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2024 EPS Southeast Region – Info and Call For Papers

Posted on November 20, 2023 by - regional

2024 EPS Southeast Region Meeting Information

Location: Toccoa Falls College, Toccoa, GA

Plenary Speaker: R. T. Mullins, “Why Would God Create Anything At All?: A Question Classical Theism Cannot Answer”

R.T. Mullins (PhD, University of St Andrews) has published over 50 essays on various topics in philosophical theology related to models of God, philosophy of time, personal identity, the problem of evil, disability theology, the Trinity, and the incarnation. He has published two books, The End of the Timeless God (Oxford University Press, 2016) and God and Emotion (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Mullins has held research and teaching fellowships at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Cambridge, the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Helsinki. When not engaging in philosophical theology, he is often found at a metal show.

Dates: Friday – Saturday, February 23-24, 2024

Paper/Abstract Submission Deadline: January 3, 2024

Meeting Details:

Registration: Presenters and attenders must register for the conference (Register here). Early registration ends on January 23, 2024 (prices increase $5 after this date).

Early Registration Rates (through January 23, 2024)
Full Members: $50
Student Members: $35
Guests: $55
Spouses: $5

Regular Registration Rates
Full Members: $55
Student Members: $40
Guests: $60
Spouses: $10

Paper/Abstract or Panel Discussion Proposals: EPS members of any rank and any region are welcome to submit a paper/abstract or proposals for panel discussions on any topic of interest to Christian philosophers. Please email your proposal with your name, title of paper, and institution to as a doc(x) or PDF attachments to jojopena333@gmail.com no later than January 3, 2024. Papers should be structured to take no more than 25 minutes to read, allowing for a 10-15 minute discussion period.

Schedule

Friday

11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Check-in and Registration
12:30 – 1:45 PM First Plenary Session
2:00 – 2:45 PM Paper Session 1
2:55 – 3:40 PM Paper Session 2
3:50 – 4:25 PM Paper Session 3
4:45 – 5:30 PM Paper Session 4
5:40 – 7:15 PM Banquet Dinner and Second Plenary Session

Saturday:

8:30 – 9:15 AM Paper Session 5
9:25 – 10:10 AM Paper Session 6
10:20 – 11:05 AM Paper Session 7
11:15 – 12:15 PM Third Plenary Session
12:15 – 12:45 PM Business Meeting
1:00 Dismissal

Location, Meals, and Accommodations
The Southeast Regional meeting will take place on the campus of Toccoa Falls College, located at 107 Kincaid Dr., Toccoa Falls, GA 30598. Check-in and Registration open at 11:00 AM in Gate Cottage. Please follow signage to parking on campus.

EPS Executive Committee: Call for Nominations

Posted on October 16, 2023 by - Executive Committee

EPS Executive Committee: Call for Nominations

The Evangelical Philosophical Society is asking for nominees for the upcoming election of new members of the Executive Committee. Each potential candidate must be nominated by two current members of the EPS in order to be considered for being on the final ballot. As you consider who might be a good person to nominate for the Executive Committee, the “Profile for EPS Executive Committee Members” below should be helpful.

Please send your nominations to Chris Lee (CLee@sebts.edu) by Monday October 30.

Sincerely,

Mike Austin, EPS President

PROFILE FOR EPS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

The Evangelical Philosophical Society is deeply committed to sustaining a unique identity in its endeavor to serve both the academy and the church.  Because EPS seeks to fulfill this service as a means towards its ultimate end of bringing glory to the Triune God and spreading the Kingdom of God, it is important that the intellectual commitments and spiritual texture of the EPS are honoring to God.  Therefore, members of the EPS Executive Committee should fit a certain profile by living a life that exemplifies the following four values.

First, an Executive Committee member should value excellence in philosophy.  He or she should exhibit a life of philosophical growth, a commitment to the discipline, and a desire to serve the field of philosophy both because it is intrinsically good to do so and for the honor of Jesus Christ.

Second, an Executive Committee member should exhibit a real sense of faithfulness to the teachings of the inerrant Word of God, along with an eagerness to identify with the Evangelical community.  The EPS is an Evangelical society and it should manifest a desire to be loyal to and defend the views of that community unless, of course, that loyalty or those views are suspect for some reason or another.  Evangelical brothers and sisters who are not philosophers should have a sense that the Executive Committee member is one of them and happy to be their representative in the academic community.

Third, an Executive Committee member should live life with a spiritual texture.  He or she should not be pugnacious, arrogant, or self-absorbed.  Instead, an Executive Committee member should have the texture of servant.  He or she should be seeking to live a holy life and to have a solid Christian family where that is applicable.  He or she should be the sort of person that others recognize as having a genuine, vibrant spiritual life of devotion to the Lord Jesus.

Finally, an Executive Committee member should be strongly committed to being an activist for the cause of Christ.  This commitment should be seen in the member’s desire to do his or her work in order to promote a Christian world view in the world and the church, strengthen the faith of believers, and help to fulfill the Great Commission.   At a practical level, this means that Executive Committee members must commit to serving on at least one sub-committee which addresses the operational needs (e.g. donor relations, increased membership, marketing, web-content, public image, etc.) or future aspirations (international chapters, national outposts, etc.) of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.  Strong candidates should possess the talents and willingness to serve the Executive Committee through the work of its sub-committees. All members and candidates for membership of the Executive Committee must be full, current members of the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

Letter from EPS President Mike Austin

Posted on September 6, 2023 by - EPS

Dear Members of the EPS,

I was just reminiscing about the first time I attended an annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. It was held in Colorado Springs, in 2001. I made the drive down with another student in my PhD program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Four of us crammed into a hotel room to save money. I presented a paper on the argument from contingency, at the same time as William Lane Craig was speaking. I think 3 people attended my talk. At the time, the debate about open theism was raging. It was an interesting first conference, to be sure.

A lot has happened since that meeting in the EPS, the church, and the culture. One thing that has remained the same is the commitment of the EPS to our mission:

The mission of the Evangelical Philosophical Society is to glorify God through the faithful practice of philosophy, fostering a deeper understanding of God and the world he created while both encouraging and enabling Christian philosophers to engage philosophical and spiritual issues in the academy, church, and culture.

The work done by EPS members in our journal and online are important parts of our mission and vision, as are the various meetings and conferences we participate in beyond our annual meeting, such as the AAR, ETS, and APA. I’m grateful that we are a society not only of philosophers, but also scholars from related disciplines, pastors, apologists, campus ministers, and laypersons.

I would like to suggest one thing related to our mission and vision, and more importantly our faithfulness to Jesus, whoever we are and wherever we serve. We must be people of character. Not perfect people, but people of increasing Christlike goodness, “little Christs,” as C.S. Lewis so memorably put it. Our character, our relationships with family, friends, and those in our local church, the content and tone of our work and ministry, must exemplify not only boldness, as needed, but also grace, truth, humility, hope, and the fruit of the Spirit, among other things. 

All of this is the fruit of life together with fellow Christians, and of a consistent practice of the spiritual disciplines we find most helpful. When platforms seem more important than principles, when the pursuit of likes on social media undermines our spiritual formation, when protecting our image is more prized than imitating Christ, staying true to our mission and cultivating moral and intellectual virtue in a transformational union with Christ are vital.

Just something to think about as the new academic year begins.

Institutional Journal Subscriptions

If your institution does not subscribe to our journal, please consider requesting that they do so. The Library Print Subscription rate is relatively low, as these things go. You can direct the person responsible for subscriptions here or via the Philosophy Documentation Center for digital only subscriptions (includes access to back issues since 1999!).

Executive Committee Nominations

Also be on the lookout for a call for nominations for new members of the EPS Executive Committee in early October for a vote to be held in late October/early November.

EPS Annual Meeting in San Antonio

I look forward to seeing many of you at our annual meeting this year, November 14-16 in San Antonio (see here for a program draft). It’s always good to see old friends, make new ones, and learn from one another as we follow the Way, together.

A few special events at the meeting to keep in mind as you plan:

EPS Reception

Tuesday 8:30pm – 10:00pm, Lone Star Ballroom Salon C.

EPS Plenary Address

C. Stephen Evans, “Should Christians Accept a Divine Command Theory of Moral Obligations?”

Wednesday 2:10 – 3:00pm, Grand Hyatt, 2nd Floor Lone Star Ballroom DEF

EPS Business Meeting

Thursday 9:45am – 10:45 am, Convention Center Rm. 303A.

Come here what the EPS is up to, share your own thoughts, etc.

Thanks for your work for Christ and his kingdom!

Sincerely,

Mike Austin
EPS President

The Substance of Consciousness

Posted on May 23, 2023 by - brandon rickabaugh, featured books, jp moreland, substance dualism

In September 2023, Wiley-Blackwell will publish The Substance of Consciousness by Brandon Rickabaugh and J. P. Moreland.

From the publisher’s description:

The Substance of Consciousness delivers a unique and powerful defense of contemporary substance dualism. The book makes the claim that the human person is an embodied fundamental, immaterial, and unifying substance. We offer a multidisciplinary approach, exploring areas of philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, and the sociology of mind-body beliefs. It presents the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and rigorous non-edited work on substance dualism in the field, as well as a detailed history of how property and substance dualism have been presented and evaluated over the last 150 years. Alongside developing new and updated positive arguments for substance dualism, we also discuss key metaphysical notions and distinctions that inform the examination of substance dualism and its alternatives.

Readers will also find:

    • A thorough examination of the recent shift away from standard physicalism and the renaissance of substance dualism.
    • Comprehensive explorations of the likely future of substance dualism in the twenty-first century, including an exhaustive list of proposed research projects for substance dualists.
    • Practical discussion of new and rigorous critiques of significant physicality alternatives, including emergentism and panpsychism.
    • Extensive treatments of philosophy of mind debates about the roles played by staunch/faint-hearted naturalism and theism in establishing or presuming methodology, epistemic priorities, and prior metaphysical commitments.

This unique volume will be perfect for professional philosophers, and also earn a place in the libraries of consciousness researchers, philosophical theologians, and religious studies scholars.

Virtual Conference: Cosmic Mind, Divine Action, and Design-Engaged Theology

Posted on April 1, 2023 by - conference

Date: April 14th, 10 am (GMT-05:00) Central Time (US & Canada).

Register today!

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

Learn more at designtheology.org

The 2023 Carolina Analytic Theology Workshop

Posted on March 23, 2023 by - call for papers

When

The 2023 Carolina Analytic Theology Workshop will take place from Friday, May 19 – Saturday, May 20.

Where

The 2023 workshop is scheduled to take place on the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. 

Why

This is an invite-only workshop that will alternate each year between Anderson University’s Clamp Divinity School (Anderson, SC) and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC).

The purpose of the annual workshop is at least three-fold: 

How

The Workshop’s invite-only nature is designed, in part, so that we have on-hand between 20-30 participants reading and interacting with 8 papers. The four papers a day and restricted number of attendees allows for sustained reflection on the presented research with an intimately sized group of scholars. The vast majority of our attendees will be professional academics, while we also have a few spots reserved for a select group of graduate students, those whom we think would both enjoy and benefit from taking part in the exercise. Invitees will be philosophers, theologians, and biblical scholars. This, we hope, will help cultivate an environment of interdisciplinary engagement.

The papers will be read before the workshop (similar to how the old Logos workshop at Notre Dame was run).  All of these provisions allow for time and space for discussion without the feel of a normal conference, wherein ideas are treated often with a glancing blow rather than sustained thought and reflection. So, we aim genuinely to get new lines of research from scholars wishing to workshop their ideas.

Malik Academic Fellowship with Ratio Christi

Posted on March 23, 2023 by - Fellowship, Uncategorized

In an effort to help fund bright young Christian PhD students entering into the pipeline of secular university academia, we are accepting applications for the Malik Academic Fellowship (MAF). The Malik Academic Fellowship exists to develop a movement of Christian thought leaders in academia by helping fund promising Christian graduate students pursuing academic careers at secular universities.

See the webpage and short video explaining the nature of the MAF at https://ratiochristi.org/resources/malik/

Call for Papers: 2023 EPS Annual Meeting

Posted on February 4, 2023 by - Uncategorized

The 2023 national meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society will be held at the San Antonio Grand Hyatt and the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas from November 14–16. Stephen Evans (Baylor University) will give our plenary address this year entitled, “Should Christians Accept a Divine Command Theory of Moral Obligations?” The meeting will be held in conjunction with the Evangelical Theological Society.

We invite paper submissions or proposals for panel discussions addressing any topic of interest to Christian philosophers. We will be dedicating one morning session (four papers) to the topic of apologetics; so please specify in your submission if you would like to be considered for the apologetics session.

Graduate Student Philosophy Paper Contest

As part of our initiative to help develop graduate student scholarship, the EPS will be awarding a $1000 prize for the best graduate student philosophy paper. In order to be considered for the prize, full papers must be submitted. If you are a graduate student, please indicate this in your submission email so you can be considered for the contest. The final draft of the paper should not exceed 3,200 words. To receive the prize, the author must attend the meeting. If the winning author is unable to attend, the prize will go to the runner-up.

Submissions should include:

  • Author’s name
  • Contact information (at least email)
  • Title of paper
  • Institutional affiliation
  • Time constraints / preferences
    • Days and times you CANNOT read the paper
    • Days and times you would PREFER to read the paper
    • While we will do our best to accommodate your preferences, inflexibility with regard to possible reading times may make your paper more difficult to accept*
  • An abstract of the paper (100-200 words). Strong preference will be shown to submissions including full text of paper.

Deadline and Submission Process:

  • All proposals must be received by April 15, 2023 by the end of the day to be considered.
  • Proposals should be sent as either doc(x) or PDF attachment to: epsblindreview@gmail.com
  • Please indicate whether you are willing to serve as a moderator for EPS sessions.

Guidelines for Presentations

  • Paper should take no more than 25 minutes to read, leaving 10-15 minutes for discussion.
  • Cancellation: Please communicate all cancellations to the moderator of your session. If you need to cancel your presentation and it has already been announced via the conference program, please plan to have a friend or colleague read your paper on your behalf.

Seventh Theistic Ethics Workshop Call for Papers

Posted on January 25, 2023 by - call for papers

Seventh Theistic Ethics Workshop

Location: Wake Forest University
Dates: September 7-9, 2023

Link: https://philosophy.wfu.edu/miller/home/seventh-theistic-ethics-workshop/

Speakers:

  • Cheshire Calhoun (Arizona State)
  • Ryan Preston-Roedder (Occidental)
  • Kyla Ebels-Duggan (Northwestern)
  • Chris Tucker (William & Mary)
  • Patrick Kain (Purdue)

Goal: Contemporary philosophy of religion has been richly informed by important work in metaphysics and epistemology. At the same time, there has not been nearly as much work done at the intersection of philosophy of religion and meta-ethics or normative theory. To help inspire more good work in this area, Christian Miller (Wake Forest), Mark Murphy (Georgetown), and Chris Tucker (William & Mary) have been organizing a series of annual workshops on theistic ethics for a number of years.

Logistics: The seventh workshop will be held at the Graylyn Conference Center at Wake Forest University (www.graylyn.com), one of the nicest conference facilities in the country. We will begin with dinner and the first paper on Thursday, September 7 and conclude at the end of the day on Saturday, September 9, 2023. There will be five invited papers and four spots for submitted papers. All papers have 40 minutes for presentation and at least 40 minutes for discussion.

Themes: “Theistic ethics” is to be understood broadly to include such topics as divine command and divine will theories, God and natural law, ethics and the problem of evil, moral arguments for a theistic being, infused and acquired virtues, the harms and benefits of theistic religions, specific ethical issues in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, and many other topics as well.

Applying: Those interested in participating should submit an abstract of up to 750 words and a current C.V. to Christian Miller at millerc@wfu.edu by June 1, 2023. Word or PDF file formats only. Please prepare abstracts for anonymous review.  For although the organizers seek to have a balanced program both in terms of topics and presenters, the initial stage of review will be done anonymously. Submitters to a previous year’s workshop, whether successful or unsuccessful, are welcome to apply to this year’s workshop.

Questions about the workshop should be sent to millerc@wfu.edu. Notification will be made by June 17, 2023. If your abstract is selected, we will cover all of your expenses for the workshop, including travel (this includes international travel). Co-authors are welcome, but only one author’s expenses can be covered. You do not have to send your paper in advance of the workshop, and it certainly can be a work in progress.

Supported by generous funding from the Carswell Fund of the Wake Forest University Philosophy Department.