The divine and human in Jesus Christ

I am not, however, addressing myself to the happy possessors of faith, but to those many people for whom the light has gone out, the mystery has faded, and God is dead. For most of them there is no going back, and one does not know either whether going back is always the better way. To gain an understanding of religious matters, probably all that is left us today is the psychological approach. That is why I take these thought-forms that have become historically fixed, try to melt them down again and pour them into moulds of immediate experience. C. G. Jung     

The antinomy of divine necessity

This paper arose out of a discussion of a paper, Necessity and Explanation, presented by Robert Prévost (University of Texas at Arlington) at the Spring 1986 meeting of the North Texas Philosophical Association. An earlier version was presented to the 1987 meeting of the Society for Philosophy of Religion. I particularly want to thank Professor Billy Joe Lucas (Manhattanville College) for his very helpful comments on that earlier draft.     

The axiological solution to divine hiddenness

Philosophers have recently wondered whether the value impact of the existence of God on the world would be positive, negative, or neutral. Thus far discussions have distinguished between the value God's impact would have overall, in certain respects, and/or for particular individuals. A commonality amongst the various positions that have been taken up is to focus on the goods and drawbacks associated with both theism and atheism. Goods associated with atheism include things like privacy, independence, and autonomy. I argue that it is better overall and for everyone to prefer a hidden God to no God. This is because it is possible to experience many of the goods attributed to atheism if God is hidden even if they do not really obtain, while also gaining many of the additional goods connected to theism. This amounts to a new solution to the problem of divine hiddenness: God might hide in order to increase or maximize the axiological value of the world.     

The deadlock of absolute divine simplicity

In this article, I explain how and why different attempts to defend absolute divine simplicity fail. A proponent of absolute divine simplicity has to explain why different attributions do not suppose a metaphysical complexity in God but just one superproperty, why there is no difference between God and His super-property and finally how a absolute simple entity can be the truthmaker of different intrinsic predications. It does not necessarily lead to a rejection of divine simplicity but it shows that we may consider another conception of divine simplicity compatible with some metaphysical complexity in God.     

The incoherence of divine possibility constructivism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Before God created did God have ideas in mind for particular things, kinds of things, properties of things, particular events, and laws of nature?...     

藏传佛教寺院"羌姆"神舞面具艺术探秘

文章对藏传佛教寺院"羌姆"神舞面具的缘起、发展源流、种类型制、表现的内容与象征内涵、审美寄托、艺术风格特色、制作的形式美等作了较全面的探讨.     

Respecting others: The hermeneutic virtue

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Religion and hermeneutic philosophy

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Evil and divine sovereignty

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any...     

The revelation effect in frequency judgment

In three experiments, we explored the revelation effect in a frequency judgment task. Participants estimated the frequency of words that had been presented one, two, four, or eight times. At test, half the words were revealed by completing word fragments, and half were presented intact. Estimated frequencies were reliably higher for revealed than for intact words, and in two of the three experiments, the revelation effect became larger as actual frequency increased. A revelation effect was obtained whether the revealed word was the same as (Experiment 1) or different from (Experiment 2) the word judged for frequency. Frequency estimates were higher for more distorted test items (Experiment 3).