Abstract. The modern concept of the inner self containing a private inner world has ancient philosophical and religious roots. These begin with Plato's intelligible world of ideas. In Plotinus, the intelligible world becomes the inner world of the divine Mind and its ideas, which the soul sees by turning “into the inside.” Augustine made the inner world into something merely human, not a world of divine ideas, so that the soul seeking for God must turn in, then up: entering into (...) itself and then looking above itself at the intelligible light of God. In modernity, “ideas” become the immediate object of every act of mental perception, the essential inner objects of the mind's eye. Locke makes the inner space inescapably private, excluding the divine inner light. Postmodern attempts to reconceive the relation of mind and world, rejecting the modern conception of a private inner self, will need to deal with lingering Platonist intuitions about the immediacy of the mind's vision. (shrink)

I defend the compatibility of the classical theistic doctrine of divine providence, which includes infallible foreknowledge of all future events, with a libertarian understanding of creaturely free will. After setting out the argument for theological determinism, which purports to show the inconsistency of foreknowledge and freedom, I reject several responses as inadequate and then defend the ‚Ockhamist‛ response as successful. I further argue that the theory of middle knowledge or ‚Molinism‛ is crucial to the viability of the Ockhamist response, and (...) proceed to defend Molinism against the most pressing objections. Finally, I argue that a proper understanding of the Creator-creature relationship accounts for why no explanation can be given for how God’s middle knowledge comes about. (shrink)

The Abrahamic traditions regard God as the world’s author. But what kind of author? A novelist? A playwright? Perhaps a composer of classical music? I will argue that it is best to regard God as like an improvisational play director or the leader of a jazz ensemble. Each determines the broad melodic contours or coarse-grained plot beforehand, while allowing their musicians or actors, and chance, to fill in the more fine-grained details. This analogy allows us to regard God as the (...) ultimate author of this world, while allowing us to be, while less than co-authors, more than mere enactors of a pre-written piece. These metaphors are particularly well-suited to illustrate and flesh out an Open Theistic view of things. (shrink)

Is prostitution immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering argues that it is not. Offering a careful and thorough critique of the many―twenty, to be exact―arguments for prostitution's immorality, Lovering leaves no claim unchallenged. Drawing on the relevant literature along with his own creative thinking, Lovering offers a clear and reasoned moral defense of the world's oldest profession. Lovering demonstrates convincingly, on both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist grounds, that there is nothing immoral about prostitution between consenting adults. The legal implications of this (...) view are also brought to bear on the current discourse surrounding this controversial topic. (shrink)

We offer a novel interpretation of the argumentative role that Meditation IV plays within the whole of the Meditations. This new interpretation clarifies several otherwise head-scratching claims that Descartes makes about Meditation IV, and it fully exonerates the Fourth Meditation from either raising or exacerbating Descartes’ circularity problems.

Sometimes you make a choice. Whether or not you made it was up to you. The choice was free. But how can this be? A scientific view of the world may leave no room for free choice. Free will literature continually explodes. Yet experts still focus on control or on a power to do otherwise. Sadly, they neglect another intuitive feature of free will: being an underived source or ultimate originator. When acting freely, one is a self-determined, self-directed, sole author (...) of change. Surprisingly, though the literature is replete with this pre-theoretic feature of free will, virtually no one makes rigorous use of it when constructing arguments. Equipped with fresh research, this book contends that agent-causation—currently an unpopular theory—deserves serious reconsideration. Only agent-causation accounts for ultimate origination, and popular objections fail under rigorous scrutiny. This book is tightly argued. It challenges and deepens recent advances in free will scholarship made by Peter van Inwagen, Robert Kane, Carl Ginet, Randy Clarke, Stewart Goetz, Tim O’Connor, and others. (shrink)

A collection of essays, mostly original, on the actual and possible positions on free will available to Buddhist philosophers, by Christopher Gowans, Rick Repetti, Jay Garfield, Owen Flanagan, Charles Goodman, Galen Strawson, Susan Blackmore, Martin T. Adam, Christian Coseru, Marie Friquegnon, Mark Siderits, Ben Abelson, B. Alan Wallace, Peter Harvey, Emily McRae, and Karin Meyers, and a Foreword by Daniel Cozort.

Human existence is intrinsically community-oriented. Persons find themselves as responsible in community. This is a classical and Christian insight that is supported by significant contemporary philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas. This article makes the claim that to thrive as a person is to belong; indeed, that it is the experience of belonging that satisfies the human need for meaning, value, and purpose. The article proceeds by considering the term ‘community.’ In itself, ‘community’ is a common sense term. (...) However, it is also a symbol with dimensions of meaning beyond common sense implicit within it. For the sake of a richer understanding of belonging, this article proposes to discuss some of those dimensions under three headings: Dynamism; Communion; and Consummation. ‘Dynamism’ relates to the members of a community whose mutual participation constitutes the characteristics of that community. ‘Communion’ considers the emergence of genuine community, as opposed to general association, from the prior mutual will to accommodate the Other in the self. ‘Consummation’ considers the significance of communion as both the goal and fulfilment of each person and community. Put another way, consummation is the perfection of belonging. (shrink)

Next to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness has become the most prominent argument for atheism in the current literature. The basic idea is that if God really existed, He would make sure that anyone able and willing to engage in relationship with Him would have a rationally indubitable belief in Him at all times. But as a matter of fact we see that the world includes nonresistant nonbelievers. Therefore God doesn’t exist. Here I propose a reply (...) to the problem that shifts focus from the nonresistant nonbelievers to those who are resistant. I claim, Howard-Snyder, and others) that for many such people, having God’s reality forced upon them unwillingly might result in significant spiritual/moral harm, inhibiting their ability to develop a positive relationship with God. general critique of any strategy that references the notion of God’s proper non-revelation to the resistant.) If this is true, it could help explain why God refrains from revealing Himself in a rationally indubitable manner not only to the resistant, but even to the nonresistant. Why? Because it may be that under present circumstances God is actually more concerned about the welfare of the resistant than of the willing; and revealing Himself to all of the willing could actually result in the truth of theism being forced on the resistant. (shrink)

All of the ingredients for what has become known as Anselmian perfect being theology were present already in the thought of St. Augustine. This paper develops that thesis by calling attention to various claims Augustine makes. It then asks whether there are principled reasons for determining which properties the greatest possible being has and whether an account of what contributes to greatness can settle the question whether the greatest possible being is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and (...) Jacob. The paper develops Augustine’s answer to the first question by extracting several principles he endorses that generate a hierarchy of greatness. It addresses the second question by discussing the requirements of worship and of creation. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends two arguments connecting ethics and religion that Kant makes in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. The first argument is that the moral demand is too high for us in our natural capacities, and God's assistance is required to bridge the resulting moral gap. The second argument is that because humans desire to be happy as well as to be morally good, morality will be rationally unstable without belief in a God who can bring (...) happiness and virtue together. The paper states and replies to three objections to each argument. (shrink)

The text aims to explore one peculiar practice of translation manifested in the transformation of passion for knowledge into passion for life. More precisely, the issue at stake is the modification of libido sciendi, which occurred during the 20th century, notably in writings inspired by ‘DS’, the shorthand Hélène Cixous uses to refer to ‘sexual difference/différence sexuelle’. The Latin words in the title serve as markers in interpreting politics/poetics of writing, which actively include forms of expression that belong to different (...) disciplines such as philosophy, psychoanalysis and above all, literature. Special attention is paid to Cixous’s early text, Révolutions pour plus d’un Faust, written in 1975, and its attempt to transform/translate energies of destruction into life-respecting creativity. (shrink)