Contemporary Philosophical Theology Research Articles

A Paradoxical Account of Divine Omnipresence

This essay examines the doctrine of divine omnipresence. I begin by presenting three desiderata for an adequate account of omnipresence. Four accounts are analyzed in light of these desiderata, two in the tradition and two in contemporary philosophical theology. I argue that none succeed in providing an adequate account of divine omnipresence. As an alternative, I offer a paradoxical account of omnipresence, arguing that one can be rational in affirming that what appears to be a doctrine afflicted by apparent contradiction is in fact merely a paradox. I explain what makes affirmations of paradoxical doctrines rational, why omnipresence should be understood as a paradox, and discuss a similar account of omnipresence in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

"ПЛОТСКИЙ ПОВОРОТ" В ДИСКУССИИ О СВЯЩЕННОМ

The paper is concerned with the carnal turn in contemporary philosophical theology. In the theological studies religion is often interpreted as primarily belonging to the sphere of the spiritual. While it is true that for most religious traditions (Christian as well as non-Christian) God is a spiritual and disembodied being, even the presence of God is always a mediated presence, and it may well be argued that this mediation is always material in character. We analyze theological aspects of the project carnal hermeneutics (Richard Kearney, Brian Treanor, John Panteleimon Manoussakis). Carnal hermeneutics shows the new philosophical turn away from the overly abstract, relativist and limited emphasis on structural linguistics and deconstruction in favor of a new emphasis on the on the fundamental act of incarnation. From that new point of view, linguistics and textual exegesis may continue to be a necessary aspect of hermeneutics – but they are not sufficient in themselves. It is a way of thinking which might help us recover the body as text and the text as body: to restore hermeneutics to phenomenology and vice versa and to remind us that interpretation is never a dis-embodied act. Carnal hermeneutics declares the living presence of the body as the inescapable foundation of our very being – inclusive of any act of interpretation. The carnal hermeneutics insists upon the crisscrossing of text and flesh, which both denies the collapsing of flesh into text (and vice versa) and also reveals the utter inextricability of the two.

The Voice of Reason: Medieval Contemplative Philosophy

Scholastic debates about the activity of our final end—happiness—become famously heated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with intellectualists claiming that the primary activity through which we are joined to God is intellective ‘vision’ and voluntarists claiming that it is love (an act of will). These conversations represent only one set of medieval views on the subject, however. If we look to contemplative sources in the same period—even just those of the Rome-based Christian tradition—we find a range of views on our final end that runs the gamut from ‘self-less union with an unknowable God’ to ‘embodied fulfilment of human nature.’ In this article, I argue that these differing conceptions push their holders to develop a correspondingly wide range of attitudes toward the human faculty of reason, particularly with respect to its value (or lack thereof) in helping us achieve our ultimate end. Medieval thinking on this topic is thus much more complex—and offers more points of connection with contemporary philosophical theology—than is typically recognized.

A Supervenient Trinity: An Alternative to Latin and Social Trinitarian Theories

The Latin Trinity (LT) and the Social Trinity (ST) represent the two dominant approaches for interpreting the doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary philosophical theology. Both approaches have consequences for Christian theology, however, and I believe that neither sufficiently overcomes the charges of modalism or tritheism, respectively. Moreover, the charge of the overall logical incoherency of the doctrine of the Trinity remains a viable criticism. In order to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against charges of incoherency, while avoiding the modalistic and tritheistic leanings of the LT and ST models, I argue that the unitary nature of God‐as‐three‐hypostases is best understood in terms of a relationship of supervenience between the revelation of (1) Deut. 6:4 and (2) the Gospel of John. The Hypostases of the Trinity supervene on the unitary identity of God insofar as to be ‘God’ is to entail the perichoretic relationship of unbegottenness, begottenness, and spiratation (procession). The Supervenient Trinity (SvT), as an analogical model, provides a way to understand God as (1) and (2) that better avoids the modalist and tritheistic difficulties raised by the LT and the ST approaches.

The Method of Perfect Being Theology

How might this formula help us to decide questions about the divine attributes? A plausible answer to this question, which is employed in many discussions of the divine attributes, is that we can decide between rival incompatible hypotheses about God by asking which hypothesis would make God greater. Given that God is the greatest possible being, it seems, we can at least rule out the hypothesis which would accord God the lower level of greatness. One finds this line of thought, in various guises, all over contemporary philosophical theology. Murray and Rea, I think, state the orthodox view when they say that the Anselmian formula “provide[s] us with a rule or recipe for developing a more specific conception of God.”1 The aim of this paper is to raise some questions about the argumentative strategy informally sketched above, and hence about the idea that perfect being theology provides anything like a satisfactory recipe for answering questions about the divine attributes. In doing so I won’t challenge the truth of [GPB] — I think that it is true — but only the idea that it can play the envisaged role in philosophical theology. The paper has three parts. In the first, I examine the version of this argumentative strategy which has recently been defended at length by Brian Leftow.2 Leftow, I think, succeeds in making explicit the method which has been implicit in many recent discussions of the divine attributes. I’ll argue that this method fails. In the second section, I’ll ask whether Leftow’s method can be fixed if we rely, not on the claim that God is the greatest possible being, but on the claim that God is the greatest conceivable being. I’ll argue that it cannot. In the last section, I turn to the question of how Leftow’s

Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement

AbstractEvidence suggests Jonathan Edwards' adherence to a version of the penal substitution theory of atonement. Evidence also suggests that Edwards' version of the penal substitution theory requires certain metaphysical commitments about the nature of Christ's relationship to the elect, echoing those issued in his Original Sin 4.3, and elsewhere, regarding the relationship of Adam to his posterity. In what follows, I argue that such evidence points to Edwards' adherence to what has more recently been described in the literature of contemporary philosophical theology as an account of realist penal substitution.

Simply Impossible: A Case against Divine Simplicity

Abstract Within contemporary philosophical theology the doctrine of divine simplicity has regained attention.1 The pertinent literature has increased by several new defenses of the doctrine.2 One of the more surprising, and troubling, aspects of the contemporary defenses amongst Christian philosophers and theologians is a seeming lack of understanding about how radical the doctrine of divine simplicity truly is. As such, I wish to do a few things in this paper. First, systematically articulate the doctrine of divine simplicity. Second, argue that divine simplicity is not a possible perfection. Third, offer some concluding remarks and highlight remaining issues that will need to be sorted out for the debate over simplicity to meaningfully continue.

Paradox and Mystery in Theology

The question of paradox in Christian theology continues to attract attention in contemporary philosophical theology. Much of this attention understandably centers on the epistemological problems paradoxical claims pose for Christian faith. But even among those who conclude that certain points of Christian theology are paradoxical and that belief in paradoxical points of doctrine is epistemically supportable, concepts of the nature and function of paradox in Christian theology differ significantly. In this essay, after briefly noting the diversity of phenomena that count as paradoxes in contemporary discourse, I critique two of the most helpful accounts of paradox in Christian theology available – James Anderson's and C. Stephen Evans's – on the way to proposing an alternative definition. That definition combines the most helpful features of those two accounts while correcting certain weaknesses in each. The result is a definition of paradox as a particular kind of mystery that fits the Reformed strand of Christian theology particularly well and involves a compelling analysis of the spirituality of the phenomenon of paradox in theology.

Suffering and Soul‐Making:Rethinking John Hick’s Theodicy

John Hick transformed the shape of thinking about theodicy in contemporary philosophical theology with his conception of the world as a “vale of soul-making.” Suffering, he argues, enables our development as spiritually and morally mature persons. Without suffering we could not cultivate virtue and character. God designs the world, therefore, not to shield us from hardships, but to facilitate our progress toward perfection through our constant encounters with dangers, difficulties, and misfortunes. Hick grounds his defining contribution to theodicy in the Greek church fathers, particularly in Irenaeus. Most scholars have uncritically accepted Hick’s appeal to Irenaeus, resulting in the establishment of an “Irenaean-type” of theodicy. Introductions to philosophical theology, philosophy of religion, and the problem of evil replicate his own characterization of the soul-making approach as an “Irenaean theodicy.” In this article I problematize the deeply entrenched

The Realist Hope: a Critique of Anti‐Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (Heythrop Studies in Contemporary Philosophical Theology). By Christopher J. Insole

The Realist Hope: a Critique of Anti‐Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (Heythrop Studies in Contemporary Philosophical Theology). By Christopher J. Insole

The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology

The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti-Realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology

The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti‐realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology – By Christopher J. Insole

The Realist Hope: A Critique of Anti‐realist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology – By Christopher J. Insole

The Critical Value of Negative Theology

If metaphysics seems today to have buried its undertakers, then negative theology may soon silence its critics. Having established a significant if sometimes recessive presence in Western theism, negative theology is again an important element in contemporary philosophical theology. While Anglo- American philosophy of religion remains dominated by analytic neoscholasticism, in the last decade a countercurrent has emerged that makes common cause with the apophatic tradition. The Gifford lectures of Stephen R. L. Clark are examples of this development, as are the works of Leszek Kolakowski. Each thinker has attempted to expand discussion beyond the scholastic parameters of the field and make connections with important historical figures who are often neglected in the literature. Neoplatonism has featured prominently this development; as the principal philosophical foundation for apophatic theology in the West, it has been invoked in both its original Greco-Roman guise and its subsequent manifestation within the Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).