The 2012 theme of the Evangelical Philosophical and Theological Society meetings is focused on”Care for Creation.”
Come gather for the EPS plenary address on Wednesday, the 14th @ 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM (Frontier Airlines Center, Ballrooms ABC).
Noted philosopher Charles Taliaferro’s (St. Olaf) will discuss the following topic: “Christian Agrarianism Today; Some lessons from early land stewardship and community-based agriculture in New England”:
In recent decades, there has been a revival of Christian agrarianism with such important spokespersons as Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson. Christian philosophers have much to learn from Berry and others as well as from the agrarian movement in the southern United States. And yet some of the southern agrarians were weak on sustainability, excessive in their opposition to corporations, and less vital than their New England counter-parts in their Christian understanding of virtue and neighborliness. In this address, I propose that there is a neglected, but rich vision of Christian agrarianism in early, colonial New England that can provide us with important resources for thinking about agriculture today. My hope is there might be a movement today of “new theism” (as a counter-part to “new atheism”) which combines an analytic, philosophically rigorous articulation of theism in concert with a heightened sense of our shared, God-given responsibility for land and neighbors.
Goal: This virtual conference draws on intelligent design theory to make the case for a God who cares—and for what that means as humans seek to join God’s redemptive mission in crucial areas of human thinking, responsibility, and life. The conference speakers and participants will center on one unifying question: “What are the implications of Intelligent Design for science-engaged theology?”
Featured Speakers
Steve Meyer: Evidence from Cosmology, Physics, and Origin of Life
Joshua Farris: Evidence for a Cosmic Mind from individual humans
Michael Egnor: Evidence from Neuroscience for Neurotheology
J.P. Moreland: The Soul, ID Research and Science-Engaged Theology
Charles Taliaferro: Cosmic Mind and Implications for Creation & Vocation
Enjoy a 30% discount [expires: 9/1/2019] at Rowman.com/Lexington by using LEX30AUTH18 when ordering.
From the publisher’s description:
Despite its name, “naturalism” as a world-view turns out to be rather unnatural in its strict and more consistent form of materialism and determinism. This is why a number of naturalists opt for a broadened version that includes objective moral values, intrinsic human dignity, consciousness, beauty, personal agency, and the like. But in doing so, broad naturalism begins to look more like theism. As many strict naturalists recognize, broad naturalism must borrow from the metaphysical resources of a theistic world-view, in which such features are very natural, common sensical, and quite “at home” in a theistic framework.
The Naturalness of Belief begins with a naturalistic philosopher’s own perspective of naturalism and naturalness. The remaining chapters take a multifaceted approach in showing theism’s naturalness and greater explanatory power. They examine not only rational reasons for theism’s ability to account for consciousness, intentionality, beauty, human dignity, free will, rationality, and knowledge; they also look at common sensical, existential, psychological, and cultural reasons—in addition to the insights of the cognitive science of religion.
From the publisher’s description of The Naturalness of Belief:
Despite its name, “naturalism” as a world-view turns out to be rather unnatural in its strict and more consistent form of materialism and determinism. This is why a number of naturalists opt for a broadened version that includes objective moral values, intrinsic human dignity, consciousness, beauty, personal agency, and the like. But in doing so, broad naturalism begins to look more like theism. As many strict naturalists recognize, broad naturalism must borrow from the metaphysical resources of a theistic world-view, in which such features are very natural, common sensical, and quite “at home” in a theistic framework.
The Naturalness of Belief begins with a naturalistic philosopher’s own perspective of naturalism and naturalness. The remaining chapters take a multifaceted approach in showing theism’s naturalness and greater explanatory power. They examine not only rational reasons for theism’s ability to account for consciousness, intentionality, beauty, human dignity, free will, rationality, and knowledge; they also look at common sensical, existential, psychological, and cultural reasons—in addition to the insights of the cognitive science of religion.
Enjoy a presentation with Taliaferro fro the Centre for Philosophy of Religion annual conference on “Supernaturalism and Naturalism: Beyond the Divide,” June 23, 2018, at Heythrop College University of London.
The Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS) is pleased to introduce a unique and ongoing Philosophy of Theological Anthropology project! Your contributions, readership, exploration and support are most welcomed. For more on this theme and Christian contributions to philosophy, become a subscriber – for as low as $25 per year! – to Philosophia Christi, the peer-reviewed journal of the EPS [all EPS members receive Philosophia Christi as part of their membership].
Summary of Project
Inaugurated in 2018, The Philosophy of Theological Anthropology is an EPS web project devoted to the foundations and meta-themes of theological anthropology. Contributors seek to highlight a variety of new topics, which are at present underexplored, and fresh philosophical perspectives of older topics. This is an opportunity for philosophers and constructive theologians to explore foundational and innovative themes within theological anthropology from a philosophical perspective.
Topics of interest in this web series include areas of epistemology, metaphysics, Christology, and traditioned anthropology. We are interested in approaches that reconceive in fresh new ways the conditions and foundations for thinking about theological anthropology. This amounts to critical interrogations of commonly held assumptions in the contemporary theological literature on anthropology. We invite contributions that are extensions of previously published works as well as unique speculative pieces.
Areas of Web Project
The present issue will contain topics on anthropology, philosophy of mind, imago Dei [broadly conceived], with the aim toward advancing the philosophical foundations and implications of a theistic anthropology.
Want to Contribute to the Philosophy of Theological Anthropology Project?
Options for contributing: reflection essays, critical responses, book reviews, exploratory essays, dialectical pieces, methodological hybrids (biblical studies to philosophy), how to communicate to the public.
Length: Shorter (e.g., 1500-2000 words) and longer papers (e.g., 6,000 words) are permitted. You are welcome to work with the Project Editors on length issues.
Suggested topics: evolution and theological anthropology, imago Dei, the metaphysics of gender and sexuality, method, Christological anthropology, religious epistemology, and human ontology.
Main Project Categories:
Denominational and Traditioned Theological Anthropology
Gender, Sex, and Sexuality
Sociology, Ethnography, and Theological Anthropology
Science, Design, and Anthropology
Technology and Posthumanism
Morality and Theological Anthropology
Disciplines: Philosophy, Biblical Theology, Philosophical Theology, Systematic/Constructive Theology, Retrieval Theology, Social Science, Humanities (N.B. the aim of the investigation ought to impinge on philosophical-theological matters)
Submit a Proposal: Email a topic, thesis and description of the proposed paper (250 words max) to Project Editors Joshua Farris and Nathan Jacobs [see below]. They will help guide your proposal toward being a contribution of this web project.
Web Project Overseer: Joseph E. Gorra, Consulting Editor, Philosophia Christi.
Please consider becoming a regular annual or monthly financial partner with the Evangelical Philosophical Society in order to expand its reach, support its members, and be a credible presence of Christ-shaped philosophical interests in the academy and into the wider culture!
In 2018, Wiley-Blackwell will publish The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, edited by Jonathan Loose, Angus Menuge, and J. P. Moreland. Jonathan J. Loose is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Psychology at Heythrop College, University of London. Angus J. L. Menuge is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin and President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. J. P. Moreland is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University in La Mirada, California, where he has taught for 28 years.
This volume includes several contributions from EPS members or Philosophia Christi contributors, including the Editors, along with chapters from Charles Taliaferro, William Hasker, Richard Swinburne, Stewart Goetz, Gary Habermas, Joshua Rasmussen, Ross Inman, Brandon Rickabaugh, and John Cooper.
From the publisher’s description of The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism:
A groundbreaking collection of contemporary essays from leading international scholars that provides a balanced and expert account of the resurgent debate about substance dualism and its physicalist alternatives.
Substance dualism has for some time been dismissed as an archaic and defeated position in philosophy of mind, but in recent years, the topic has experienced a resurgence of scholarly interest and has been restored to contemporary prominence by a growing minority of philosophers prepared to interrogate the core principles upon which past objections and misunderstandings rest. As the first book of its kind to bring together a collection of contemporary writing from top proponents and critics in a pro-contra format, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism captures this ongoing dialogue and sets the stage for rigorous and lively discourse around dualist and physicalist accounts of human persons in philosophy.
Chapters explore emergent, Thomistic, Cartesian, and other forms of substance dualism—broadly conceived—in dialogue with leading varieties of physicalism, including animalism, non-reductive physicalism, and constitution theory. Loose, Menuge, and Moreland pair essays from dualist advocates with astute criticism from physicalist opponents and vice versa, highlighting points of contrast for readers in thematic sections while showcasing today’s leading minds engaged in direct debate. Taken together, essays provide nuanced paths of introduction for students, and capture the imagination of professional philosophers looking to expand their understanding of the subject.
Skillfully curated and in touch with contemporary science as well as analytic theology, The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism strikes a measured balanced between advocacy and criticism, and is a first-rate resource for researchers, scholars, and students of philosophy, theology, and neuroscience.
Enjoy a number of engaging video interviews with contributors to The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, which were given in late 2017 at the EPS conference in Providence, Rhode Island. Interviewees include Kevin Corcoran, Gary Habermas, Jonathan Loose, Angus Menuge, J. P. Moreland, Nancey Murphy, Eric Olson, Brandon Rickabaugh, and Richard Swinburne [for more print contributions from many of the interviewees on physicalism and substance dualism, see the symposium discussion in the Summer 2018 issue of Philosophia Christi].
In addition, despite ill health, Lynne Rudder Baker kindly invited Jonathan Loose to her home prior to the conference and gave, according to Loose, what turned out probably to be her last interview on her work.
Subscribe directly to the “Mind Matters” and follow Twitter announcements from @jonathanjloose about new video interviews to be released!
Support the EPS to expand its reach, support its members, and be a credible presence of Christ-shaped philosophical interests in the academy and into the wider culture! Right now, there couldn’t be a better time to multiply your support of the EPS in 2018 light of a $25,000 matching grant from an anonymous donor. Help us reach and exceed our $50,000 goal!!
In 2018, Bloomsbury Academic will release the 2nd edition of Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed by Chad V. Meister. Meister is Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Bethel College, Indiana, USA. He is the author or editor of 20 books, many of them on evil, including The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil (co-edited with Paul Moser), God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views (co-edited with James Dew), and the six-volume The History of Evil (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro).
From the publisher’s description of Evil:
Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed is a lively examination of the philosophical and theological problems raised by the existence of widespread evil. It explores classic debates around this problem and also engages with more recent ones, from new challenges posed by scientific advances in evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and cosmology, to concerns of climate change and environmental degradation, to questions raised by increasing religious and secular violence. This second edition is fully revised and updated and contains three new chapters covering topics such as Jewish, Christian, and Islamic responses to evil and skeptical theism. The result is an even-handed guide to both traditional and contemporary issues raised by the reality and ubiquity of evil.
In 2017, Independent Institute published Pope Francis and the Caring Society, edited by Robert M. Whaples. Whaples is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Co-Editor and Managing Editor for The Independent Review, Professor of Economics at Wake Forest University, Director and Book Review Editor for EH.NET, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute.
Pope Francis and the Caring Society is a thoughtful exploration of the Pope’s earnest call for a dialogue on building a truly compassionate society. Francis’s fervent support for uplifting the poor and protecting the environment has inspired far-reaching discussions worldwide: Do capitalism and socialism have positive or negative social consequences? What is the most effective way to fight poverty? And what value does a religious perspective offer in addressing moral, political, and economic problems?
Pope Francis and the Caring Society is an indispensable resource for consideration of these vital questions. Edited by Robert M. Whaples, with a foreword by Michael Novak, the book provides an integrated perspective on Francis and the issues he has raised, examining the intersection of religion, politics, and economics. Readers will discover important historical and cultural context for considering Francis’s views, along with alternative solutions for environmental preservation, a defense of Francis’s criticism of power and privilege, a case for market-based entrepreneurship and private charity as potent tools for fighting poverty, and an examination of Francis’s philosophy of the family. Pope Francis and the Caring Society is essential reading for anyone interested in creating a better, more caring, and prosperous world.
EPS members, Charles Taliaferro and J.P. Moreland say of the book:
Pope Francis and the Caring Society is outstanding and absolutely essential reading for those seeking to engage the theology and values of Pope Francis on the issues of our day: the economies in contemporary democratic republics, the wealth and poverty of peoples, the political implications of a Christian theology of care and compassion, the values of liberty and family, and, of increasing importance for national and international relations, the challenge of addressing climate change. It will also be of great interest for non-Catholic and general readers seeking an intelligent, critical guide to the interrelationship of politics, economics, and religious faith.
Pope Francis and the Caring Society is a stunning achievement. It is high-level scholarship put in prose that is accessible to the lay reader. And it is must reading for biblical exegetes, theologians, pastors and Christian leaders in general because, in a fair and careful way, the book brings conceptual economic clarity to those who often speak to and for the church about matters economical without the training to do so. One main purpose of the book is to clarify and defend the proposition that the teachings of Jesus (and scripture generally) set the ends for Christians (and many of these ends are set for everyone by way of natural law) regarding a cluster of related issues taken up within its pages, but it is the science of economics that provides knowledge of the best means to reach those ends. Much—usually unintentional—harm has been done by people who have failed to learn the economic justification for those means, but with the publication of Pope Francis and the Caring Society, that problem can now be laid to rest. A marvelous book.
In 2018, Lexington Books released 
In 2018, Wiley-Blackwell will publish 
In 2018, Bloomsbury Academic will release the 2nd edition of 
In 2017, Independent Institute published 