This paper criticizes one of the premises of Schellenberg’s atheistic argument from divine hiddenness. This premise, which can be considered as the foundation of his proposed argument, is based on a specific interpretation of divine love as eros. In this paper I first categorize several concepts of divine love under two main categories, eros and agape; I then answer some main objections to the ascription of eros to God; and in the last part I show (...) that neither on a reading of divine love as agape nor as eros can Schellenberg’s argument be construed as sound. My aim is to show that even if -- contra Nygren for example -- we accept that divine love can be interpreted as eros, Schellenberg’s argument still doesn’t work. (shrink)

The central basis for a human to love another is rooted in the integral nature of God itself, Allahu Muhibba "God is Love." Love of God, being a divine concept, sees no duality of Being, which entails that, there is no male or female, only Being, one who has committed and devoted oneself towards the path of ultimate light of love. This paper calls for attention to a little-explored theme of immense significance in mysticism where (...) women have also played a significant role in its development. Throughout the centuries, for many reasons, women have often been not able to fully represent themselves, in comparison to men, in carrying forward the torch of knowledge, but, they have been actively participating in the endeavor. Some of them devoted themselves to the spirit of asceticism living away from the society, for example, Rabi'a al-Adawiya and Mirabai, and on the other hand, some of them chose the role of active social life, becoming benefactress and fostering the circles of worship and study, for example, Mother Teresa. This paper discusses the role of feminine mystics in the development of the mystical tradition in reference to Rabi'a al- Adawiya, Mirabai and Mother Teresa in the light of 'Divine Love' as this is the essence of their ascetic contribution to the tradition. (shrink)

The claim of this paper is to present Spinoza’s view on self-esteem and positive reciprocity, which replaces the human being in a monistic psycho-dynamical affective framework, instead of a dualistic pedestal above nature. Without naturalising the human being in an eliminative materialistic view as many recent neuro-scientific conceptions of the mind do, Spinoza finds an important entry point in a panpsychist and holistic perspective, presenting the complexity of the human being, which is not reducible to the psycho-physiological conditions of life. (...) From a panpsychist point of view, qualities and values emerge from the world, in a situation similar to what could be seen in animism, or early childhood psychology, where the original distance between the mind and the exterior thing is reduced ad minima, and both can even interrelate in a confusing manner. Human reality is nevertheless a social reality, it supposes a basis for shared competencies, that we will present as grounded on the one hand of the sustaining character of the essence of the animal-man as will-to-power. Negatively speaking we all share same asocial tendencies and affects. This aspect is not only negative but it is also a will to develop and master the environment, because values have an onto-metaphysical immanent dimension in nature, not because there is an individual bottom-up will to survive, but rather a will to live in harmony with the surrounding world. On the other hand, we shall see that Spinoza understood and described perfectly the power of the mind over the power of the affects, as a co-constituting dimension, which is alienating natural dependencies, leaving an inner space for the objectification of ethical values, not related to mere compensation mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper raises an underappreciated paradox for classical theism. Love seems to be an inherently biased and partial relation. Justice seems to require the opposite, detached impartiality (think of the attributes of the just judge). But if these are conceptual facts, then classical theism is guilty of ascribing inconsistent attributes to God: perfect love and perfect justice. I resolve this paradox in a manner that weighs in favor of the principle of divine simplicity.

The paper claims that we cannot understand properly Platonic conception of love and friendship unless we read the Lysis in the light of the Symposium and vice verse. Dealing with the crucial question of what made Plato write two different dialogues on the same topic, it advocates an alternative intertextual reading that does not deny progress of Plato’s thinking. Though the Symposium offers, in comparison to the Lysis, a more developed philosophical theory of love, Plato still has good (...) reasons to articulate the dilemmas presented in the Lysis. Combining the contrast in dialogue endings with the similarity in structure and in argumentation, Plato makes clear that, between the Lysis and the Symposium, there is progress and constancy at the same time: while the Symposium gives a philosophical account of what we can call “divine love”, it accepts and even emphasizes the insight of the Lysis that philosophical love can imply lack of what we usually consider worth loving. Plato in the Symposium does not discard “human love” and does not conceal possible troubles of philosophical, i.e. divine love. Therefore, the critique of Plato as being champion of impersonal or “ideal” love is unpersuasive. (shrink)

I present a novel objection to fine-tuning arguments for God's existence. On any values of the physical constants, the psychophysical laws could be set to permit intelligent and happy beings, so the specific values of the physical constants in our world provide little evidence for God's existence. For example, even if the physical constants didn't allow carbon or any atoms larger than hydrogen, the psychophysical laws could be set so that charge is sufficient to realize romantic desire. Then every hydrogen (...) atom would be a proton and electron in love. (shrink)

“If the concept of God has any validity or any use,” James Baldwin writes in The Fire Next Time, “it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.” This essay is a meditation on Baldwin’s claim. I begin by presenting Baldwin’s account of a grave danger that characterizes our social lives – a source of profound estrangement from ourselves and from one another. I (...) draw on the work of the theologian Howard Thurman in order to explain how faith in a loving God can enable us to cope with this danger in a manner that may render us, in some sense, larger, freer, and more loving. Finally, I sketch Baldwin’s account of how we might cope with this danger not by relying on God’s love, but rather by relying in certain ways on our love for one another. (shrink)

Among the most widely discussed of William of Ockham’s texts on ethics is his Quodlibet III, q. 14. But despite a large literature on this question, there is no consensus on what Ockham’s answer is to the central question raised in it, specifically, what obligations one would have if one were to receive a divine command to not love God. (Surprisingly, there is also little explicit recognition in the literature of this lack of consensus.) Via a close reading (...) of the text, I argue, contrary to much of the literature, that Ockham believes that if one were given this command, one would be obligated to refrain from loving God and would also be able to fulfill this obligation without any moral wrongdoing. Among other results, this study will help clarify Ockham’s much-discussed claim that loving God is “a necessarily virtuous act.”. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg has recently argued that there is a logical incompatibility between God’s being perfectly loving and there being non-resistant nonbelievers in the proposition that God exists. In this paper I highlight the parallel between this claim and the claim made by the logical problem of evil. Following Plantinga’s strategy in undermining the logical problem of evil, I argue that all that is needed to undermine the alleged incompatibility of divine love with non-resistant non-belief is a counterexample (...) showing how the two might possibly co-exist. But whereas most attempts to show this have been grounded anthropologically, by drawing on forms of love-relationship that God and humans have in common, I offer a defense of the compatibility of perfect divine love with human non-resistant non-belief in God’s existence grounded theologically, in the unique sort of love relationship that God wants with us, which is the relationship of “imaging.”. (shrink)

These two remarkable books, both published in 2010, share many themes but differ in significant ways, and each is very much worth reading and pondering. Oord’s The Nature of Love concentrates primarily on conceptual and theological themes relating to the very nature of love itself and what influential theologians have had to say about love. His Defining Love focuses on how the social and physical sciences impact our understanding of human and divine love. Both (...) books presuppose and express many themes that are prominent in process theology such as: freedom is universally present (by degrees) in all creatures, especially us; predestination is abhorrent and untenable; God exists necessarily and everlastingly but not .. (shrink)

We might be tempted to think that, necessarily, if God unsurpassably loves such created persons as there may be, then for any capable created person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship with S at t, where one is open to relationship with another only if one never does anything (by commission or omission) that would have the result that the other was prevented from being able, just by (...) trying, to participate in that relationship. I argue that we should resist the temptation. (shrink)

The success of the atheistic hiddenness argument depends on the “consciousness constraint” it imposes on the divine-human loving relationship: namely, that this relationship requires human conscious awareness of being in the relationship with God. I challenge the truth of this proposition by introducing the concept of a physical relationship with God that is not subject to this constraint. I argue, first, that a physical relationship with God is metaphysically possible; second, that its plausibility is supported by natural theology; and (...) third, that a perfectly loving God would prefer physical relationships with human beings over consciousness-constrained relationships, because a perfectly loving God would prefer to preserve the integrity of human freedom of participation and allow inclusion of all people regardless of their natural cognitive capabilities. I also offer an interpretation of apparent divine hiddenness in the light of the idea of God’s openness for physical relationships. (shrink)

This paper explores the metaphysical concepts of divine “love” (ʿeshq), “attraction” (jadhbe), and “selflessness” (bīkhodī) in the seminal Iranian Shīʿī Muslim thinker Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī’s poetry. This research emerges from the gap in existing literature, which mainly explores Fayḍ Kāshānī’s philosophical, theological, or ḥadīth works, while the scrutiny of his poetry largely stays within its literary attributes, overlooking the philosophical and mystical themes embedded within. The paper’s thesis posits that according to Fayḍ Kāshānī, the spiritual journey commences (...) with reason, progressing to constant divine contemplation, a combination that nurtures muḥabbat—an initial stage of divine love—which, when discovered, evokes a more intense love: “divine attraction” in the seeker’s heart, leading to selflessness and divine unity. This paper employs the hermeneutic method and analytical examination to scrutinize Fayḍ Kāshānī’s poetry within the context of his treatises. It follows an “intracultural” interpretation to explore Fayḍ Kāshānī’s thought within Persian intellectual tradition and uses an “intercultural” interpretation to contextualize the findings within Islamic, Christian, and ancient Greek metaphysics. The methodology includes a “horizontal interpretation” of Quranic and ḥadīth references in Fayḍ Kāshānī’s works and a “vertical interpretation” of unveiling deeper meanings of Fayḍ Kāshānī’s thoughts within the broader mystical traditions. (shrink)

I examine the notion of the authoritative command of divine love developed by Paul Moser in his book The Elusive God. Using a Calvinist objection to Moser's contention that God must love every one, including His enemies, I conclude that the notion of an authoritative command of divine love is paradoxical. I then offer a resolution of this paradox on terms that I judge to be in line with Moser's intentions.

For centuries, philosophers and theologians debated how to reconcile the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving, and ever-present God with the problem of evil. However, the question of why the righteous suffer remains unanswered. Given the omnipresence of God, one wonders why the sufferers experience what seems like God’s absence in their adversity. This study presents a theodicy of narrative analytic theology because the experiences of the saints of old compel us to rethink our approach to the problem of evil from (...) the ‘God’s-eye view’ to the experiential and existential worries of the sufferer. The study looks at the story of Job and Daniel and his friends in Babylon. The narrative theodicy approach helps us understand why the righteous never denounced God in the Old Testament. The New Testament, in line with the Old Testament, reveals a suffering motif of the saints, which includes participation in the atoning work of Christ and the purification of the souls of the sufferer. Nevertheless, it seems some evils are pointless. The sufferers do not see their suffering as a punishment or a weakness from God but as a distraction and a test to perfect their covenantal relationship with the Triune. Ultimately, the suffering of the righteous will be overcome at the eschaton. (shrink)

I sympathetically explore the thesis that God literally forgets sins. I articulate some altruistic God might have for forgetting certain sins. If so, then God may have altruistic reasons to relinquish a great-making trait (omniscience). But according to traditional Anselmian perfect being theology, God is necessarily perfect and so incapable of acting on these altruistic reasons. More broadly, a God who necessarily has all the perfections is a God who is incapable of making a certain kind of sacrifice: God can (...) never make tradeoffs that diminish God’s overall greatness, even when those diminishments are relatively small (like forgetting a particular proposition) and the (altruistic) rewards of making the tradeoff substantial. I argue that God’s inability to make such tradeoffs is not a trivial cost for traditional perfect-being theologians who also believe that God is in loving relationships with creatures. Along the way, I explore the prospects for a less traditional form of perfect being theology, perfect being kenoticism, and different models for divine forgetting. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of work on human development in evolutionary anthropology from a Thomist perspective. I show that both fields view care for others as fundamental to human nature and interpret cooperative breeding as expression of the virtue of charity. I begin with an analysis of different approaches to the relationship between evolutionary anthropology and moral theory. I argue that ethical naturalism is the approach best suited to interdisciplinary dialogue, since it holds that natural facts are useful for (...) moral theory but do not encompass it. This forms the basis for a Thomist analysis of some key features of human evolution including bipedalism, higher encephalisation and extended childhood. In each case I explain how these parts of our nature contributed to the evolution of modern humans, and how each is reliant upon communal care. Finally, I offer three observations on these facts from a Thomist perspective. Firstly, that a good human life necessarily involves caring for others and being cared for ourselves. Secondly, that this is exemplified in the virtue of charity, which is the ground of all virtue. Finally, that the need for such care shows that human flourishing cannot be attained without divine aid. (shrink)

This article argues in favor of Open conception of divinity and theology in Islam. In Section 1, I explain the main textual difference between traditional transcendent conception of divinity and the open conception. Then, I will demonstrate the essential elements of this theology according to the various interpretations of the texts. I will then introduce a different meaning of God’s power as freedom bestowment. Next, I will argue that open theology can be supported rationally through its capability to dissolve some (...) philosophical concerns of theism. It will be concluded that since in the modern era, human beings have changed their position in the world consciously, this change in the position of the man-world state definitely affects our epistemic position toward God, which is our theology. Nowadays, after challenging the sociopolitical paternalistic hierarchy of the world, we become more ready to understand the immanence, nearness, and love of God instead of seeing Him as the almighty King who governs the world from an eternal and too transcendent position. In my view, Open theology could be a fruitful avenue for Islamic theology to pursue as it seeks to answer the emerging questions concerning Man–God relationship in our modern world. (shrink)

A religious and philosophical treatise called Works of love was written by Kierkegaard in 1847 under Kierkegaard’s name. It’s a Christian book and not pseudonomical writing like his early writings. R. Gregor Smith notes that Kierkegaard’s study of love reaches to the heart of Christian thought. Indeed, it discusses the matter of Love in his different senses: self-love, love for the neighbour and love for God. So, it focuses on the relation between the self (...) and the others. In Works of Love, he sets up a contrast between the natural loves like erotic love (Elskov) and friendship (Venskab) on one hand, and the love for God and neighbour on the other hand. There is an evident tension between the different attitudes that Kierkegaard expresses in that writing with regard to preferential love. That why, perhaps, a great critics Løgstrup judges Works of Love to be “a brilliantly thought out system of safeguards against being forced into a close relationship with other people1”. In this article, I offer a brief account of some Kierkegaard’s key concerns about love: its’s preferential love and its being a form of self-love. I will discuss the means of preferential love which presents romantic love and friendship. This is, according to Kierkegaard, a real form of selfishness. Christian love is expressed in the Divine Commandment: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” as Matthew said (22:39), so Kierkegaard shows that “Christian love teaches us to love all people, unconditionally all” (1995, 49). That words “shall” is the “very mark of Christian love” because that love is the duty to love neighbour, any neighbour as one loves oneself. Why does Kierkegaard separate two kinds of love? Is it so different? Preferential love is excluded from the category of neighbourly love because it is understood by the poet. That is to say that preferential love is only showing by the poet way. Therefore, erotic love and friendship aren’t dismissed altogether but only as long as they are understood in the pagan way, or more clearly as a poet manner. (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)

John Wesley insisted that love is the “sum of all” in real Methodism, Christianity, and True Religion. This “sum” includes “God is love,” the two love commandments, and all beliefs, affections, and good works that are derived from, express, and nurture love to God, neighbors, and every creature God has made. Wesley expressly rejected Biblical doctrines and practices that are unloving such as predestination, God hated Esau, and the many malicious and vengeful imprecatory Psalms. Wesley’s example (...) encourages us to reconsider LGBTQ issues in light of “What would be the most loving thing to do?,” and to reject such unloving and unethical Biblical commandments as putting to death all people who work on the Sabbath, all practicing male homosexuals, and both the male and female partners involved in adultery. What else? Taking Wesley very seriously might require changes in the curriculum of Wesleyan divinity schools, and in the contents of Wesleyan preaching. (shrink)

This paper offers a fresh strategy for responding to J.L. Schellenberg’s argument from divine hiddenness, called the dianthropic strategy. First, it shows how Schellenberg’s understanding of openness is deficient by arguing that openness to relationship is consistent with initial concealment. Then, the paper develops the dianthropic strategy, which focuses on the role of other persons in making a relationship between God and the nonbeliever more likely. It distinguishes this strategy from the responsibility argument and anticipates objections.

Do we rightly expect a perfectly loving God to bring it about that, right now, we reasonably believe that He exists? It seems so. For love at its best desires the well-being of the beloved, not from a distance, but up close, explicitly participating in her life in a personal fashion, allowing her to draw from that relationship what she may need to flourish. But why suppose that we would be significantly better off were God to engage in an (...) explicit, personal relationship with us? Well, first, there would be broadly moral benefits. We would be able to draw on the resources of that relationship to overcome seemingly everpresent flaws in our character. And we would be more likely to emulate the self-giving love with which we were loved. So loved, we would be more likely to flourish as human beings. Secondly, there would be experiential benefits. We would be, for example, more likely to experience peace and joy stemming from the strong conviction that we were properly related to our Maker, security in suffering knowing that, ultimately, all shall be well, and there would be the sheer pleasure of God's loving presence. As a consequence of these moral and experiential benefits, our relationships with others would likely improve. Thirdly, to be personally related to God is intrinsically valuable, indeed, according to the Christian tradition, the greatest intrinsic good. In these ways our well-being would be enhanced if God were to relate personally to us. Moreover, the best love does not seek a personal relationship only for the sake of the beloved. As Robert Adams rightly notes, "It is an abuse of the word 'love' to say that one loves a person, or any other object, if one does not care, except instrumentally, about one's relation to that object."1 Thus, God would want a personal relationship with us not only for the benefit we would receive from it but for its own sake as well. So, if a perfectly loving God exists, He wants a personal relationship with us, or more accurately, every capable creature, those cognitively and affectively equipped to relate personally with Him.. (shrink)

The philosophical “problem of evil” goes back at least as far as Epicurus and has remained a powerful argument against the existence of God in contemporary philosophy. The argument is rooted in apparent contradictions between God’s divine attributes and various conditions of human existence. But these contradictions arise only given certain assumptions of what we should expect both God and the world to be like given God’s existence. In this paper, I argue that we can utilize the work of (...) the 20th century French philosopher Simone Weil to craft a coherent metaphysical picture of God, creation, and suffering which rejects these common assumptions. Further, I contend that this picture very plausibly follows from commonly-accepted tenets of traditional monotheism. Given this, I argue that this Weil-inspired framework provides serious reasons for reframing the problem of evil and its corresponding theodicies by presenting a radically different view of how God must relate to creation. Yet, this picture does not necessarily vindicate the theist. I argue that this picture may leave us with a new question about creation in the face of evil. Namely, is it possible to understand God’s initial creative act as Weil describes it—as an act of love? (shrink)

Augustine’s accounts of his so-called mystical experiences in conf. 7.10.16, 17.23, and 9.10.24 are puzzling. The primary problem is that, although in all three accounts he claims to have seen “that which is,” we have no satisfactory account of what “that which is” is supposed to be. I shall be arguing that, contrary to a common interpretation, Augustine’s intellectual “seeing” of “being” in Books 7 and 9 was not a vision of the Christian God as a whole, nor of one (...) of the divine persons, each of whom is equally God, according to Augustine. This becomes clear when we attend to the fact that Augustine is appropriating a specific meaning of “that which is” or “being” used by Plotinus in his account of the lover of Beauty. This resolution, however, leads to a second question. Is there anything distinctively Christian about any, or all, of Augustine’s ascents? On the one hand, it would be odd if there were not, given that the Confessions are addressed to the Christian God. On the other hand, upon close inspection we find that the allegedly specific “Christian” characteristics that modern commentators have identified in the ascents of conf. 7 and 9 also occur in the Neoplatonists. I will argue that there is in fact one important difference between Augustine and the Neoplatonists here that has not been pointed out in these prior interpretations. (shrink)

In the ancient world, the Greeks believed that all great insights came from one of nine muses, divine sisters who brought inspiration to mere mortals. In the modern world, few people still believe in the muses, but we all still love to hear stories of sudden inspiration. Like Newton and the apple, or Archimedes and the bathtub (both another type of myth), we’re eager to hear and to share stories about flashes of insight. But what does it take (...) to be actually creative? How to have such a flash insight? Turns out, there is real science behind "aha moments." We prefer to call it “intuilytics.”. (shrink)

In 1993, for the first time, John L. Schellenberg, the contemporary philosopher of religion, proposed the “Hiddenness Argument’’. According to this argument, as God doesn’t provide for many people sufficient evidence for His existence, He is Hidden. In the other words, that many people inculpably fail to find sufficient evidence for the existence of God constitutes evidence for atheism. Schellenberg argues that since a loving God would not withhold the benefits of belief, the lack of evidence for God’s existence is (...) incompatible with divine love. This paper argues that his defense of two controversial premises of his argument is unsuccessful: one is that God’s love is incompatible with His allowing some to remain in doubt in His existence, and the other is: the nonbelief of some agnostics is inculpable. Theistic Religions have plausible reasons, which Schellenberg has not succeeded in refuting, for thinking that all nonbelief is culpable. (shrink)

One of the foremost objections to theological voluntarism is the contingency objection. If God’s will fixes moral facts, then what if God willed that agents engage in cruelty? I argue that even unrestricted theological voluntarists should accept some logical constraints on possible moral systems—hence, some limits on ways that God could have willed morality to be—and these logical constraints are sufficient to blunt the force of the contingency objec­tion. One constraint I defend is a very weak accessibility requirement, related to (...) (but less problematic than) existence internalism in metaethics. The theo­logical voluntarist can maintain: Godcouldn’t have loved cruelty, and even though he could have willed behaviors we find abhorrent, he could only have done so in a world of deeply alien moral agents. We cannot confidently declare such a world unacceptable. (shrink)

I offer a new, limited solution to divine hiddenness based on a particular epistemic paradox: sometimes, knowing about a desired outcome or relevant features of that desired outcome would prevent the outcome in question from occurring. I call these cases epistemically self-defeating situations. This solution, in essence, says that divine hiddenness or silence is a necessary feature of at least some morally excellent or desirable states of affairs. Given the nature of the paradox, an omniscient being cannot completely (...) eliminate hiddenness, just as an omnipotent being cannot create a rock so heavy that they cannot lift it. Epistemically self-defeating situations provide an undercutting defeater for the assumption that any nonresistant nonbeliever could always, at any time, be in conscious relationship with a perfectly loving God. Thankfully, silence is a temporary feature of epistemically self-defeating situations: once the outcome is achieved, agents can know in full. (shrink)

In the exceptional book _Divine Holiness and Divine Action_, Mark Murphy defends what he calls the _holiness framework _for divine action. The purpose of our essay-response to Murphy’s book is to consider an alternative framework for divine action, what we call the _agapist framework_. We argue that the latter framework is more probable than Murphy’s holiness framework with respect to_ select _theological desiderata.

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)

Divine intention is an important problem for both philosophy and Kalam. This problem has two aspects as the subject and action of the intention. The intention of the subject occurs for the motion or the action itself. The intention of the action is to reach the motion or the action itself. According to this, when a person travels to Mecca to visit Kaaba, the visit is the intention of the subject and the journey is the intention of the action. (...) In this context, does Allah have an intention? And what are the intentions of the actions aris-ing from him? In the Islamic philosophy, the first question is handled as "intention of the sub-ject/divine intention” and the second question as "the intention of the actions/divine inten-tion of the actions". In order to answer the first question, we must examine all types of inten-tions. Each subject takes action to benefit them, to benefit others and to act for the sake of the goodness and kindness. Allah would be dependent being if he acted to benefit him and to make up for a flaw for the first of these intentions. In the second intention type, if Allah acted for someone else, this sit-uation would be on the degree of cause for the subject and he would be passive. For the third intention type which is to act to reach for perfection, it would deem Allah as a dependent being. The above-mentioned intentions are flawed. On the contrary, Allah is perfect and does not need any of these intentions to create. Thus, he is not subject to any of these possible inten-tions. These intentions are only used by imperfect subjects. Of course, it does not mean that Allah does not have intentions. According to Avicenna and Mulla Sadra, intention of Allah is the love towards his essence which is free from any flaw. According to this, all beings are entailed to the divine essence and they exist due to the love of essence of Allah. Allah has a direct intention as well as an indirect one. As mentioned before, Allah is in love with his essence. Allah loves the works and actions of his essence as well, according to the principal that one, who loves the essence, loves the works and actions of that essence as well. In this context, the love of essence of the Allah is a direct intention, while the love of his es-sence's works and actions is an indirect intention. After the divine intention is explained, we must also explain the intention of the divine ac-tions. According to both Mulla Sadra and Avicenna, since possible beings are flawed, their intention is to reach to certain perfections which are compatible with themselves. Mulla Sadra states that Allah bestows motivation to possible beings to advance towards the perfection and he claims that these beings make use of that motivation to be perfect. Therefore, possible beings try to make up their flaws and reach to perfection. Since Allah is the absolute perfect being, the final intention of the possible beings is Allah. In other words, all beings that seek for perfection, take example of him. The other intentions act as a primary tool to reach the final intention. How can flawed beings by essence reach to perfections compatible with them? Avicenna and Mulla Sadra stated different opinions on the search of perfection of the flawed beings in the Islam philosophy. According to Avicenna, beings change with extinction and creation. This change happens by accident and the substance stays constant. In accordance with this approach, this change and development is only possible with accidental motion. It occurs with the replacement between forms. But the theory of the Avicenna has some flaws. Because forms are not the intentions of each other and first hyle is not strong enough to have an intention. Thus, no form is superior to the other. It is also not possible to have substance development because the substance and es-sence of the material are constant. It only goes through changes in appearance with the acci-dental motion. It is clear that the changes in the appearance and the shape are not standards for perfection. On the other hand, Mulla Sadra's development theory, which is based on the fundamentality of existence, existential gradation and substantial motion, suggests that the material world is moving towards the perfection. The motion in the substance of material beings is reason of substantial and accidental developments. All beings try to promote themselves to a higher position by reaching perfection in accordance with their intentions. Thus, the theory of Avicenna focuses on the accidental and formal changes in the search of perfection of the material beings, while Mulla Sadra’s theory explains accidental changes as well as the essential ones. Mulla Sadra does not limit the explanation of which Allah is the intention of possible beings to ontological dimension. According to him, Allah is an intention of possible beings as well. He points out the Hadith Qudsi "I was a hidden treasure, I desired to be recognized so I created the creature" and states that "This (Hadith Qudsi) indicates that he is the subject and the in-tention of the universe in an ontological manner as well as the intention of the universe in an epistemological manner." Thus, according to Mulla Sadra, possible beings have two inten-tions, to reach to and understand Allah. (shrink)

The atheistic Hiddenness Argument contains a controversial premise that a perfectly loving God would love every single person. J. L. Schellenberg, the author of the Argument, claims that this premise is necessarily true. However, many ancient theologians would disagree with the truth of this premise. In this paper, I provide evidence of the variety of alternative theological views from antiquity concerning the proper object of perfect divine love. The list of alternatives includes 1) the whole humanity as (...) a collective subject, 2) humanity as a universal, 3) divine image reflected in human beings, 4) the community of the faithful, 5) a chosen people. Based on the disagreement between Schellenberg and the ancient theologians concerning the proper object of perfect divine love, I argue that the aforementioned premise of the hiddenness argument, even if true, is not necessarily true. Therefore, the key premise of the hiddenness argument turns out to be without support, and the Argument turns out to be unsound. (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, what distinguishes the theological from the cardinal virtues is the nature of their object: the latter aim at the natural excellence of humans, while the former direct us beyond ourselves to focus on the Divine. This paper considers the cinematic work of Drew Goddard — in particular, his 2018 film _Bad Times at the El Royale_ — as a post-religious response to Aquinas, insofar as it retains and re-presents Faith, Hope, and Love as valuable (...) elements of the human experience itself, even in the absence of a supernatural vector of their application. After the fashion of Caputo’s Derrida, I offer a religionless interpretation of each of the three theological virtues and show how _Bad Times_ itself deconstructs the roles of ‘god’ and ‘human,’ interchanging them in a way that manifests a “religionless religion” wherein the theological virtues can remain vibrant, even without the theological structure that might be expected to undergird them. In short: _Bad Times at the El Royale_ demonstrates how even if God is dead, Faith, Hope, and Love are not. (shrink)

In this edition are presented the works by Alex Listengort, written in a period of time from autumn-2008 to may 2013. Here the reader may see a circulation of different topics, of questions and answers, embodied in Poems. These Pieces of Arts do Bless and Fill Up with a Special Energy that is familiar to every living creature, and that brings peace, eternity, divine presence and Miracle of life in all its forms. Searches for a meaning of life and (...) its integrating into the life itself, eternal existencional questions, for which the author dares to give an answer in his poems. Themes of love and beguines, motherland, nature, time and something they call the God: all that finds its reflections in authors’ poems, but the main here are the questions of enlightenment, spiritual awakening of a human being, gaining happiness, abundance and awareness: of everything, that each of us insists to find on the line, of everything, that, as author says, no one had ever really lost, and what Is just temporarily hidden under a tricky veil, that is a part of a global plan, that is a special condition of this Game. Today in our hands we all keep a totally blessed possibility to get the needed truth, to open a stream that does fill up and gives us new power to go further: with a good will, conscioused goal, bright mind and an awakened soul. Many people that have known Alex’s creativity do mark a special energy of his poems, that truly gifts them peacefulness, joy, bliss, energy and a new knowledge. The Author itself sincerely looks forward for his works to complete their mission by revealing in a right way to the people beautiful secrets of all the world around and will bring happiness, peace and awakening into this world. Besides this edition are published «Okean Bozhestvennosty» - a complete book with Alex Listengorts’ poems, notes and prosaic miniatures, and also – «A New Stage of Awakening», a book, where reader finds a new way of looking on humans spiritual awakening and on the esoteric knowledge that leads to such revelations. In prospect there Is a novel “The Return”. -/- DISCOVER A NEW (WELL FORGOTTEN) WORLD: A WORLD OF YOURSELF. AN ENERGY, LIVING IN EVERYTHING. A DIVINE CHARGE, OF WHICH YOU ARE AN ETERNAL GUIDE . (shrink)

Significant attention as been devoted to the problem of ‘divine hiddenness’ proposed by JL Shellenberg. I propose a novel response that involves denying part of the empirical premise in divine hiddenness arguments, which holds that nonresistant nonbelievers are capable of relationship with God. While Plantinga and others in ‘reformed’ epistemology have at times appealed to original sin as an explanation for divine hiddenness, such responses might seem outlandish to many, given the way that many find nonbelievers to (...) be no more or less epistemically or morally blameworthy than believers. Further, such appeals to original sin seem to give a ‘just-so’ story that at least leaves the situation dialectically balanced. I show that a classically Augustinian notion of original sin can provide a sufficient response to those objections, and that appeal to original sin can form an empirically grounded response to the divine hiddenness problem, beyond a simple defense. If the possibility of original sin-type scenarios is compatible with God’s perfect love, then the phenomenon of apparently nonresistant nonbelievers would push us toward considering the possibility that humans have lost those capacities for relationship with God by a Fall-like event in the past. (shrink)

‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ is, as we all recognize, the inscription over the gate of Dante's hell; but we perhaps forget what precedes that memorable line. Hell, the inscription says, was built by divine power, by the highest wisdom, and by primordial love. Those of us who remember Dante's vivid picture of Farinata in the perpetually burning tombs or Ulysses in the unending and yet unconsuming flames may be able to credit Dante's idea that Hell (...) was constructed by divine power; and if we understand ‘wisdom’ in this context as denoting an intellectual virtue only, then we might agree that only divine wisdom is capable of making something like Dante's hell. (shrink)

Canadian Philosopher, John L. Schellenberg, formally proposed and formulated "Divine Hiddenness Argument" in 1993 for the first time. In this atheistic argument, he states that God does not provide sufficient evidence for His existence at least to some people for some times, thus He is hidden. According to his argument which is based on God’s perfect love, Schellenberg believes that if God perfectly loves people as his creatures, He will provide sufficient evidence for his existence to them and (...) therefore He is not hidden. But God does not provide sufficient evidence to them, therefore He is not perfect lover and disbelieving in His existence is rational and inculpable. Schellenberg believes that "Divine hiddenness Argument" justifies atheism and accordingly refutes the existence of God. Paul K. Moser, contemporary American philosopher, rejects Schellenberg’s view in his new approach to epistemology of religion. Rejecting the evidence for Divine hiddenness, Moser believes that there is sufficient evidence for the existence of God. According to Moser, however, this evidence greatly differs with what the people naturally expect. Based on volitional knowledge, he believes that it is the God, not man, who determines the genuine authority and resource for kinds of evidence and its evaluation. So, Moser does not consider divine hiddenness argument, which is formulated on the basis of human authority, successful in justification of divine hiddenness and in refutation of God’s existence. (shrink)

The issue of the article is whether the experience of Beauty or love in Plato can be considered as some kind of religious experience. First, the article describes different views on the religious experience. Then it deals with Plato's view on beauty and love and their relationship. finally, demonstrating the divinity of Beauty in Plato, the article shows that if religious experience is an encounter of the experiencer with the divine being, or in religious term God, that (...) manifests itself in various forms, and that encounter is accompanied by a direct conscious of the divine being, then the experience of Beauty or love in Plato can be considered as a kind of religious experience. The article merely claims that the experience of Beauty or love is an instance of religious experience, and it does not have any epistemological view on religious experience, however, any epistemological view on religious experience logically includes the experience of Beauty or love. -/- Key words: religious experience, beauty, love, divinity, Plato . (shrink)

Gwen Bradford has plausibly argued that one attains achievement only if one does something one finds difficult. It is also plausible that one must attain achievement to be worthy of “agential” praise, praise that is appropriately directed to someone on the basis of things that redound to their credit. These claims pose a challenge to classical theists who direct agential praise to God, since classical theism arguably entails that none of God’s actions are difficult for God. I consider responses to (...) this challenge and commend a view accord- ing to which God’s loving character is not necessitated by God’s nature but is a contingent and difficult achievement. I argue that this view can still satisfy the explanatory ambitions of natural theology. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Christ’s second love command implies not only that people’s volitions and actions be Christ-like, but also that their affective-motivational dispositions be Christ-like. More specifically, I argue that the command implies that people have aretaic obligations to strive to cultivate a merciful heart with the kind of affective depth described by St. Isaac of Syria in his 71st ascetical homily—i.e., one that is disposed to becoming inflamed, such that it is gripped by “strong and (...) vehement mercy.”. (shrink)

The notion of divine love was essential to medieval Christian conceptions of God. Jewish thinkers, though, had a much more ambivalent attitude about this issue. While Maimonides was reluctant to ascribe love, or any other affect, to God, Gersonides and Crescas celebrated God’s love. Though Spinoza is clearly sympathetic to Maimonides’ rejection of divine love as anthropomorphism, he attributes love to God nevertheless, unfolding his notion of amor Dei intellectualis at the conclusion of (...) his Ethics. But is this a legitimate notion within his system? In the first part of this article, I will explain some of the problems surrounding this notion, and then turn, in the second part, to consider two unsatisfactory solutions. In the third part, I will attempt to rework Spinoza’s amor Dei intellectualis from his definitions of love and the other affects in part three of the Ethics. In the fourth part, I will examine closely how Spinoza tweaks his definition of love in order to allow for the possibility of divine intellectual love, and conclude by trying to explain what motivated this move. (shrink)

At Yannaras and to Zizioulas there is an absolutization and idealization of otherness, which, together with freedom, are two fundamental attributes of personhood. Alterity acquires value and meaning only in relation with relational factors: love, fellowship and, also, being/nature. Due to the fact that, at Yannaras, nature denies apriori the person as otherness (the ratio between person and nature is defined under the aspect of: priority, inclusion, transcendence or conflict). S. Agouridic qualified both Zizioulas and Yannaras as “fighter against/opponent (...) of ousia” their ontology becoming personhood-ology. It may be however dangerous to submit the person to a “dictated or imposed otherness which reduces or diminishes the size of the identity (the common nature of people). In a conception about intersubjectivity Other is more important than Ego and dominate it, and “the dialogically element and reciprocity, which are being inherent to the intersubjectivity and to the communion between people, are inevitably reduced”. In reply to a “theology of the relationship” developed through ontology’s speculations of the person was the assertion of both Lossky, as well as Panagopoulos of meta-ontological and apophatic character of the person. (shrink)

The Preface to Leibniz's famous Theodicy offers a perspective on the work that has been insufficiently studied. In this paper, I ask that we step back from the main text of the Theodicy and attend to its Preface. I show that the latter performs two crucial preparatory tasks that have not been properly appreciated. The first is to offer a public declaration of what I call Leibniz’s radical rationalism. The Preface assumes that any attentive rational being is capable of (...) class='Hi'>divine knowledge. The basic idea is that it is knowledge about a divine perfection that can be understood more or less completely. In the Preface, Leibniz entices his readers to seek such knowledge and explains why doing so has been so difficult before now. What makes this rationalism radical is that divine knowledge is severed from any religion or set of religious beliefs. While some Christian doctrines make it easier to approach God, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to do so. The author of the Theodicy thereby informs his readers that they have access to divine perfections, regardless of religious affiliation. To acquire such knowledge, they need only work through his book. The second task of the Preface is closely related to the first. It invites readers to seek divine love and virtue. To set themselves on the path to virtue, they need only avoid the pitfalls of religion and use reason in the right way to grasp a divine perfection. Once they enter the main text of the Theodicy, they have begun that journey. (shrink)

Drawing on the writings of the Jewish thinker, Abraham Joshua Heschel, I defend a partial response to the problem of divine hiddenness. A Jewish approach to divine love includes the thought that God desires meaningful relationship not only with individual persons, but also with communities of persons. In combination with John Schellenberg’s account of divine love, the admission of God’s desire for such relationships makes possible that a person may fail to believe that God exists (...) not because of any individual failing, but because the individual is a member of a larger community that itself is culpable. (shrink)

What is the relationship of human desire to divine love? Spiritual traditions teach us that human desire achieves its true aim only when elevated into the life of divine love. In this essay, I provide a reading of three sayings from three spiritual traditions - Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian - in order to explore the meaning of this.

According to the Free Will Explanation of a traditional view of hell, human freedom explains why some people are in hell. It also explains hell’s punishment and finality: persons in hell have freely developed moral vices that are their own punishment and that make repentance psychologically impossible. So, even though God continues to desire reconciliation with persons in hell, damned persons do not want reconciliation with God. But this moral vice explanation of hell’s finality is implausible. I argue that God (...) can and would make direct or indirect alterations in their character to give them new motivational reasons that re-enable their freedom to repent. Subsequently, I argue that it is probable that each damned person will be saved eventually, because there is a potential infinity of opportunities for free repentance. Thus, if the Free Will Explanation’s descriptions of hell and divine love are correct, it is highly probable that each person in hell escapes to heaven. (shrink)

This paper defends “Animal Universalism,” the thesis that all sentient non-human animals will be brought into Heaven and remain there for eternity. It assumes that God exists and is all-powerful, perfectly loving, and perfectly just. From these background theses, the authors argue that Animal Universalism follows. If God is perfectly loving, then God is concerned about the well-being of non-human animals, and God chooses to maximize the well-being of each individual animal when doing so does not harm other individual creatures (...) or violate creaturely freedom. If God is perfectly just, then God does not arbitrarily discriminate against non-human animals by offering humans an opportunity to enter Heaven but not offering the same to each animal. Each of these conclusions implies Animal Universalism. (shrink)