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Abstract: In this paper, I examine Graham Oppy's claim that all modal theistic arguments "must be question-begging," since they presuppose a particular account of the nature of possible worlds "which can only be supported by the further claim that God actually exists." I argue that Oppy is mistaken here. For even if theism implies the falsity of (say) David Lewis' concretist account of worlds, a proof for God that starts from this assumption isn't thereby ensnared in a vicious circularity. I go on to present some materials for a modal theistic proof immune to all of Oppy's criticisms.

Abstract: A fascinating issue in applied ethics is the question of when it is permissible to appropriate the products of someone’s evil action. Should medical researchers, for example, be permitted to cite medical data obtained from the grossly unethical experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II? Though the use to which the product will be put is typically beneficent or morally neutral, use of such products can still generate significant moral controversy. An amazing fact about the God of the Bible is that he is an appropriator of evil. God uses the suffering of his children to develop their characters (Heb. 12:5-11; 1 Pet. 4:1-3); he used the evil done to Joseph to place him in a position to help in a time of famine (Gen. 50:20). And, most significantly, God took the evil done to Christ at the crucifixion and appropriated it to accomplish the redemption of humanity (Isa. 53; Acts 3:13-19). In this paper, I first offer a more detailed characterization of appropriation problems and the sorts of rationales that are offered to oppose appropriation. I then argue that God’s appropriation of evil is always righteous because he always appropriates evil in order to defeat evil.

Abstract: Materialists have advanced several arguments to show that "downward causation" (mental to physical causation) is impossible. It is claimed that downward causation: (1) violates the causal closure of the physical; (2) is incompatible with natural law; (3) cannot be reconciled with the empirical evidence from neuroscience. This paper responds to these objections by arguing that: (1) there is no good reason to believe that the physical is causally closed; (2) properly understood, natural laws are compatible with downward causation; (3) recent findings in neuroscience reported by Schwartz, Beauregard and others provide strong empirical support for downward causation.

Abstract: This paper is a response to the re-emergent claim that Christianity developed put of a first-century Judaism that was doctrinally influenced by Hellenistic pagan religions. I will demonstrate that the evidence available maintains a first-century Jewish faith exclusively monotheistic in doctrine; leading to ritualistic and, to some degree, cultural separatism due to a fear of defilement. Because of this very exclusivity, the first Christians – being first-century Jews – would not have inserted or adapted pagan religious ideas into their belief for the same fear of defiling the one true God. Instead, the earliest evidence presents Jewish-Christians equating Jesus with the monotheistic Godhead and honoring Jesus with the divine worship of which only the Jewish God is worthy. The evidence for this case can be found in 1) an examination of the doctrine and praxis of ancient Judaism as understood in its first century environment, 2) in the early evidence from Paul’s writings in which he equates Jesus with God and rebukes the practices of the pagan religions, and 3) in the lack of evidence to support claims of early influence by pagan religions, because Christianity developed from a monotheistic Jewish faith that fails to – and refused to – align with normal mythological religious patterns.

Abstract: Savant Syndrome is a remarkable condition in which individuals with severe mental disabilities exhibit "islands of genius." The movie Rain Man, which focuses on an autistic savant, has brought about increased awareness of this rare syndrome in which the afflicted show extraordinary skill in music performance, art, calendar calculating, mathematics, or mechanical or spatial skills. Modern neuroscience continues to be unable to explain how such remarkable abilities manifest themselves in the midst of such debilitating handicaps. Substance dualism provides a template through which one might gain insight into the phenomena associated with Savant Syndrome. These are less satisfactorily explained from a monistic physicalist account of human beings. For the substance dualist, an investigation into these phenomena may shed light into the nature of the soul. For those not convinced of the existence of a non-material soul, the increased explanatory power of the substance dualist position in regard to the phenomena of Savant Syndrome may provide greater reason to consider the substance dualist position superior to the monist position. If by positing the existence of the soul, one may gain insight into the complexities of Savant Syndrome, perhaps there is reason to believe there is a little "savant" inside us all.

Abstract: What are the philosophical meanings and implications of human death? How should the inevitable fact of human death inform the philosophical judgments we make? What can we learn from death, and how should that influence our worldview or our metaphilosophical choices? What are some of the specific philosophical problems that might be illumined by reflection on death? Does the brute fact of death in any way support or even privilege a Christian philosophy of life as over against other approaches or outlooks? Might death serve as a call to critical realism in philosophy? This paper will trace the meaning of death for philosophy by drawing on a fairly diverse array of sources, including Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Socrates, the Stoics, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Hegel, Miguel de Unamuno, Peter Kreeft, and Paul K. Moser.

Abstract: For centuries, philosophical naturalists have claimed that science provides strong epistemic support for their worldview. Many of these naturalists also espouse methodological naturalism, the view that science cannot consider ‘God hypotheses’ but must explain phenomena only by natural causes. For these thinkers philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism go hand-in-hand.

This essay argues that philosophical naturalists ought to reject methodological naturalism in science. When linked to methodological naturalism, philosophical naturalism actually moves toward a kind of epistemic fundamentalism. Joined with methodological naturalism, philosophical naturalism can never be scientifically disconfirmed but will always be confirmed. ‘God hypotheses,’ on the other hand, can never be scientifically confirmed, yet many philosophical naturalists believe that they can be scientifically disconfirmed. Moreover, when philosophical naturalism is united with methodological naturalism, this dynamic holds regardless of the empirical evidence. For example, the confirmation of philosophical naturalism is guaranteed because methodological naturalism mandates that the only theories considered are naturalistic ones; hence, the theory with the greatest epistemic virtues must be naturalistic—no matter what the empirical evidence is. Thus, the union of philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism produces a kind of dogmatism in which the ground rules are biased toward philosophical naturalism and empirical evidence is marginalized. The philosophical naturalist has created terms of engagement in which theistic-friendly hypotheses cannot succeed, but are likely to fail. Naturalistic hypotheses, however, cannot fail but must succeed. Heads I win, tails you lose.

This essay recommends that philosophical naturalists avoid dogmatism by adopting a two-tier conception of science: in private they should retain methodological naturalism but in public they should adopt a pluralistic conception of science free from methodological naturalism. This allows philosophical naturalists to pursue a robust (private) naturalistic research program while also having a public science that genuinely considers God hypotheses in the hope of disconfirming them.

From a Christian perspective, the strategy of this essay is to draw philosophical naturalists into a serious scientific dispute with God hypotheses, instead of being dismissive of these hypotheses under the pretense of methodological naturalism. When philosophical naturalists engage God hypotheses, I predict that the scientific case for philosophical naturalism will be attenuated and the overall scientific credibility of theism will be enhanced.

Abstract: One of ontological naturalism's greatest perceived strengths is our ability on that basis to know reality. Several naturalists (e.g., Tye, Dretske, and Papineau) argue that we reality directly. Yet, they realize that they must given an account of intentionality, which for many has been considered the hallmark of the mental. They even grant much of what dualists say must be true of intentionality. But, they argue that intentional states are reducible to brain states, yet brain states may be conceptualized as intentional. Alternatively, Daniel Dennett thinks intentionality is just attributions we make of certain physical systems from the intentional stance.

Here, we may learn an important lesson for naturalism: without any intrinsically intentional states, nothing will be given to us; all experience, and all knowledge, will be our taking things to be certain ways, without any way to get started or know how reality truly is.

There are implications for Christian physicalists, too. If they leave no place for intrinsic intentionality, the lessons will be the same. Suppose though that someone allows for emergent, irreducibly intentional states that simply are of their objects. But, I shall argue that this move will be sufficient for us to know reality.

Abstract: Darwinian evolutionary naturalism (DEN) is the strongest force for the legitimate expression of research in the sciences or the humanities today. I attempt to address some issues that DEN still need take under consideration. This paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 is a struggle to find a coherent definition of DEN as it is currently understood. The common thread I find running through all definitions is the following: DEN is a belief or research paradigm that excludes any teleological, theological or supernatural explanations for the elucidation of phenomena in the universe. In Part 2, I address the supposed unscientific presuppositions of DEN. This leads us to the question of scientific methodology. Famous philosopher of science Karl Popper wrote, “the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.” If we cannot or are not allowed to consider the falsifiability, or refutability of DEN, then it is according to Popper, a non-scientific theory. Is this critique true? Is DEN a non-scientific theory? Finally in Part 3, I frame and articulate to the DEN’s community a strong argument against DEN ala Alvin Plantinga and Richard Taylor. This argument states that if our cognitive faculties have arisen by purely natural, unguided forces, then, although they can be trusted to arrive at pragmatic conclusions, they cannot be trusted to arrive at truthful conclusions.

Abstract: Is the good good because it is loved by the gods, or do they love it because it is good? (Euthyphro, 10a). Ostensibly, Christian theologians have found this dilemma unsavory, for accepting the first lemma makes goodness seemingly arbitrary, while the second makes goodness separate from god, and seemingly a se. In this vein, William Craig has recently attacked metaphysical (platonic) realism with regard to properties, arguing that such a position contradicts a historical understanding of God's aseity. A common response by realists to this argument is that God simply created those properties. Craig has responded with his Bootstrapping Objection: How could God have created at least some properties (e.g. being powerful) without already possessing those properties? This paper seeks to demonstrate the analogies between the famous Euthyphro dilemma and Craig's Bootstrapping objection, along with the analogous responses to them both.

Abstract: The ecosystem concept as it has been used in ecology is broad enough that organisms qualify as small ecosystems. So if human bodies are taken to be organisms, human bodies are ecosystems. This way of thinking about bodies is especially useful given a variety of well-known puzzles about the constitution and persistence of material objects. A number of these provide reason to doubt that any single material object is a human body, in which case it is helpful to think of bodies as relatively stable systems of objects.
The puzzles about material composites also suggest an argument that human persons are not material objects at all. Ecological immaterialism is the view that not only bodies themselves but also bodies and souls together form ecosystems, i.e., dynamic systems with a high degree of functional unity. Ecological immaterialism contrasts with a Platonic view of the body in that it is fully consonant with a Christian understanding of its value and its significance for us. The view thus avoids disadvantages often attributed to immaterialism and secures advantages often claimed for versions of physicalism.

Abstract: C. S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is a new book that makes a significant contribution to C. S. Lewis studies and will be of interest to philosophers, aficionados and any who have an interst in the writings of C.S. Lewis. This book is a collection of essays presented at the 2005 C. S. Lewis Oxbridge Conference held jointly at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Fifteen essays explore three major philosophical themes from the writings of Lewis--Truth, Goodness and Beauty. It provides a comprehensive overview of Lewis's philosophical thinking on arguments for Christianity, the character of God, theodicy, moral goodness, heaven and hell, a theory of literature and the place of the imagination.

Abstract: Circular reasoning, or question begging, is among the most common logical fallacies. This paper compares two usages of presuppositional circular reasoning: one by Darwinian naturalists and the other by Christian theists. The former deny the usage and the latter embrace it. More attentions are paid to scientists’ use of tautological arguments, which are difficult to detect.

Abstract: In the first part of this paper I argue that ‘God’ is not a proper name, rather ‘God’ is a general term. I argue that context determines whether ‘God’ functions semantically as a mass term (similar to that of ‘water’) or a count noun. However, ‘God’ can also function as a count noun, i.e. the second occurrence of ‘God’ in the following: “I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” In the second part of this paper I explain what ‘God’ refers to if ‘God’ is a general term. The semantic content of general terms are the species or the substance that a natural kind k designates. If mass terms designate a substance, e.g. the semantic content of ‘water’ is H2O (and ‘God’ also functions as a mass term such as water), then ‘God’ refers to the divine substance, namely The Triune God.

Abstract: Within Evangelical theology there appears to be a considerable range of opinion about the place and propriety of positive apologetics. Some maintain that a basis in reason is required for Christian belief to be warranted. Others claim that rational arguments could never contribute to warrant for Christian belief. Alvin Plantinga, in response to a suggestion from Stephen Wykstra, seems to adopt a middle position. Whilst the arguments in favour of Christian belief (at least those that have been developed thus far) are of themselves insufficient for warranted belief, they may nevertheless make a contribution to warrant. In this paper, I take up Plantinga’s suggestion that belief might arise from multiple sources of warrant. I suggest, with illustration, that there are roughly two ways this might go. Either warrant for the belief actually derives from an inference made on the basis of beliefs that issue from multiple independent faculties; or, inference assists either external rationality in its formation of phenomenal experience, or internal rationality in its forming of appropriate belief in response to that phenomenology. The second of these takes an affirming view of the importance of positive apologetics without conceding an independent warrant contributing role. In other words, inferences made from rational arguments serve as catalysts to or extensions of the deliverances of faith. On this non-evidentialist view, God creates and sustains his own possibility of being known, making use of arguments from reason as the harmonic cognitive reverberations of faith, creating a crescendo of warrant sufficient for knowledge.

Abstract: The disturbing God acknowledged by Jewish and Christian theism is not static but dynamic, interactive, and elusive. In particular, this God reveals himself to some people at times and hides himself from some people at times, for the sake of gaining fellowship with people. As a result, this God is cognitively elusive, since the claim that this God exists is not obviously true or even beyond evidentially grounded doubt for all capable mature inquirers. Let’s think of the God in question as “the living God” in virtue of this God’s being personally interactive with some agents and cognitively nimble and dynamic rather than functionally or cognitively static. This God, more specifically, is elusive for good reasons, that is, for reasonable divine purposes that fit with God’s unique character of being worthy of worship and thus being morally perfect. Accordingly, we should expect any evidence of God’s existence for humans to be purposively available to humans, that is, available to humans in a way that conforms to God’s perfectly good purposes for humans. This paper explores the striking consequences of this position for natural theology in particular and for theistic philosophy in general. It outlines an epistemology of God’s existence that is pneumatic, owing to a personal divine Spirit (who cannot be reduced to Calvin’s sensus divinitatis), and that is thus foreign to secular epistemology and to much philosophy of religion. It is also an incarnational epistemology, given its cognitive role for God’s Spirit dwelling in humans, in such a way that they become a temple of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). We may think of incarnational epistemology as requiring that human inquirers themselves become evidence of God’s reality in virtue of becoming God’s temple. In this approach, characteristic evidence of God’s reality is increasingly available to me as I myself am increasingly willing to become such evidence.

The epistemology offered is grace-based, in that firsthand knowledge of God’s reality is a direct gift of God’s grace. The cognitive grace in question supplies a cognitive gift that replaces any demand for intellectual earning, controlling, or dominating with a freely given presence of God’s inviting and transforming Spirit who seeks fellowship with humans. This cognitive, irreducibly personal gift must be appropriated by humans in Gethsemane struggles, given the human condition of sin, but it is not shrouded in philosophical sophistication of the sort accompanying contemporary natural theology. This gift is directly challenging toward natural human ways that resist God, including toward human cognitive idolatry, but it does not get bogged down in its own intellectual complications. It revolves around God’s gracious call to humans for the sake of divine-human fellowship, and this call is to be received, and obeyed, in an I-Thou acquaintance between a human and God. Natural theology, as the paper contends, omits such distinctive interactive foundational evidence to its own detriment.

Stay tuned for further discussion about this paper in a forthcoming issue of Philosophia Christi!

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the following comment by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Nietzsche's Superman is not really, as he supposed, the opposite of the Christian; without knowing it, Nietzsche has here introduced many traits of the Christian made free, as Paul and Luther describe him." In particular, I shall attempt, using Bonhoeffer's view of Christian ethics, to show the similarity between the ethical life of the Ubermensche and the Christian. Bonhoeffer and Nietzsche share a negative view of deontological ethics - Bonhoeffer uses the language of law or duty, while Nietzsche opposes all generalization or abstraction of morality. I shall give a brief description and justification of Bonhoeffer's ethic, and then argue that, in light of this, Nietzsche's Ubermensche is, with a few qualitications, an appropriate description of the ethical life of the Christian.

Abstract: Graham Oppy's Arguing about Gods (2006) and his Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity (2005) are the most potent critique to date of the kalam-style arguments against the infinity of the past and for the beginning of the universe. In this paper, I seek to answer Oppy's criticisms of the arguments based on the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite and of the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition

Abstract: In Sources of the Self and now in A Secular Age, Charles Taylor examines the genealogy and meaning of secularization. In A Secular Age, Taylor distinguishes three varieties, of which his primary concern is to understand and explicate the third: (1) political secularization, (2) the falling off of religious practice, and (3) the change of conditions of belief whereby religion is just one more option among many. Still, Taylor believes and articulates a defense of belief rooted in the need for identity and meaning.

In this paper, I should like to (a) summarize the salient points of Taylor's argument in both Sources of the Self and A Secular Age before (b) claiming that his work justifies a reconsideration of the apologetics of disengaged rationality. Rather than treating theistic belief as a warranted or unwarranted in terms of abstract argument, the apologetics of a secular age could and should privilege history, aesthetic value, identity formation, moral phenomenology, and and moral space. To do so, however, would require evangelical apologists to embrace the genealogical method while relying less on the conditions of belief proper to disengaged understandings of human identity and rationality.

Abstract: Two popular responses to the problem of evil are the free will defense (cf. Alvin Plantinga and Bruce Reichenbach) and the soul-making theodicy (cf. John Hick and Marilyn McCord Adams). Both are essentially “higher good” approaches to the problem, as each argues that God is justified in permitting evil because of something else that is valuable. In the former case it is human freedom, and in the latter it is character development. In this paper I consider which, if either, of these approaches is superior. My aim is not to show that either actually succeeds in defeating the evidential objection from evil but only to compare (and contrast) them. In examining the two approaches, I discuss their respective ends in view, why each is valuable, and the preconditions for their attainment.

Abstract: The philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were watershed moments in the history of Western thought that share intriguing characteristics. Both saw the intellectual and moral landscape of European society to be a wilderness of despair and suffering. Because Kierkegaard saw Christiandom as a non-Christian culture afflicted by finitude, he prophetically called his contemporaries to a genuine faith in God. Nietzsche understood the wilderness to be caused by the intellectual and moral crisis resulting from the 'death of God' and the rise of nihilism. Nietzsche's solution to the crisis was to call his and future generations to an uncompromising faith in human nature.

This paper will analyze and critically evaluate the elements of the conflicting and competing faiths to which Kierkegaard and Nietzsche called their readers, which were based on radically differing theistic and anthropological judgments. Based on the Kierkegaard's three-fold conception of aesthetic, ethical, and religious faith, I will argue that his call to radical faith (which is based on his existential philosophy of human nature) triumphs over Nietzsche's. My critique of Nietsche will be based largely on inherently weak and immature faith in human nature.

Abstract: It seems like Nietzsche was obsessed with criticizing Christianity. Well, to be fair, we could add the composer Wagner to the list of his obsessions. Perhaps Nietzsche was at his obsessive best on those occasions when he criticized Wagner for pandering a Christian opera such as Parsifal. Be that as it may, this paper will focus on Nietzsche’s criticism of Christian morality with a view toward what Christians may gratefully receive from his sustained and relentless attack on it.

Where did that the concept of guilt originate and what accounts for its intensification and internalization in modern culture? The second essay of On the Genealogy of Morality provides Nietzsche’s answers. In fact, Nietzsche first gives a provisional answer to these questions but concludes his essay with a provocative, surprising conclusion. Nietzsche begins his investigation of guilt consciousness with an analysis of the sovereign individual. The sovereign individual represents a very high type of human being because such a person possesses his/her own conscience. The activity that showcases the high level of conscience possessed by the sovereign individual is promise-making. In promise-making one establishes one’s own conscience toward what the promise encompasses. The capacities required for promise-making were achieved by pain and violence and by what Nietzsche termed the “bad conscience.” The bad conscience was the forerunner of the sovereign individual’s higher conscience. The bad conscience is essentially the redirection of the activity of blaming from others to oneself. Self-blaming was intensified by the notions of a holy God and a sinful nature. One would anticipate that the erosion of God-consciousness in our culture would simultaneously bring about a lesser sense of sin and guilt in members of the modern state. But Nietzsche claims that this is not the case.

This paper will show that Nietzsche’s final hypothesis toward the origin and development of the bad conscience offers Christians valuable insights for new directions in moral thinking. A revised story of the Fall of Man will be presented to illustrate the fecundity of Nietzsche’s psychological insights.

Abstract: After a brief summary of the current state of recent studies, this paper addresses the latest extended debate over whether veridical data exist that establish that NDEs are not hallucinations or other natural phenomena. Further attention is given regarding whether NDE reports confront naturalism with another research challenge that cannot fit easily into their perspective.

Abstract: In this paper, I attempt to defend agent-causation from some empirical objections that have recently been brought against it. It has been recently argued by Derk Pereboom (Living Without Free Will), for example, that an agent-causal view cannot fit in, so to speak, with our best scientific theories for two reasons: First, it would seem to commit us either to the ability of agents to somehow supersede the microlevel laws governing their bodies or else to the fundamental incompleteness of those laws. Secondly, if agents are not constrained by those laws, in a deterministic or probabilistic way, then we should expect actions to be more random and unpredictable than they in fact are. I argue that both of these objections can be met by setting forth an agent-causal view that is realist about causation and integrated with respect to reasons.

Abstract: In this paper, I present and explain two competing arguments: one for the conclusion that all Christians ought to be willing to revise all of their beliefs about Jesus, and the other for the conclusion that it is not the case that all Christians ought to be willing to revise all of their beliefs about Jesus. Each argument on its own seems rather plausible. This causes trouble. I argue that the way out of the trouble is to identify an important ambiguity in the arguments. Unfortunately, this way out of the trouble brings new trouble for Christians. I consider one way out of this new trouble and argue that it is not defensible. Christians have some work to do.

Abstract: In scientific and ordinary discourse, it is not unusual for any of us to attribute dispositional properties to objections. Examples includes the solubility of salt and the compassion of a person. Furthermore, the issue of ungrounded dispositional properties has attracted an increasing amount of attention in recent years not only from the standpoint of theoretical physics, but more so from contemporary analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science. However, it is well known that the various attempts made in the 20th century to account for dispositional properties by means of analyses of counterfactual conditionals (the simple conditional analysis, the familiar Stalnaker-Lewis possible worlds analysis, and Lewis' reformed conditinal analysis) have been found inadequate prompting more revisionsand counter-proposals. In this paper, I offer a justification based on four widely-accepted conditions that any account must meet to be considered adequate.

Abstract: When considering truths which do not seem knowable by God, we are urged to go one of two ways: limit the concept of omniscience and so preserve one of God's traditional attributes; or maintain a robust concept of omniscience, deny that anyone fulfills the criteria, and maintain that God is nevertheless praiseworthy in virtue of possessing knowledge in some maximal sense. I will examine one particular restriction that has been posed by those who favor the former approach. More specifically, I will argue that those who restrict the concept of omniscience out of a concern for maintaining God's deliberative powers do so unnecessarily. In so arguing, I will show that there are two plausible ways to conceive of divine deliberation (or lack thereof), neither of which requires a limitation on the concept of omniscience or on the application of that concept to God.

Abstract: Darwinism fails to handle the comprehensive splendor of nature, whether in the desert, jungle, mountain range, prairie, ocean, or starry heavens above. All the natural world is attuned to man's aesthetic sensibilities, and his attunement cannot be accounted for by natural selection or by habituation to one's environment. This fit cannot be the result of evolutionary development, since aesthetic distress is not a killer. It is not as though those who found glaciers and waterfalls ugly died of disgust or lack of consort. On the contrary, one might argue demographically that slum dwelling, with attendant eyesores, is congenial for procreation. And one might argue that the artistic temperament is even less advantageous in the search for mates than is the athletic, military, or commercial temperament. Yet, a species-wide preference for and fascination with cypress swamps, pine forests, sea-casts, brooks, and canyons persists. This means havor for Darwinism.

Abstract: In a recent essay, Michael Murray describes what he calls a “natural consequence” model of hell. Together with the “penalty” model, which Murray also discusses, the natural consequence model has a number of virtues as a response to typical objections against the traditional Christian doctrine of hell. However, the natural consequence model suffers from a small defect that leaves it open to an important objection. Specifically, as described by Murray, the denizens of hell in the natural consequence model are arguably there a