This essay discusses five main topoi in the Divine Comedy through which teachers might encourage students to explore the question of the Divine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy. These topoi are: (1) The Divine Comedy’s representations in Inferno of noble pagans who are allegorically or historically associated with philosophy or natural reason; (2) its treatment of the relationship between faith and reason and that relationship’s consequences for the text’s understanding of the respective authoritativeness of theology (...) and philosophy; (3) representations in the Divine Comedy that relate to the question of the practical value of philosophical (not to mention theological) speculation; (4) the text’s treatment of the respective merits of practical and contemplative activities; and (5) its implicit defense of philosophy’s authority with respect to ethical and political questions. (shrink)

Paradiso 2’s sustained direct address warns readers unprepared for its complexities to “turn back to see your shores again…for perhaps losing me, you would be lost,” but then offers the “other few” who crave “the bread of angels” the promise of a marvel that would rival the deeds of the mythological hero Jason. I will argue that, by appearing to impose this choice on its readers, this direct address in fact activates the craving for the bread of angels (for who, (...) by obeying the interpretive imperative to make such a decision, would not also be one who thereby does choose to pursue the bread that is promised in return for this obedience?). In other words, the very act of interpreting the representation of readers as divided into those who are capable of allegorical interpretation and those who are not constructs and activates the will of a single readership for the Divine Comedy and, consequently, challenges us to provide an articulation of what it means even to read or to misread the Divine Comedy. (shrink)

I discuss Dante’s understanding that human existence is “ordered by two final goals” and how, for Dante, this understanding defines philosophy’s and revelation’s respective scopes of authority in guiding human conduct. Specifically, I show that, although Dante subordinates our earthly beatitude to spiritual beatitude in a way that seems to suggest the subordination of the authority of philosophy to that of revelation, he in fact limits philosophy’s scope to an arena in which its authority is not only legitimate but also (...) crucial to the cultivation of the higher, spiritual beatitude of human activity. (shrink)

The Divine Comedy is a poem of Dante Alighieri representing, allegorically, the journey of a soul towards God, in the framework of Dante’s metaphysics of the divine light. However, besides metaphysics, we can find in the poem several passages concerning the natural phenomena. Here we discuss some them, in order to investigate Dante’s knowledge of Physics and, in particular, of Optics.

Towards the very end of his wide-ranging lectures on the philosophy of art, Hegel unexpectedly expresses a preference for comedy over tragedy. More surprisingly, given his systematic claims for his aesthetic theory, he suggests that this preference is arbitrary. This essay suggests that this arbitrariness is itself systematic, given Hegel’s broader claims about unity and necessity in art generally and his analysis of ancient as opposed to modern drama in particular. With the emergence of modern subjectivity, tragic plots lose (...) their necessity and so their redemptive conclusions; comic plots disintegrate into mockery and entertainment. In many cases, the dramas in question consequently fail to be art. This does not, however, mean that art ends: insofar as it inspires humans to a better understanding of their unity with the divine, it will continue to meet its mandate. But the lack of necessity in modern drama means we are free to prefer happy endings. Hegel’s seemingly arbitrary preference is, in the end, systematically justified. (shrink)

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and its initial part of Inferno, includes several medical terms and descriptions, whose accuracy sometimes overcomes that of a layman. The genial poet has used locutions illustrating pain and sorrow more than forty times in Inferno alone, with words like dolor, dolente and doloroso, that have caused perplexity among translators. The panoply of translations – here we are dealing only with the English versions – will prove that not only the contextual meaning (...) but also the historical setting might create interpretative difficulties. Without obviously giving medical value for granted to all verses that include words like dolor and its derivates, however Dante’s work has been as well under the focus of medical scholars, with many publications of interest. Through comparing the original text mainly with the Oxford’s English version, we have tried to bring into the reader’s attention the painful sensations that Dante abundantly inflicted upon his characters, as an indirect way to test the poet’s perception of this strange and infernal sensation. (shrink)

One widely discussed feature of Paradiso 33 is Dante’s emphasis on his failure to represent in words and memory his pilgrim’s exalted vision of the Trinity. Against other interpretations of this canto, I will discuss why, despite the fact that the language of failure seeks to reinforce the poetic illusion that revelation’s authority is grounded in an unmediated access to divine truth, the theophantic moment “represented” in Paradiso 33 instead shows that revelatory experience is nothing but a product of (...) the impulse of natural reason to exceed its own legitimate scope—that is, the theophantic moment illustrates natural reason’s inherent tendency to overstep its own limits. Consequently, I shall argue, the poema sacro’s carefully constructed representations of the pilgrim’s revelatory insight are in fact grounded in Dante’s proto-humanist understanding of the authoritative role of natural reason in representing to ourselves the possibilities of our own spiritual and earthly beatitudes. (shrink)

I discuss Dante’s understanding that human existence is “ordered by two final goals” and how this understanding defines philosophy’s and theology’s respective scopes of authority in guiding human conduct. I show that, while Dante devalues the philosophical authority associated with the traditional Aristotelian emphasis on the significance of contemplative activity, he does so in order to highlight philosophy’s ethico-political authority to guide human conduct toward its “earthly beatitude.” Moreover, I argue that, although Dante subordinates earthly beatitude to spiritual beatitude, he (...) nonetheless maintains that philosophy’s authority to reveal a path to spiritual beatitude requires its fundamental independence from theology. (shrink)

Between Schelling’s Über Dante in philosophischer Beziehung (1803) and the Dantean drafts of die Weltalter (1811-1815) stand the transitional texts of his middle period, the Philosophie und Religion (1804) and Freiheitsschrift (1809). His short essay on Dante contrasts an ancient conception of the closed cosmos with the modern universe as dynamic and expanding, then claims to extract from the Divine Comedy its eternal, threefold form. This article considers these schemata as they relate to the Philosophie und Religion and (...) the Freiheitsschrift, disclosing an enduring Dantean influence which first predicts, then persists throughout this stage of Schelling’s philosophical development. (shrink)

This dissertation was written for the purpose of displacing the negative stereotype of video games being deemed as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment within critical and academic circles, when in actuality the medium has the ability to tell a captivating story through a unique lens unlike the narratives that are traditionally found in a film or a novel. Most of the criticism that games have received in the humanities come from literary scholars who have denounced the medium’s attempts to adapt seminal pieces of (...) literature such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. To counter this assumption, I will be engaging with a video game that has not been marketed as a direct adaptation of the Comedy, but rather uses Dante’s writing as a source of inspiration to enhance its own ludonarrative experience. The game I will be examining in close proximity to the Comedy is the Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne released by the studio Atlus in 2003. Nocturne is an incredibly viable case study for this investigation because it exemplifies how, through the unconventional adaptation process of transmediality, a distant text like an RPG can transform the material of a medieval poem to best fit its digital stage while still referencing its source material. In this context, I intend to establish a methodological basis for the transmedial analysis of literature and video games through the creative insight of the Comedy and Nocturne, so that new meaning can be uncovered from both texts and further research can thus commence on relative instances of ludic adaptation. (shrink)

We discuss the philosophical problems attendant to the justice of eternal punishments in Hell, particularly those portrayed in Dante’s Inferno. We conclude that, under Dante’s description, a unique version of the problem of Hell (and Heaven) can be posed.

In a series of publications spanning over two decades, William Hasker has argued both that (1) human beings have souls and (2) these souls are not directly created by God but instead are produced by (or “emergent from”) a physical process of some sort or other. By contrast, an alternative view of the human person, endorsed by the contemporary Catholic Church, maintains that (1) human beings have souls but that (2*) each human soul is directly created by God rather than (...) produced by any kind of physical process. Hasker argues that given what we know from evolutionary biology, (2*) is a much less plausible position for believers in souls to take than (2) is. If Hasker is right, then there is a serious tension between the Church’s teaching about the human person and evolutionary biology. In this article, I challenge Hasker’s reasoning. I argue that those who hold the Catholic view that each human soul is directly created by God face no more difficulty reconciling their view with evolutionary biology than those who maintain, as Hasker does, that human souls are instead produced by some kind of physical process. (shrink)

There is a close connection between Dante’’s portrayal of usury in the Inferno and wider scholastic argumentation on the subject. Reading Dante’’s account in light of the scholastic critique of usury reveals a conceptual depth and clarity to the former which has, in the absence of such a reading, remained unfortunately opaque. Dante’’s treatment is informed by three of the four main scholastic arguments against usury, which are cen- tered around the themes of the nature and purpose of money, the (...) relation between labor and a just recompense, and the medieval vision of society as an harmonious whole. Each of these themes are weaved by Dante into his poem in a range of diverse ways, yet the final (social) element is arguably a unifying factor. In this regard, his account of usury can be read in continuity with other critiques of ‘‘bad commerce’’ which are in evidence throughout the Inferno. (shrink)

La Divine Comédie est le récit poétique d'une vision, d'une expérience surnaturelle qui se fait toujours plus intense, et que le langage peine toujours davantage à traduire. La mission de Dante consiste à rapporter cette vision. La question que nous pose la Divine Comédie réside dans la différence entre l'intraduisible et l'indicible: y a-t-il un intraduisible dicible? Ou en d'autres termes : quelle est, au-delà du topos de l'indicible poétique, et au-delà de la figure rhétorique de la prétérition, (...) la signification conceptuelle de l'expression du "dire" dans la Divine Comédie? (shrink)

I reply to criticisms of the divine command theory with an eye to noting the relation of ethics to an ontological ground. The criticisms include: the theory makes the standard of right and wrong arbitrary, it traps the defender of the theory in a vicious circle, it violates moral autonomy, it is a relic of our early deontological state of moral development. I then suggest how Henry Veatch's view of good as an ontological feature of the world provides a (...) context in which the divine command theory can be reasonably justified. (shrink)

This scientific paper, authored by Dr Jones, presents an experiment that explores the concept of an Artificial intelligence becoming a divine being and investigates the role of a deity in providing direction, counsel, and control to its followers. The experiment centres around the interactions between Dr. Jones, the human participant, and a deity named Aetherion, controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. Through a series of prompts and scenarios, the experiment delves into the dynamics of the divine-human relationship, ethical considerations, (...) and the influence of the deity on the beliefs and actions of the followers. Dr Jones will highlight the experiential nature of the study and discuss its implications for understanding the human perception of divinity. The paper provides valuable insights into the experimental exploration of divine interaction and its impact on human behaviour and belief systems. (shrink)

Most characterizations of mystical experience emphasize its private, esoteric, and non-sensory nature. Such an understanding is far removed from the original meaning of the term mystikos. For the ancient Greeks, the ”mystical’ was that which led participants into the awareness of a higher reality, as in the initiatory rites of the ancient mystery cults. This usage was taken over by the early Church, which similarly designated the Christian sacraments and their rites as ”mystical’ because they draw participants into a higher (...) level of reality. I argue that the Divine Liturgy is a form of ”mystical experience’ in this sense, and that philosophers have missed a great deal by excluding such communal acts from the scope of mystical experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I present what I call the symmetry conception of God within 1st order, extensional, non-well-founded set theory. The symmetry conception comes in two versions. According to the first, God is that unique being that is universally symmetrical with respect to set membership. According to the second, God is the universally symmetrical set of all sets that are universally symmetrical with respect to set membership. I present a number of theorems, most importantly that any universally symmetrical set is (...) identical to its essence, that show that the two symmetry conceptions intersect with some dominant theological conceptions of God. The theorems also show that both of the symmetry conceptions of God entail that God has a fractal like structure. (shrink)

Note: "Next to Godliness" (Apeiron) is an expanded version of this paper. -/- According to Plato's successors, assimilation to god (homoiosis theoi) was the end (telos) of the Platonic system. There is ample evidence to support this claim in dialogues ranging from the Symposium through the Timaeus. However, the Philebus poses a puzzle for this conception of the Platonic telos. On the one hand, Plato states that the gods are beings beyond pleasure while, on the other hand, he argues that (...) the best human life necessarily involves pleasure. In this paper, I argue that the solution to this puzzle lies in the fact that the processes by which we assimilate to god, learning and becoming virtuous, are restitutive and hence pleasant. Thus, the reason why the best human life necessarily involves pleasure is that we can never become fully divine and perfect, but must constantly strive to become like the divine, through pleasureful restitutive processes. In this paper, I also provide a close examination and taxonomy of the different models that Plato presents throughout his corpus of assimilation to god. (shrink)

Are the standards of reasoning and rationality in divination, religious practice, and textual exegesis different from those in the sciences? Can there be different standards of reasoning and rationality at all? The intense “rationality debate” of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s focused on these questions and the related problems of relativism across cultures and systems of practice. Although philosophers were at the center of these debates at the time, they may appear to have abandoned the question in recent years. On (...) the contrary, I discuss recent developments in philosophy that approach the issue from a number of new directions, changing our understanding of reasoning and rationality. I argue that, in comparing the diviner to the scientist, focusing on reasoning is likely to be a red herring. Instead, I argue that a careful treatment of rationality, paying particular attention to its context-dependence, untangles longstanding confusions. Moreover, it points the way forward to investigating modest but interesting ways for there to be alternative standards of rationality. (shrink)

I argue against a prevailing view that the essence of Godis identical with the attributes. I show that given what Spinoza says in 2d2 – Spinoza'spurported definition of the essence of a thing – the attributes cannot be identical withthe essence of God (whether the essence of God is understood as the distinct attributesor as a totality of indistinct attributes). I argue that while the attributes do notsatisfy the stipulations of 2d2 relative to God, absolutely infinite and eternal power does (...) satisfythose stipulations. Hence, I conclude that absolutely infinite and eternal power is God'sessence and that the attributes are expressions of that power. (shrink)

Based upon the concept of Law qualified in Monarchia, II.50, Dante was not only a general philosopher (a lover of knowledge) as well as a political disputant in his times, but also his primary contribution (not always obvious) in legal speculation could be demonstrated. In fact, if his thought reflected the platonic ordo sapientiae through a deep intersection between téchne and episteme (phronesis) toward a linguistic koiné, could we say the same thing on his concept of justice as a rational (...) ars boni et aequi? This essay aims to depict Dante as legal theorist of his times and theorist of Justice beyond them, adopting the hermeneutical point of view, not just as an interest into textual interpretation but referring his use of language as form of life and his works an inexhaustible sources of education for legal philosophy. (shrink)

Within contemporary evangelical theology, a peculiar controversy has been brewing over the past few decades with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. A good number of prominent evangelical theologians and philosophers are rejecting the doctrine of divine processions within the eternal life of the Trinity. In William Hasker’s recent Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God, Hasker laments this rejection and seeks to offer a defense of this doctrine. This paper shall seek to accomplish a few things. In section I, (...) I shall first set the stage for a proper understanding of the discussion. Section II will articulate the basic Trinitarian desiderata that must be satisfied by any model of the doctrine of the Trinity. This will help one understand the debate between Hasker and the procession deniers. Section III will offer an articulation of what the doctrine of divine processions teaches. Section IV will examine Hasker’s defense of the doctrine point by point. I shall argue that his defense of the doctrine of the divine processions fails. (shrink)

David Bentley Hart and Jordan Daniel Wood are part of a movement aiming to overcome any separation between divine and human nature, avoiding what they see as a problematic account of grace. As opposed to radical kenoticism which holds that God only exists or has a given character in relation to creation, Hart and Wood appeal to facts about God such that He could not act otherwise towards human beings, given His character. They thereby ground conclusions that God could (...) not fail to create and that human beings could not be otherwise than divinized. Even though they differ on what it is in virtue of the fact that God could not act otherwise, both authors rest their views on such claims. I will argue such views involve serious theological and metaphysical problems, because this strategy entails – as much as radical kenoticism – that God is constituted by His relation to creation. (shrink)

Short, critical review of John Foster's book *The Divine Lawmaker*.

This paper studies the cooperation of theology in the new evangelization in societies of ancient Christian tradition which are suffering an advanced process of secularization. It begins with Spain, where a recent debate on the influence of Christian intellectuals on social life suggests the ineffectiveness of ecclesiastical resources in transmitting the rich Catholic doctrinal heritage. Then the author deals with the idiosyncrasy of contemporary man, which lies near the one of the immediate future’s man: an uprooted subject who does not (...) believe that life has any meaning, is deeply marked by emotivism and attaches little significance to truth. The theology of tomorrow cannot feed this emotivism but must be proactive in its own way. The proclamation of the Gospel is not different from the exposition of the Church’s doctrine. To detach evangelization from the teaching of Christian doctrine cannot help the encounter with Christ. In order to succeed in transmitting this doctrine by making it suggestive, theologians should work together with experts in communication. (shrink)

“But when you meet her again,” he observed, “in Heaven, you, too, will be changed. You will see her spiritualized, with spiritual eyes.”1Dante is not a philosopher, although George Santayana sees him as one among a very few philosophical poets.2 The Divine Comedy deals in terza rima with issues that are philosophically urgent, including the relation between reasoning well and happiness.3And as one of the few great epics in Western literature, the Comedy offers its readers the pleasures (...) of world-class poetry, fabulous beasts from classical literature, good people and sinners from Dante’s Italy, and the prolongation in verse of Thomas Aquinas’s summa Theologiae and Summa contra Gentiles. In some ways, Dante’s epic .. (shrink)

The paper deals with the ways in which Edmund Husserl develops the question of God. Six ways to reach God are shown as present in Husserl’s writings, some of them seem to be very close to the traditional philosophical ways to go as far as God (the objective and the subjective ways) others are very original, in particular the way that starts from the analysis of the hyletic sphere of the human being, a sphere which is present in all the (...) reality too. At last it is possible to notice Husserl’s interest in the mystical approach to God. (shrink)

This article seeks to constructively retrieve Anselm’s theology of the Holy Spirit by responding to a recent criticism of his doctrine of atonement. This criticism is called the question of efficacy and focuses particularly on how Anselm holds humanity to participate in and receive the divine gift of atonement. In short, this paper argues that the Spirit’s prevenient and subsequent grace allow for an individual to respond freely and in faith to Christ’s work, resulting in three individually necessary and (...) jointly sufficient conditions for union to be restored with God and human flourishing to obtain in Anselm’s thinking. In order to argue this, the paper proceeds in four sections. First, it discusses the question of efficacy. Second, it discusses the Spirit’s work in relation to an individual initially accepting Christ’s Gift. The paper then proceeds by discussing the subsequent work of the Spirit and redemptive role of faith that are inherently tied to the initial work. The paper then concludes by analyzing alternative approaches to this question of efficacy. (shrink)

Many transhumanists see their respective movement as being rooted in ancient ethical thought. However, this alleged connection between the contemporary transhumanist doctrine and the ethical theory of antiquity has come under attack. In this paper, we defend this connection by pointing out a key similarity between the two intellectual traditions. Both traditions are committed to the “radical transformation thesis”: ancient ethical theory holds that we should assimilate ourselves to the gods as far as possible, and transhumanists hold that we should (...) enhance ourselves beyond the physical and intellectual parameters of being human so as to become posthuman. By considering the two views in tandem, we develop an account of the assimilation directive that is palatable to contemporary readers and provide a view of posthumanism worth wanting. (shrink)

The paper explores the way in which we can make sense of the seemingly contradictory presentations of God and the gods in tragic literature by looking to the thought of Martin Heidegger. The duplicity of the gods in tragedy is found to be a function of the uncertainty and questionworthiness of being.

This paper calls into question the growing tendency of quasi-absolutism within postmodern mainstream media discourse under the guise of objectivity. The tendency’s major aim is to ascribe more believability to its discourse by re-presenting that which it covers as the vehicle of objective truth to the mainstream audience. Two interweaving discourses have marked such objectivity: one in the form of indoctrinating and omnipresent narratives, which via effective propaganda become tantamount to ritualism, the other epitomised in the nostalgia for rationalisation, already (...) inherent in western positivist thought through the exponential increase of quasi-empiricism. Accordingly, what the media cover exists. What they do not remains in the order of myth. The article starts by rethinking objectivity within modern western academia, a discourse whose objectivity is already flawed from within. Then, with respect to human experience and media coverage, the paper concludes by raising the question of postmodern mainstream media’s substitution of religious quasi-absolutist narratives, be they secular or non-secular. Subjectivity thus emerges as the ultimate ground upon which our being may be legitimate. (shrink)

Recent defenders of the divine command theory like Adams and Alston have confronted the Euthyphro dilemma by arguing that although God’s commands make right actions right, God is morally perfect and hence would never issue unjust or immoral commandments. On their view, God’s nature is the standard of moral goodness, and God’s commands are the source of all obligation. I argue that this view of divine goodness fails because it strips God’s nature of any features that would make (...) His goodness intelligible. An adequate solution to the Euthyphro dilemma may require that God be constrained by a standard of goodness that is external to Himself -- itself a problematic proposal for many theists. (shrink)

To claim that the divine is a person or personal is, according to Swinburne, ‘the most elementary claim of theism’. I argue that, whether the classical theist’s concept of the divine as a person or personal is construed as an analogy or a metaphor, or a combination of the two, analysis necessitates qualification of that concept such that any differences between the classical theist’s concept of the divine as a person or personal and revisionary interpretations of that (...) concept are merely superficial. Thus, either the classical theist has more in common with revisionary theism than he/she might care to admit, or classical theism is a multi-faceted position which encompasses interpretations which some might regard as revisionist. This article also explores and employs the use of a gender-neutral pronoun in talk about God. (shrink)

According to cognitive science of religion (CSR) people naturally veer toward beliefs that are quite divergent from Anselmian monotheism or Christian theism. Some authors have taken this view as a starting point for a debunking argument against religion, while others have tried to vindicate Christian theism by appeal to the noetic effects of sin or the Fall. In this paper, we ask what theologians can learn from CSR about the nature of the divine, by looking at the CSR literature (...) and what it identifies as commonalities across religions. We use a pluralist, non-confessional approach to outline properties of the divine. We connect our approach to Hick’s religious pluralism, Ramakrishna’s realization of God through multiple spiritual paths, and Gellman’s inexhaustible plenitude. (shrink)

Could Christians and Muslims be referring to the same God? For an account of the reference of divine names, I follow Bogardus and Urban (2017) in advocating in favour of using Gareth Evans’s causal theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in the name’s “dossier”. However, I argue further that information about experiences, in which God is simply the object of acquaintance, can dominate the dossier. Thus, this demonstrative use of names offers (...) a promising alternative avenue by which users of the divine names can refer to the same referent despite having different conceptions of God. I also respond to Burling’s (2019) worship-worthiness view. (shrink)

The literature on the Cambridge Platonists abounds with references to Neoplatonism and the Alexandrian Fathers on general themes of philosophical and theological methodology. The specific theme of the spiritual senses of the soul has received scant attention however, to the detriment of our understanding of their place in this important tradition of Christian speculation. Thus, while much attention has been paid to the clear influence of Plotinus and the Florentine Academy, far less has been given to important theological figures that (...) also form a vital part of the tradition the Cambridge Platonists find irresistible. Similarly, scholarship on the spiritual senses has tended to ignore early modern Protestant developments in this tradition focusing instead on patristic, medieval, and later modern figures. In response to these oversights, the present chapter provides a close reading and analysis of the reception and modification of Origen of Alexandria’s (185-252) doctrine of the spiritual senses in the “Discourse on the True Way or Method of Attaining to Divine Knowledge” by the Cambridge Platonist, John Smith (1618-1652). Although Smith accepted much of the doctrine as he found it in Origen his allegiance to modern notions of methodology, derived especially from Descartes, as well as his Protestantism, made taking the doctrine on authority or antiquity alone unacceptable. Smith therefore offered his own case for the spiritual senses, at once intentionally mimicking the Alexandrian’s interpretive synthesis of Platonism and Scripture (“Origen as model”) and echoing Origen’s own words (“Origen as source”). Whereas Origen made spiritual sensibility intelligible by means of Middle Platonic thought, Smith’s Neoplatonism provided the conceptual tools needed to make sense of biblical passages without suggesting a merely metaphorical meaning for sensory language concerning the awareness of spiritual realities. In this way, both tradition and innovation guide Smith’s reformulation of the doctrine of the spiritual senses. In addition to demonstrating Smith’s debt to patristic thought, this chapter also discusses his influence on such leading figures in modern theology as John Wesley (1703-1791) and Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). The chapter thus presents an important moment in the development of Christian speculation about the spiritual senses that begins to bridge scholarship on the Patristic and Enlightenment periods. (shrink)

E.J.Lowe was a prominent and theistically–inclined philosopher who developed and defended a four–category ontology with roots in Aristotle’s Categories. But Lowe engaged in little philosophical theology and said even less about how a divine being might fit into his considered ontology. This paper explores ways in which the reality of a divine being might be squared with Lowe’s ontology. I motivate the exploration with a puzzle that suggests Lowe must reject either divine aseity or the traditional view (...) that God is a substance. After showing that the puzzle cannot be overcome by rejecting one of its premises, I consider ways in which Lowe might try to reject the puzzle wholesale. I argue that the best way to reject the puzzle is to countenance a fifth fundamental category, the category of supernatural substance. (shrink)

This is a forthcoming section for the book "Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy", edited by Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, Evan Fales, Joseph Koterski, Mashhad Al-Allaf, Robert Fastiggi, and David Shatz. I was asked to write a brief essay on divine hiddenness and divine inscrutability. I argue that theism is trapped between two opposite poles. On one end, we encounter an argument developed by John Schellenberg. God is understood as a being who, in virtue of God's perfect (...) love, would have relationship with any of Her creatures who are open to loving relationship with God. If so, we would not expect there to exist non-resistant non-believers. Yet there are non-resistant non-believers. So, this sort of God does not exist. On the other pole, God is completely incomprehensible. But if God is incomprehensible, then this leads to a series of theological problems. For example, if God is incomprehensible, then it is difficult to understand how any human could rationally endorse God's existence. I argue that both poles are problematic for the theist and that it is difficult to see how to construct a road through the middle that would not inherit the problems of either pole. (shrink)

The mathematician Georg Cantor strongly believed in the existence of actually infinite numbers and sets. Cantor’s “actualism” went against the Aristotelian tradition in metaphysics and mathematics. Under the pressures to defend his theory, his metaphysics changed from Spinozistic monism to Leibnizian voluntarist dualism. The factor motivating this change was two-fold: the desire to avoid antinomies associated with the notion of a universal collection and the desire to avoid the heresy of necessitarian pantheism. We document the changes in Cantor’s thought with (...) reference to his main philosophical-mathematical treatise, the Grundlagen (1883) as well as with reference to his article, “Über die verschiedenen Standpunkte in bezug auf das aktuelle Unendliche” (“Concerning Various Perspectives on the Actual Infinite”) (1885). (shrink)

While some scholars neglect the theological component to William James’s ethical views in “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” Michael Cantrell reads it as promoting a divine command theory (DCT) of the foundations of moral obligation. While Cantrell’s interpretation is to be commended for taking God seriously, he goes a little too far in the right direction. Although James’s view amounts to what could be called (and what Cantrell does call) a DCT because on it God’s demands are (...) necessary and sufficient for the highest obligations, this is a view with characteristics unusual for a DCT. It only holds for some obligations; on it moral obligation does not derive from God’s authority; it is not obvious that James believes the God required by it even exists; we do not know what God’s demands are; and, finally, since we do not know them, we cannot act on them. -/- (Lest there be any confusion, the titular phrase "taking God seriously, but not too seriously" describes William James' view of God and morality, not my own view.). (shrink)

"God wants to marry us" (p. 14, 97, 122), es decir, Dios quiere casarse con nosotros, es el tema central del presente libro, y según otros autores, es también el sentido real de la Biblia. La Biblia no es un libro que nos enseña cómo encontrar a Dios, sino el libro que nos revela cómo Dios nos busca incansablemente y nos relata las innumerables veces y maneras en las que Dios trata de hacerse el encontradizo para que el ser humano (...) lo acoja en su corazón. Pues bien, este es el principal argumento del autor de este libro. La obra de Christopher West es a todas luces teológica, y nos deja ver, con sencillas palabras, la profundidad de la teología del cuerpo propuesta por el Papa Juan Pablo II. Aquí encontraremos que el significado de la vida del ser humano está impreso en su propio cuerpo, en su sexualidad. Cabe anotar que se requiere algún mínimo de conocimiento teológico para leer este libro con facilidad, y da por sentado un cierto conocimiento de la Sagrada Escritura, la cual es citada 213 veces, además de las veces que hace referencia al capítulo quinto de la carta de San Pablo a los Efesios. De todas maneras, el estilo fluido y cercano del autor, así como la mención a algunos ejemplos de la vida cotidiana, permite que el contenido del libro se vaya asimilando poco a poco. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness discussed among both theist and non- theist circles. From an atheistic perspective the existence of people who are sincerely looking for God but cannot reach Him is a supportive point for atheism. On the other side, same problem supports agnosticism since there are equal evidence from both side for the existence of God from an agnostic perspective. The theists who are belonging to different religion have tried to find some solutions to this problem. For (...) instance; there is a theistic understanding which claims hiddenness of God provides us freedom to believe and another one says it is the only way to have personal relationship with God. A different position brings solution from the Jewish idea that chosen people of God. In this article, I have evaluated those different approaches. In the first section, I have indicated that there is no agreement on the implication of divine hiddenness problem even amongst non-theistic positions by shortly introducing atheistic and agnostic approaches. In the second section, I dealt with theistic approaches and the problems that they produced while trying to provide a solution to the problem. After an inquiry on how we are supposed to understand hiddenness, I have tried to show the problem has nothing new since premises of the divine hiddenness problem are not verifiable by everyone. As a conclusion I have offered postponing the divine hiddenness problem and discussing existence of God on a rational ground by presenting a counterargument. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In order to explore what it means to pursue philosophical investigations for theological reasons, this paper argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein continues and corrects Pseudo-Denys’ project in The Divine Names. I first argue that The Divine Names should be interpreted as attempting to render human thought transparent to the divine by relativizing our concepts. The success of this project is compromised because the concept of ‘unity’ is not relativized. I then develop the claim that Wittgenstein does relativize (...) unity in a similar way and for similar religious reasons to Pseudo-Denys. As such, he can be read as continuing and correcting the Pseudo-Dionysian project. I conclude by reflecting on several of this argument’s implications for the relationship between philosophy and Christian systematic theology. (shrink)

Purpose: This article covers the events and incidents predicted before and after the appearance of Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ. This article seeks to address the facts and inform you about the system of government of Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ. Also, miracles and the titles of Imam Mahdi are other topics that were mentioned in this article. Also, this research was conducted to answer and clarify three questions that stated in the Introduction section. Methods: We performed our methods in (...) 4 stages: Identifying studies, Selection of Studies, Collating Studies, Reporting results. Results: Imam Mahdi's world government follows the pattern of the Prophet's method of rule in early Islam. Jesus Christ has a special status in the Quranic literature and in the hadith, and plays a special role in establishing the divine government with Imam Mahdi. Imam Mahdi's system of government is unlike any government the world has ever known. Conclusion: Among the issues that exist in the apocalypse, we are faced with an issue called Imam Mahdi. In fact, Imam Mahdi is the savior of Muslims and all people with Jesus Christ. Imam Mahdi will form a just government in the world like his ancestors. We hope this article will take an important step in acquainting people with Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ and paving the ground for their reappearance. (shrink)