The kind of phenomenology that can be useful to theology will be a hermeneutical phenomenology, one that takes us beyond the Cartesian/Husserlian ideal of presuppositionless intuition. It will also be a phenomenology of inverse intentionality, one in which the constituting subject is constituted by the look and the voice of another. In light of these suggestions, the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion is defended against three critiques, namely that it compromises the boundary between phenomenology and theology, that the theology it serves (...) is a bad one to boot, and that it has an inadequate account of the subject. At the heart of this defense is Marion's clear distinction between phenomenology as a description of possible experience, and theology as the claim that a certain kind of experience, namely revelation or epiphany, is not merely actual but veridical. Phenomenology says, If revelation occurs it will be in the form of a saturated phenomenon. Theology says, for example, the burning bush was an epiphany, or Jesus Christ is a revelation. The attentive reader should have no trouble distinguishing Marion's phenomenological analyses, which should be persuasive to believer and unbeliever alike, from his theological claims. Marion's account of the subject falls under the heading of inverse intentionality, and there are hints that vision is aufgehoben in the voice. The seer is first of all the one seen, but above all the one addressed, called forth into response-able being. (shrink)

The kind of phenomenology that can be useful to theology will be a hermeneutical phenomenology, one that takes us beyond the Cartesian/Husserlian ideal of presuppositionless intuition. It will also be a phenomenology of inverse intentionality, one in which the constituting subject is constituted by the look and the voice of another. In light of these suggestions, the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion is defended against three critiques, namely that it compromises the boundary between phenomenology and theology, that the theology it serves (...) is a bad one to boot, and that it has an inadequate account of the subject. At the heart of this defense is Marion's clear distinction between phenomenology as a description of possible experience, and theology as the claim that a certain kind of experience, namely revelation or epiphany, is not merely actual but veridical. Phenomenology says, If revelation occurs it will be in the form of a saturated phenomenon. Theology says, for example, the burning bush was an epiphany, or Jesus Christ is a revelation. The attentive reader should have no trouble distinguishing Marion's phenomenological analyses, which should be persuasive to believer and unbeliever alike, from his theological claims. Marion's account of the subject falls under the heading of inverse intentionality, and there are hints that vision is aufgehoben in the voice. The seer is first of all the one seen, but above all the one addressed, called forth into response-able being. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the propositional model of Divine revelation deserves renewed attention due to both criticisms stemming from misunderstanding and recent arguments in favor of the propositional model. I begin by clarifying what I mean by the propositional model of Divine revelation and by pointing out misunderstandings of the implications of this model. Subsequently, I offer a few arguments in favor of the propositional model of Divine revelation based on three assumptions that I take to be basic (...) elements of Christianity. Finally, I explain why I think the propositional model is doctrinally significant for the Christian Faith. (shrink)

Gadamer sought to distinguish his philosophical hermeneutics from theologically driven hermeneutics. Perhaps because of that, even though he has influenced contemporary theological hermeneutics, he has very little to say about theology or religion. What he does say about religion is drawn from a reductive interpretation of religion as myths meant that posit something transcendent to help us cope with our awareness of our death. Here I explain why he thought Christianity was such a paradoxical religion, how his views might be (...) useful for philosophers of religion and how they have been useful for theologians. I end with a critical discussion of Nicholas Wolterstorff's interpretation of Gadamer's views. (shrink)

Is ChatGPT an author? Given its capacity to generate something that reads like human-written text in response to prompts, it might seem natural to ascribe authorship to ChatGPT. However, we argue that ChatGPT is not an author. ChatGPT fails to meet the criteria of authorship because it lacks the ability to perform illocutionary speech acts such as promising or asserting, lacks the fitting mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention, and cannot take responsibility for the texts it produces. Three perspectives (...) are compared: liberalism (which ascribes authorship to ChatGPT), conservatism (which denies ChatGPT's authorship for normative and metaphysical reasons), and moderatism (which treats ChatGPT as if it possesses authorship without committing to the existence of mental states like knowledge, belief, or intention). We conclude that conservatism provides a more nuanced understanding of authorship in AI than liberalism and moderatism, without denying the significant potential, influence, or utility of AI technologies such as ChatGPT. (shrink)

Philosophers continue to debate about David Hume’s case against the rationality of belief in miracles. This article clarifies semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical questions addressed in the controversy. It also explains the main premises of Hume’s argument and discusses criticisms of them. The article concludes that one’s evaluation of Hume’s argument will depend on one’s views about (a) the definitions of ’miracle’ and ’natural law’; (b) the type of reasoning one ought to employ to determine the probability that a particular miracle (...) claim is true; and (c) whether reasonable people proportion their beliefs about the occurrence of miracles to their evidence. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the extent to which St. Paul’s view of the doctrine of Original Sin ought to be taken as authoritative for confessing Christians today. I begin with the observation that there are, in the main, two camps represented in the contemporary literature. On the one hand, there are those who affirm the presence of Original Sin in Rom. 5, and consequently embrace the doctrine; on the other hand, there are those who deny Original Sin any substantive (...) anchor in the text, and as a result conclude it is not necessary to believe today. I argue that things are not so straightforward, and present what I take to be a legitimate via media between these two positions. In the first main section of the article, I argue on exegetical grounds that Rom. 5:12–21 can be rendered adequately intelligible only when we admit that something like the Augustinian view of Original Sin is present at least in nuce. This I attempt to demonstrate in conversation with Douglas Moo and C. E. B. Cranfield. While not, of course, the full-blown Augustinian doctrine, St. Paul's mind is, I contend, much nearer to the former’s view of Original Sin than is commonly supposed. However, in the second main section I turn my attention to the question, So what? I discuss a number of theological and exegetical considerations which make it clear, I think, that St. Paul is not urging belief in Original Sin so much as he is utilizing an “intertestamental expansion” of an OT text to paint a picture about Christ and what we ought to believe about him. As such, I encourage and defend the application of a relatively mild hermeneutical principle which will allow the theologian a clear and biblically faithful way around the doctrine of Original Sin, if this is what is desired. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide an introduction to the so-called 'theological turn' in recent French, 'new' phenomenology. I begin by articulating the stakes of excluding God from phenomenology (as advocated by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger) and then move on to a brief consideration of why Dominique Janicaud contends that, by inquiring into the 'inapparent', new phenomenology is no longer phenomenological. I then consider the general trajectories of this recent movement and argue that there are five main themes that unite (...) the work of such varied thinkers as Levinas, Derrida, Marion, Henry, Chrétien, Lacoste, and Ricœur. I conclude by outlining points of overlap between new phenomenology and contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and suggest that the two stand as important resources for each other. (shrink)

Analytic skill can contribute to a theology of the Bible and a theological hermeneutic in two ways, by refining the formulation of a doctrine of Scripture and a correlative hermeneutic, and by illuminating how problematic hermeneutical presuppositions have in some cases become part of exegetical practice. The contribution that the analytic style of reflection can make to the theological enterprise need not be vitiated by a common criticism of analytic modes of engaging with texts, namely, that they tend toward being (...) ahistorical, though the objection deserves to be considered carefully. (shrink)

William Alston proposed an understanding of religious experience modeled after the triadic structure of sense perception. However, a perceptual model falters because of the unobservability of God as the object of religious experience. To reshape Alston’s model of religious experience as an observational practice we utilize Dudley Shapere’s distinction between the philosophical use of ‘observe’ in terms of sensory perception and scientists’ epistemic use of ‘observe’ as being evidential by providing information or justification leading to knowledge. This distinction helps us (...) to understand how religious experience of an unobservable God can be an epistemic practice that satisfies our epistemic obligations and justifies religious belief. (shrink)

Many Luther scholars have made passing reference to Martin Luther’s theology of the Word as a ‘speech-act’ theology. This essay aims to probe points of continuity and discontinuity between Luther’s understanding of the Word, as exemplified in the promise of God, and a particular speech-act philosophy as posited by John Searle. The analysis of Searle in the area of declarations, as well as a survey of Lutheran conceptions of the Word of promise in both sacrament and Scripture, will evidence specific (...) moments of clarity in Luther’s so-called ‘speech-act’ theology and provide a helpful paradigm for viewing the creative impact of the Word as conceived by Luther. (shrink)

In this paper I introduce John D. Caputo’s view of the divine and argue against his claim that we can preserve faith in God while dropping the idea of divine revelation. Despite Caputo’s apophatic point of view, he makes two claims with regard to God, or ’the divine’. First, he claims that we all have a divine call for justice and compassion in us. Secondly, he claims that God’s kingdom comes true if we make it happen and that this is (...) something we can hope for. In the first half of this paper I will argue that Caputo does not have to reject the idea of revelation if we understand revelation as involving an interpretation of the experiences with the divine. In the second half, I will claim that Caputo even has to allow for divine revelation if he wants to stick to his positive statements about God. We can only know that a desire is divine if we have criteria to distinguish the divine from the profane or the diabolic. Based on Richard Kearney and John Hick I argue that particular traditions offer such criteria and that they ultimately depend on what is taken to be God’s will. Likewise, to hope that the kingdom of God comes and to act in a way that realizes it presupposes that the agent believes this to be the way God wants him to live—and God’s will must have somehow been disclosed. (shrink)

As an exercise in the ‘theology of disclosure’, the present essay proposes a kind of phenomenological analysis of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture with the goal of bringing to light the theoretical commitments which it implicitly demands. This sort of analysis can prove helpful for the continuing disputes among Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox insofar as it is relevant for one of the principal points of controversy between them: namely, the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and Church as theological (...) authorities. It proceeds by analyzing both the objective and subjective ‘poles’ of the act, and it illuminates the presence of the Church and her Tradition on both sides. The Church—i.e., the community of God’s people—is both that which is immediately encountered in the text, as well as the factor which enables scriptural reading in the first place. The article terminates with an application of the insights of the preceding discussion to the controversy about icons. (shrink)

A proof is offered that aims to show that there can be no knowledge of God, excluding knowledge based on natural theology, without divine self-testimony. Both special and general revelation, if they occur, would be forms of divine self-testimony. It is argued that this indicates that the best way to model such knowledge of God is on the basis of an analogy with knowledge gained through testimony, rather than perceptual models of knowledge, such as the prominent model defended by Plantinga. (...) Appropriate causal chains and reliable cognitive processes only seem at best to ensure that a belief proposed for acceptance is the belief the testifier wants accepted; they do not ensure that it is rational to accept the belief. This particularly applies where there is much at stake, where it seems rational to seek some form of evidence, if available. Some brief comments are made on Trinitarian self-testimony. Another model of the ‘inner witness’ is briefly sketched out, based on the analogy with conscience. This model may capture some of the features of Plantinga’s approach, but leaves room for a free rejection of divine self-testimony, in a way that the perceptual analogy does not. A point connected to Plantinga’s aims is then made about the link between evidence, value and divine self-testimony, in relation to religious experience. Finally, it is suggested that the earlier proof may apply in a particular sense to all knowledge of God, including that based on natural theology. (shrink)

This paper transforms a development of an argument against pantheism into an objection to the usual account of God within contemporary analytic philosophy. A standard criticism of pantheism has it that pantheists cannot offer a satisfactory account of God as personal. My paper will develop this criticism along two lines: first, that personhood requires contentful mental states, which in turn necessitate the membership of a linguistic community, and second that personhood requires limitation within a wider context constitutive of the ’setting’ (...) of the agent’s life. Pantheism can, I argue, satisfy neither criterion of personhood. At this point the tables are turned on the Swinburnian theist. If the pantheist cannot defend herself against the personhood-based attacks, neither can the Swinburnian, and for instructively parallel reasons: for neither doctrine is God in the material world; in the pantheist case God is identical with the world, in the Swinburnian case God transcends it. Either way both the pantheist and the Swinburnian are left with a dilemma: abandon divine personhood or modify the doctrine of God so as to block the move to personhood. (shrink)

I address three key questions in Jewish theology that have come up in readers’ criticism of my book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: How should we think about God’s revelation to man if, as I have proposed, the sharp distinction between divine revelation and human reason is alien to the Hebrew Bible and classical rabbinic sources? Is the biblical Law of Moses intended to be a description of natural law, suggesting the path to life and the good for all nations? (...) And what should be the role of the Jewish theologian, given the overwhelming prevalence of Christian conceptions of God and Scripture in contemporary theological discourse. (shrink)

This essay asks what Karl Barth meant by ‘speculation’ in volume two of the Church Dogmatics. Rather than equating speculative theology with metaphysical theology in general, Barth views speculation not as a monolithic act but as a conglomeration of modes of theological speech that undermine God's revelation in Jesus Christ. This essay argues that Barth's views of speculation, rather than undercutting the use of metaphysics in theology, pave the way for a responsible Christian use of metaphysics by tying one's use (...) of categories and concepts in theology closely to the text of Scripture. (shrink)

Wolterstorff defends the claim not only that ‘God speaks’ through the Bible but also that the reader gains ever new insights upon subsequent readings of it. I qualify this project with the philosophical hermeneutics he rejects—namely that of Gadamer and Ricoeur. Wolterstorff thinks what he calls ‘authorial discourse interpretation’ provides warrant for religious communities believing that ‘God speaks’ to them through a text. In developing this hermeneutic, he dismisses the viability of Gadamer and Ricoeur's approach because, Wolterstorff asserts, their form (...) of interpretation is merely an operation performed on an artifact. While a cursory study of Gadamer and Ricoeur might support such dismissal, particularly Ricoeur's emphasis on writing's obliteration of dialogue, a closer study guided by the hermeneutic priority of questioning complicates Wolterstorff's caricature. If writing obliterates dialogue, what happens to questions and responses? My thesis is that dialogue with another is preserved through the hermeneutical arc. I demonstrate this through specifying distinct logics of question and answer that occur in the reading process, and I delimit these logics by way of appeal to contemporary literacy pedagogy and its taxonomies of questions. A voice does speak with and listen to a reader in the event of reading, in this case a God who is not behind but before the text. Isolating this other who speaks and listens provides reinforcement for constructive theological work aligned with Gadamer and Ricoeur's hermeneutics, and answers for the experience of hearing ‘God speak’ differently through sacred texts. (shrink)

With almost a century of historical distance between Heidegger’s retrieval of the question of being and contemporary concern about the Other, we have accrued invaluable experiences for critical leverage about what it is to ask one another questions. I offer a sketch aimed at adapting Tillich’s theological system grounded in existential questioning to today by juxtaposing him with Levinas’ philosophical ethics. Tillich and Levinas provide motive for reflection on the topic of questioning in particular. In the case of Tillich, questions (...) constitute a crucial moment in the dialogue between our contemporary existential situation and religious symbols, or in what he called the ‘method of correlation.’ Furthermore, Tillich locates in the very structure of questioning the germ of our participation in our essential nature despite existential disruption. Beneath his more provocative and prophetic discourse on the absolute desolation and height of the Other, Levinas sees in questions a different kind of possibility. It is not our essential and existential selves, but oneself and the absolutely Other who come together in the question yet retain their infinite difference. Heidegger is the immediate predecessor from whom both Tillich and Levinas inherit a predilection for reflection on questioning. What is at stake is not merely the legacy of Heidegger’s construal of questioning, but, more importantly here, the fundamental sources Tillich and Levinas posit as the origin of our questioning. (shrink)

The texts of ancient liturgies of the Christian East repeatedly state that activities such as taking eucharist, baptizing, and anointing are for the remission of sin. But how could that be? What could the connection be between the performance of these actions, on the one hand, and the state of enjoying remission of sin, on the other? The first step toward providing a satisfactory answer to these questions is to note that, in the context of the liturgy, the phrase "remission (...) of sin" is best understood to mean not forgiveness of sin but deliverance from the sin-disorder. With this meaning in mind, I present a model for how rites of certain kinds could be intelligibly understood to be for the remission of sin. (shrink)

In this article, I summarize recent work on the philosophy of liturgy. In part 2 of this article, I consider how liturgy can provide a way of knowing God personally. I outline accounts of acquiring phenomenal knowledge, practical knowledge, and propositional knowledge by participating in liturgy.

The startling success of the religion‐science discussion in recent years calls for reflection. Have old walls been broken down, old antagonisms overcome? Have science and religion finally been reconciled? Or is all the activity just so much sound and fury signifying nothing? Postmodern equations of scientific and religious beliefs disregard a number of enduring differences that help make sense of the continuing tensions. Yet the skepticism of authors such as John Caiazza is also ungrounded. I describe five major types of (...) approaches that are being employed in the recent literature. These methods have led to a deeper understanding of the commonalities between science and religion and have produced new productive partnerships between them. (shrink)

There is a strong claim that the world’s createdness, if true, cannot be known but through revelation. In this paper we try to dismiss this claim by arguing that creation cannot be merely a revealed truth (revelabile tantum), since it is on the contrary the very preamble to any genuine revelation. Ontologically, no revelation can happen in a self-existent world. No creation, no revelation. Epistemically, no revelation is to be admitted but on the assumption that the world depends, for its (...) existence and operation, on a supernatural agent. No admittance of creative power, no justified identification of any revelatory activity. (shrink)

Recent epistemology offers an account of what it is to know other persons. Such views hold promise for illuminating several issues in philosophy of religion, and for advancing a distinctive approach to religious epistemology. This paper develops an account of interpersonal knowledge, and clarifies its relation to propositional and qualitative knowledge. I then turn to our knowledge of God and God's knowledge of us, and compare my account of interpersonal knowledge with important work by Eleonore Stump on "Franciscan" knowledge. I (...) examine how interpersonal knowledge may figure in liturgical practice, in diffusing the problem of divine hiddenness, and in motivating a novel understanding of divine love. I also explore the possibility of epistemic injustice arising from dismissal or neglect of our religious testimony to one another, or of divine testimony to humanity, focusing specifically on the import of interpersonal knowledge. (shrink)

The philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that the truthful life was at risk of being lost in Western technological culture in the name of increasing control, efficiency, and agility. As the risk is actualised, so the human essence as truth maker is obscured and life itself feels poorer. This thesis draws on Heideggerian philosophy to demonstrate the loss in two dominant styles of contemporary strategic management: the world-picturing and, more recent, agile style. It builds a theory of post-agile strategic practice, which (...) I call adaptive, to address this loss. Consistent with Heideggerian philosophy, I utilise a transformative disclosure methodology and a literary, paradigmatic case reading method to address the questions: Why is agile strategic management so unsatisfying? How do Heideggerian scholars shed light on this dissatisfaction? How do Heideggerians understand the emerging style and what strategic management practices can I propose for the future? After introducing agile strategic management and the impoverishment of life that it fosters, I set out how Heidegger’s philosophy of truth, thinking, and the sacred both sheds light on the problem and suggests a remedy for it. I closely read paradigmatic texts of the world-picturing and agile strategic management styles to demonstrate how business strategy theorisation lines up with extraordinary closeness to Heidegger’s philosophical assessment. I then analyse three Heideggerian prototypes for an adaptive style of strategy practice, concentrating on one paradigmatic text to identify their principal weakness: the omission of the sacred. I illustrate and contrast paradigmatic cases of both the agile and adaptive styles drawn from the beer industry and draw on the adaptive case to construct a theory of adaptive strategy practice, which addresses the problem of the loss of truth, suggesting pedagogical and strategic management practices. I conclude by summarising its findings and contributions, noting some limitations and connections to other studies and suggesting further lines of research. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that faith is a virtue. To what extent faith is a virtue depends on what faith is. One construal of faith, which has been popular in both recent and historical work on faith, is that faith is a matter of taking oneself to have been spoken to by God and of trusting this purported divine testimony. In this paper, I argue that when faith is understood in this way, for faith to be virtuous then it must (...) be accompanied by intellectual humility. I defend this view by showing how someone ought to respond to purported divine testimony if her faith is to be intellectually humble, and how, if it fails in this respect, it will instead be accompanied by the vices of either servility or arrogance. (shrink)