TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology

Editorial

2024-06-08T15:20:16+00:00

Questions concerning death and the afterlife are amongst the most perennial in philosophy and theology. Traditionally, the afterlife was the answer that many religions offered in response to the mystery with which death presents us. This answer has metaphysical, anthropological, and ethical implications in that it appeals to a transcendent justification to ground our understanding of human nature, the concepts of justice and moral obligation, as well as more general propositions pertaining to the nature of reality. In recent years, with the advances in science, which have helped us to better understand the processes surrounding death and the developments in our thinking about personal identity, which have influenced how we construe the possibility of an afterlife, the more traditional conceptions of what we might expect after death have come under pressure.

An Anselmian Defense of Hell

2023-02-11T15:44:45+00:00

This article constructively retrieves St. Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of retributive justice and provides a defense of what can be called the retributive model of hell. In the first part of this article, we develop the place of retributive punishment in Anselm’s thinking and discuss how and when retributive punishment is a good thing. In the second part, we apply Anselm’s thinking on retributive justice to the problem of hell and provide a defense of how hell, defined as a state of receiving retributive, damnatory, and irreversible punishment, is good. We then address a series of objections. Despite some criticism that both Anselm and the retributive model of hell receive in the contemporary literature, Anselm’s account of retributive justice can make unique and constructive contributions to the contemporary discussion of hell; by retrieving and applying Anselm’s thought to the problem of hell, we intend to kill two birds with one stone.

Examining a Late Development in Kant’s Conception of Our Moral Life

2022-08-23T15:22:38+00:00

In the first half, I suggest that Kant’s conception of our moral life goes through a significant shift after 1793, with reverberations in his eschatology. The earlier account, based on the postulate of immortality, describes our moral life as an endless pursuit of the highest good, but all this changes in the later account, and I point out three possible reasons for this change of heart. In the second half, I explore how the considerations Kant brings up to argue for his accounts can inform our process of formulating positions with respect to the afterlife. I argue that, in the absence of a convincing theoretical proof for or against the afterlife as well as apodictically certain knowledge of how demanding the moral law is, the Kantian strategy would be to ask which account of our moral life delivers the kind of contentment that can sustain our moral resolve. I also point out a way theists might be able to find contentment despite their moral failures by imagining God’s moral kenosis.

What the Experience of Transience Tells Us About the Afterlife

2023-03-04T15:43:17+00:00

Sigmund Freud’s reflections on transience left him surprised that someone could revolt against the process of mourning. In Jonathan Lear’s interpretation of transience, the revolt is not simply a passing struggle of the mind, but a response to a difficulty of reality, that is, an existential struggle. Central to the experience of transience, according to Lear, is the disbelief in the existence of an afterlife. How might we understand the idea of an afterlife philosophically? I first consider three different philosophical conceptions of the afterlife that—in different ways—underline the relation between collective memory and the process of mourning. These reflections make it clearer which aspects of the afterlife play a role in the existential struggle that Lear describes. However, a further analysis of the temporality at stake in the denial of an afterlife is needed. I therefore look at two psychoanalytic interpretations of the refusal to mourn. The first considers the refusal to mourn as a way to deny change. The second interpretation sees the refusal as a realisation of meaninglessness that prevents the flow of time. I end the paper by arguing that the afterlife can be understood as a practice of articulation, which allows a shared time to flow. Such a practice will commit us anew to a shared world in which we survive with the wounding difficulties of reality.

Embryonic Afterlives?

2022-08-29T19:30:58+00:00

While much has been written on the moral and metaphysical status of fetuses in Christian bioethics, little thought has been given to how we might characterize the afterlives of the unborn, especially of those human biological individuals who die before even developing a body that could theoretically be resurrected. In this paper, I therefore undertake an examination of questions surrounding the afterlife, specifically as it relates to early pregnancy loss. I first lay out what I call the “problem of weird heavens” that arises when we consider that significantly more unborn human beings have died than have been born in the history of humankind. I then go on to consider questions surrounding both the soteriological status of the embryo and the status of any resurrected “body” it might have. I conclude with the germs of an alternative approach mirrored on the idea of embryonic resorption and mystical union.

Death Prevents Our Lives From Being Meaningful

2022-07-16T10:11:21+00:00

This article seeks to show that death prevents one’s life from being meaningful on balance. Proponents of what has come to be known as the ‘imperfection thesis’ about life’s meaning claim that it is sufficient for one’s life to be meaningful that one relates to only a non-maximal conceivable value. In many, if not all, contexts, holding the imperfection thesis appears to be the sole reason for supposing that death need not prevent one’s life from being meaningful. Counter to this, it is argued that there is good reason to believe that the imperfection thesis is false, that arguments in favour of the imperfection thesis fail, and that attempts to show that the imperfection thesis can counter the arguments against it in a principled way are unsuccessful. Given this, it can be concluded that the imperfection thesis is false, and so there is no reason for supposing that death need not prevent one’s life from being meaningful.

Belief, Doubt, and Faith in Life After Death

2023-01-03T18:19:23+00:00

This essay distinguishes between propositional belief and faith and considers the relationship between these two forms of belief, arguing that faith is not an entirely separate form of belief from propositional assent and that it does require a minimal cognitive content. The essay then goes on to consider beliefs about, and faith in, life after death and develops a metaphorical account of this faith using an Aristotelian concept of the soul as a form of life together with a theological understanding of the death of Jesus in the New Testament. It is argued that the truth claims of assertions about life after death are beyond evidential support, but there are strong reasons for doubting the literal truth of such assertions. Faith in life after death however can be considered rational and truth-seeking. The essay concludes that semantic agnosticism is the proper attitude towards belief in life after death and justifies this position against two possible objections.

What Becomes of the Damned

2022-08-25T10:52:41+00:00

Annihilationism provides a fruitful point of contact between philosophers and theologians for further reflection on nonexistence. In this paper I articulate a key commitment of annihilationism; namely, that some persons cease to exist. Such a commitment, I argue, amounts to the claim that some persons exist at time t and then do not exist at t+1, become ‘annihilated objects.’ Claims about annihilated objects induct the annihilationist into a wider realism/anti-realism debate about nonexistent objects. I survey some major viewpoints in this debate. I then draw out some implications for each view for the annihilationist’s commitment to annihilated objects. I show that annihilationism is consistent with some forms of realism and anti-realism and inconsistent with others.

Eschatology, the Elimination of Evil, and the Ontology of Time

2023-04-23T16:00:30+00:00

Part and parcel of the eschatology of the three Abrahamic faiths is the belief that sin and evil will be eliminated upon the consummation of God’s kingdom on earth. Not only do these beliefs affirm that God will ultimately “deal” with the problem of sin and evil, but that sin and evil will be no more. I refer to this eschatological belief as “the elimination of evil” (EOE). The EOE has important implications for how one understands the ontology of time. In this paper, I contribute to this discussion by arguing that ontologies of time that affirm the concrete existence of past moments are incompatible with the EOE. I also argue that solutions based on theories of hypertime, such as those posited by Tyron Goldschmidt and Samuel Lebens, also fail to solve the problems posed to those ontologies of time affirming the concrete existence of the past. I conclude that the ontology of time that best facilitates the EOE is presentism.

Wittgenstein, Language, and the Trinity

2023-06-19T10:19:48+00:00

Theistic religions differ in their conceptions of the nature of God. One philosophical-theological position, the Christian Trinity, stands out as unique amongst theistic religions. If such a position were demonstrated, it would significantly narrow the philosophical-theological gap in discussions of God’s nature. I proposed that such an argument in favor of the Christian Trinity can be found in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. It is argued that language is an essentially social phenomenon and that God is a language user requiring God to be an essentially social being. As a result, either polytheism or the Christian Trinity is true. I argue that this divine social nature is best explained by the Christian Trinity.

Jesus’s Confession of Ignorance and Consubstantiality

2023-05-18T15:06:21+00:00

This essay argues that Jesus’s confession of ignorance about the day and hour of his return (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32) is logically inconsistent with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan doctrine of his “consubstantiality” (homoousia) with God the Father. The essay first defines “consubstantiality”, then presents three formulations of the argument, and finally rebuts a number of possible responses: from the textual originality of the phrase “nor the Son”; from the reinterpretation of “knows” as “makes known”; from the ideas of partitive exegesis and communicatio idiomatum; and from the question of the Holy Spirit’s knowledge of the things of God.

Is Christian Belief Supernatural?

2023-05-17T10:04:19+00:00

The Cognitive Science of Religion represents a contemporary attempt at a naturalistic explanation of religion. There is debate as to whether its account of how religious beliefs arise is reconcilable with the religious account, which holds that religious beliefs are caused by God. In my paper, I argue that these two accounts cannot be reconciled when it comes to the specific question of how Christian religious beliefs arise if one accepts an important theological doctrine of the supernaturality of Christian belief. This doctrine implies that there can be no natural explanation for how Christian beliefs arise because they are a gift of divine grace. This leads to a conundrum for Christian theists: they can either reject the CSR account of how their religious beliefs arise, or they can reject the supernaturality of Christian belief. I argue that the latter is preferable. I then draw on the work of the theologian Denis Edwards to illustrate how one can drop this doctrine without abandoning some other fundamental tenets of Christian theology.

Simplicidad divina radical

2023-03-30T12:51:41+00:00

many philosophers have combined a Platonic metaphysics about abstract entities and a theistic conception according to which God is the creator of ‘heaven and earth’, of all ‘visible and ‘invisible’. Supposedly, God is the unique entity a se, i. e., the unique entity on which every other depends ontologically. It has been a traditional contention of Platonists, nevertheless, that abstract things, like universals or numbers, are independent. How are these theses compatible? Several critics have argued that they are not. A theist ontology imposes —for them— the outright rejection of Platonism or, eventually, a milder form of Platonism that substitutes universals and other abstracta by ‘concepts’ or ‘ideas’ in the divine intellect. Philosophers of Platonic convictions have tried to assuage the conflict introducing restrictions in divine aseity or by subjecting universals to some form of ‘absolute creation’. None of these attempts has been successful. In this work a different approach is presented and defended. It is argued that the universal of ‘deity’, W, is identical to God. This is a radicalization of the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Ibn ‘Arabī on Divine Atemporality and Temporal Presentism

2023-09-12T16:18:45+00:00

Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) is arguably the most influential philosophical mystic in Islam. He is also a presentist. This paper responds to the arguments of contemporary philosophers, Norman Kretzmann, William Lane Craig, Garrett DeWeese, and Alan Padgett, who argue that divine atemporality and temporal presentism are incompatible, through the temporal ontology of Ibn ‘Arabī. Ibn ‘Arabī asserts that all entities in the universe are loci of manifestation of God’s most beautiful Names. These divine Names constitute sensible reality. The principal response of Ibn ‘Arabī to the arguments of contemporary scholars is that the divine Names as they are manifested in the cosmos cannot be conflated with the divine Names as they are in themselves, which, in turn, cannot be conflated with God in His numinous essence. This allows him to simultaneously maintain the atemporality of God and temporal presentism.

Negro sobre Blanco. En defensa de las Cinco Vías tomistas

2023-05-25T06:59:14+00:00

Resumen: Analizo y critico las principales objeciones que Carlos Blanco plantea, en Las fronteras del pensamiento, contra las 5 vías de Tomás de Aquino. Mi objetivo es mostrar que dichas objeciones fallan, lo cual nos va a permitir traer, a la literatura en español, ciertas discusiones del mundo filosófico anglosajón.

Palabras clave: 5 vías, Tomás de Aquino, Tomismo, Existencia de Dios, Filosofía de la religión

Abstract: I analyze and critique Carlos Blanco’s main objections against Aquinas’s 5 ways, to be found in his latest book, Las fronteras del pensamiento. My aim is to show how these objections miss the mark. This will allow us to bring into the Spanish literature some discussions that have taken place in the English-speaking world.

Kewyords: 5 ways, Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, God’s existence, Philosophy of religion