendly personal cause (PC) arguments—like the kalām cosmological argument (KCA) and the fine-tuning argument—into stand-alone arguments for monotheism. The aesthetic virtues allow this by providing us with the grounds to rationally accept a perfect personal cause (i.e., God) as the best PC to believe in given the success of some PC argument. Using the KCA as an example, I argue that, once the KCA is accepted and a PC believed in, then a theory that posits a perfect PC as the cause of the universe is more beautiful, simpler, and has more unification and explanatory depth than the imperfect PC normally posited by the KCA’s standard conceptual analysis. And the same would hold true for any imperfect PC. Thus, once a PC argument has been accepted, the perfect PC theory is preferable to hold over any other PC theory. Finally, I address various objections to this reasoning. ","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82080402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the relationship between analytic theology and science-engaged theology through a historical lens, connecting contemporary disagreements between analytic metaphysicians and philosophers of science to a disagreement about philosophical method between Carnap and Quine. After discussing philosophical issues of meaning and verification in early positivism, the paper goes on to suggest that the analytic-synthetic distinction underlying much work in analytic theology is difficult to maintain when engaging with empirical methods of knowledge production such as science. To move forward, then, analytic theologians who wish to pursue science-engaged theology need a constructive methodology that embraces a blurring of the analytic-synthetic distinction. A rough sketch of one such research program, analytic-synthetic science-engaged theology, is offered as a potential ASSET for systematic theologians who wish to engage with natural and human sciences.
{"title":"How to Make Analytic Science-Engaged Theology an ASSET","authors":"M. Page","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i1.63153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i1.63153","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the relationship between analytic theology and science-engaged theology through a historical lens, connecting contemporary disagreements between analytic metaphysicians and philosophers of science to a disagreement about philosophical method between Carnap and Quine. After discussing philosophical issues of meaning and verification in early positivism, the paper goes on to suggest that the analytic-synthetic distinction underlying much work in analytic theology is difficult to maintain when engaging with empirical methods of knowledge production such as science. To move forward, then, analytic theologians who wish to pursue science-engaged theology need a constructive methodology that embraces a blurring of the analytic-synthetic distinction. A rough sketch of one such research program, analytic-synthetic science-engaged theology, is offered as a potential ASSET for systematic theologians who wish to engage with natural and human sciences.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82727456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
La dependencia necesaria de la criatura respecto de Dios ha sido una posición común dentro del teísmo clásico. En los últimos años, sin embargo, se ha contestado dicha posición desde la hipótesis de la inercia existencial. Según esta última teoría, no haría falta recurrir a una causa trascendente para explicar la permanencia en el ser de las cosas. Tomás de Aquino, por el contrario, desde la constatación de una composición en todo ente finito, postula el recurso necesario a algo simple que dé razón de ella.
{"title":"¿Por qué la conservación es necesaria?","authors":"L. Prieto","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i1.66723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i1.66723","url":null,"abstract":"La dependencia necesaria de la criatura respecto de Dios ha sido una posición común dentro del teísmo clásico. En los últimos años, sin embargo, se ha contestado dicha posición desde la hipótesis de la inercia existencial. Según esta última teoría, no haría falta recurrir a una causa trascendente para explicar la permanencia en el ser de las cosas. Tomás de Aquino, por el contrario, desde la constatación de una composición en todo ente finito, postula el recurso necesario a algo simple que dé razón de ella.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87671141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I shall argue that Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a disorder in which seemingly independent identities (alters) arise within the same individual, can have considerable consequences in Christian theology. I shall focus on traditional Christian understandings of the afterlife. I shall begin by outlining DID, and shall argue that in some DID cases, alters appear to be different persons according to some definitions of personhood in Christian theology. I shall then illustrate the difficulty this raises for two influential ideas in the Christian tradition: the heaven and hell understanding of the afterlife, and the idea of the resurrection of the body. Finally, I shall consider some objections to the problem, and shall highlight which responses are the most plausible.
{"title":"Divided Minds and Divine Judgement:","authors":"Harvey Cawdron","doi":"10.14428/thl.v7i1.64093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v7i1.64093","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I shall argue that Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a disorder in which seemingly independent identities (alters) arise within the same individual, can have considerable consequences in Christian theology. I shall focus on traditional Christian understandings of the afterlife. I shall begin by outlining DID, and shall argue that in some DID cases, alters appear to be different persons according to some definitions of personhood in Christian theology. I shall then illustrate the difficulty this raises for two influential ideas in the Christian tradition: the heaven and hell understanding of the afterlife, and the idea of the resurrection of the body. Finally, I shall consider some objections to the problem, and shall highlight which responses are the most plausible.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73076785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I argue that there is a discrepancy between the Thomistic doctrine of divine simplicity and affirming the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity. Since God is an absolutely simple essence whose essence it is to exist, and since the simple God exists as pure act—lacking all potential—there exist no real distinctions in God, such as physical or metaphysical parts, and there exist no divisions in the life of God, who exists in atemporal eternity. Per the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity, the Son is submissive to the will of the Father in the latter but not the former. This appears to be a distinction in the life of the Triune God, which is not acceptable per divine simplicity. After examining the Trinity doctrine and christology of Thomas along with possible solutions to the problem proposed, I conclude that said solutions fail to eliminate the discrepancy between Thomas’s account of simplicity and the immanent-economic distinctions in the life of the Trinity.
{"title":"Thomistic Simplicity and Distinguishing the Immanent and Economic Trinities","authors":"Andrew Hollingsworth","doi":"10.14428/thl.v6i2.68223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v6i2.68223","url":null,"abstract":"I argue that there is a discrepancy between the Thomistic doctrine of divine simplicity and affirming the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity. Since God is an absolutely simple essence whose essence it is to exist, and since the simple God exists as pure act—lacking all potential—there exist no real distinctions in God, such as physical or metaphysical parts, and there exist no divisions in the life of God, who exists in atemporal eternity. Per the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity, the Son is submissive to the will of the Father in the latter but not the former. This appears to be a distinction in the life of the Triune God, which is not acceptable per divine simplicity. After examining the Trinity doctrine and christology of Thomas along with possible solutions to the problem proposed, I conclude that said solutions fail to eliminate the discrepancy between Thomas’s account of simplicity and the immanent-economic distinctions in the life of the Trinity.","PeriodicalId":52326,"journal":{"name":"TheoLogica","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90482196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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