CORNELIUS ERNST. SERMON PREACHED BY FERGUS KERR O.P.

"Ultimately, I cannot accept the framework of experience demanded and presupposed by the orthodox ecclesiastical tradition. I think I must face this, with consequences I can't foretell. I have another tradition to which I am almost equally respectful–in some ways more so–the tradition of the human heart: novels, art, music, tragedy. I cannot allow that God can only be adored in spirit and in truth by the individual introverted upon himself and detached from all that might disturb and solicit his heart. It must be possible to find and adore God in the complexity of human experience. (Patrick White). On my deathbed, what in memory will I be grateful for? Where will my life have been most fully lived? And memory is a sort of history. The eschatological moment must be a fulfilment and consummation of human history and not its negation merely. Let. me grasp this as true; then perhaps the pain may be more bearable. For of course there must be a negation and a separation at the heart of this affirmation and consent; and this remains the importance of the ecclesiastical tradition".     

Tradition and Faith

Abstract: This article explores the relation between tradition and faith, arguing, first, that the issue about reason is an issue about faith and, second, that faith rediscovers itself in the debate with tradition. This debate with tradition ought to be less an appeal to, or an authoritative repetition of tradition, but rather a reworking of tradition in the context of contemporary questions and problems. So the appeal to tradition is not a naive appeal to a source of truth that is not in need of interpretation. Rather, it is the acknowledgement that there is a set of limiting conditions on contemporary theological argument. This position about the role of tradition in theology is illustrated by a discussion of our contemporary problems about language, God and ‘difference’, particularly as dealt with by postmodern philosophers, and the medieval tradition of negative theology.     

Leibniz,creation and the best of all possible worlds

Leibniz argued that God would not create a world unless it was the best possible world. I defend Leibniz’s argument. I then consider whether God could refrain from creating if there were no best possible world. I argue that God, on pain of contradiction, could not refrain from creating in such a situation. I conclude that either this is the best possible world or God is not our creator.     

Does God Know What It is Like to be Me?

Does God knows what it is like to be me? Scripture and religious tradition seem quite clear that God knows everything about us, even the deepest secrets of our hearts. There is nothing hidden from him. And this is an answer backed up by a more philosophical theology; for among the traditional list of divine attributes is omniscience: knowing everything that there is to know. The idea, moreover, seems essential to the ordinary religious consciousness, for how can God really help us, or fairly judge us, unless he knows exactly what things are like for us?     

D. Z. Phillips on Belief in God

In this paper I try briefly to say why I think that what D.Z. Phillips had to say about belief in God can be defended against certain familiar criticisms, and why I think that his treatment could have been improved. I note passages in his writings which might be thought not to reflect what belief in God amounts to, but I argue that these passages can be read as reflecting belief in God as we find it in biblical authors and in writers like Thomas Aquinas. Having noted that Phillips rejects attempts to do natural theology on largely Humean grounds, I argue against these grounds as echoed by Phillips and draw attention to a tradition of natural theology not subject to Humean objections, a tradition to which Phillips might have paid more attention than he did.     

Reconsidering Absolute Omnipotence

Philosophical debate about the problem of evil derives, in part, from differing definitions of almighty power or omnipotence. Modern atheists such as John McTaggart, J. L. Mackie, Earl Condee, and Danny Goldstick maintain that an omnipotent God must be able to accomplish anything, even if it entails a contradiction. On this account, the Christian God cannot be omnipotent and benevolent, for a benevolent, omnipotent God would have forced free agents to desist from evil and this prevented the introduction of suffering into the world. It does not matter if the idea of creating free agents that were forced to be good entails a contradiction. On this account, a God who is truly omnipotent can perform contradictory feats.
In this paper, I argue that the atheistic tradition is mistaken. In the first place, even an absolutely omnipotent God could, as an act of benevolence, create a world in which there is suffering. In the second place, I argue that the concept of absolute omnipotence is fatally flawed. An absolutely omnipotent God would lack, in a decisive sense, power. He would be weak rather than strong. So the atheist's argument fails when it is evaluated in light of a more rational account of omnipotence and when it is carefully considered on its own terms.     

Teleology and Structural Directedness

This paper examines the argument that scientific thinkers who embrace a religious tradition can promote intellectual integration between religion and science rather than fragmented discourse. It is argued that God’s Word as an event and the concept of structural directedness, an organized movement toward a future that does not demand a consciously intended end, may be helpful in understanding God’s actions in an indeterminant way.     

WORSHIPPING AN UNKNOWN GOD

This paper examines the religious tradition of ‘negative theology’, and argues that it is doubtful whether it leaves room for belief in God at all. Three theologians belonging in different degrees to this tradition are discussed, namely John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury and Nicolas of Cusa, and it is argued that all three, in maintaining the ineffability of God, reach positions that are in effect forms of agnosticism. There is a paradox here: if God is inconceivable, is it not self‐refuting to talk about him at all, even to state his inconceivability? The final part of the paper examines the work of the nineteenth‐century poet Arthur Hugh Clough, two of whose poems, Hymnos Aumnos, and Qui Laborat Orat, explore the paradox of talking about the inconceivable Godhead. Clough gives eloquent expression to the idea that leaving God unnamed is not equivalent to disowning him. There is room for a devout agnosticism.     

A new member of the family? The continuum of being,artificial intelligence,and the image of God

Abstract

Are the scientific and religious definitions of life irreconcilable or do they overlap in significant areas? What is life? Religion seems to imply that there is a qualitative distinction between human beings and the rest of creation; however, there is a strong tradition in Christianity and in Eastern thought that suggests that the natural world also has a relationship with God. Human dominion over other parts of creation exists, but does not obviate this connection, nor give humans a circle unto themselves. The concept of humans being created in the image of God can be used to explain why we might believe humans are in a circle unto themselves, yet we can expand this concept to include artificially intelligent computers, a new potential member of the cognitive family. Our quest for artificial intelligence tells us both what we value in our humanity, and how we might extend that valuation to the rest of creation.     

D. Z. Phillips’ problems with evil and with God

It is widely held that the logical problem of evil, which alleges an inconsistency between the existence of evil and that of an omnipotent and morally perfect God, has been solved. D. Z. Phillips thinks this is a mistake. In The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, he argues that, within the generally assumed framework, “neither the proposition ’God is omnipotent’ nor the proposition ‘God is perfectly good’ can get off the ground.” Thus, the problem of evil leads to the problem of God. Phillips goes on to provide an alternative response to the problem of evil, expounded by means of his Wittgensteinian analyses of various concepts drawn from the Christian tradition. I argue that his criticisms of the traditional conception of God either fail outright or are at best inconclusive. I also point out that the religious concepts analyzed by Phillips are not and cannot be the same concepts as those employed in the Christian tradition from which they are supposedly drawn. For the concepts as traditionally employed presuppose the actual existence and activity of precisely the sort of being that, according to Phillips, “God cannot be.”     

Suturing the Body Corporate (Divine and Human) in the Brahmanic Traditions

In this discussion, we ponder the discourse about the ‘body of the Divine’ in the Indian tradition. Beginning with the Vedas, we survey the major eras and thinkers of that tradition, considering various notions of the Supreme Divine Being it produced. For each, we ask: is the Divine embodied? If so, then in what way? What is the nature of the body of the Divine, and what is its relationship to human bodies? What is the value of the body of the Divine to the spiritual aspirant? We consider, where relevant, which views are pantheistic and which might be considered panentheistic. Panentheism is connected with discourse on the world as the body of God. It has origins in medieval Christian theology with anticipatory traces in Plato’s Timeaus. Under pantheism, were the world to end—were it to collapse or disappear irreversibly, perhaps, into a huge black hole—then God would disintegrate without a remainder as well; for in this view the Divine Spirit is the universe. The same is not true under panentheism which posits a more complex relationship between the Divine and the world. According to panentheism, God pervades the world—God is in the world—and at the same time, God sustains the world—the world is in God. This allows that God be greater than, transcendent of and independent of the world. In our conclusion we remark on how the views we have surveyed link to, resonate with, or dis-compare with the current—should one say revivified—interest in intellectual quarters with panentheism.     

God and givenness: towards a phenomenology of mysticism

This essay addresses the questions of whether the givenness of God is something possible, intelligible—and, if so, what such givenness might involve. In the interest of situating these questions in historical context, I first summarize Kant’s, Hegel’s, and Habermas’s respective accounts of the relationship between belief in God and philosophical knowledge. I then further situate critical philosophy’s appropriation of God by way of a discussion of how some of this appropriation’s fiercest critics—existentialists such as Sartre, Shestov, and Kierkegaard—object to its gambit of using God to serve moral and cultural goals even as it denies God’s actual existence. Though this objection is a salient one, it leaves something to be desired. For although the existentialists may demonstrate what is misguided about the philosophers’ God, they do not have anything especially compelling to say about whether or how God can be given experientially. I address this aporia by exploiting what I take to be a happy intersection between the phenomenological conception of the saturated phenomenon and two moods—agape love and ecstatic joy—the mystical tradition frequently attributes to the nature of divine givenness. I argue that, when mystical experience is situated within the framework of saturated phenomena rather than within the Kantian enclosures of phenomenality, two intriguing possibilities emerge. First, it seems plausible that the religious experience of the mystic can, in principle, involve the very givenness of God that Kant and his heirs denied to be possible. Second, though phenomenology has yet to provide a complete positive portrait of the religious life, the mystical tradition emerges as a legitimate, invaluable source with which such a phenomenological portrait might begin.     

THEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY,CLASSICAL THEISM,AND “LIVED TIME” IN ANTJE JACKELÉN'S TIME AND ETERNITY

Antje Jackelén's Time and Eternity successfully employs the method of correlation and a close study of the question of time to enter the dialogue between science and theology. Hermeneutical attention to language is a central element of this dialogue, but we must be aware that much science is untranslatable into ordinary language; it is when we get to the bigger metaphysical assumptions of science that true dialogue begins to happen. Thus, although the method of correlation is a useful way to approach this dialogue, there is not a strict equivalence in this relationship. Theology needs science more than science needs theology. In speaking of time and God we must keep in mind the relational nature of classical Christian theism, even in its most austere forms. We should not read Enlightenment ideas of God back into the classical Christian tradition or neglect the apophatic emphasis in Christian theism, which warned against assuming knowledge of the divine nature. God's relation to time always lies beyond our understanding. Studying the effects of either the Newtonian or Einsteinian concepts of time on our theological concepts should not detract our attention from the “lived time” that characterizes human experience. Consideration of the notion of time in the Madhyamaka Buddhist tradition reminds us that we cannot control the inner reality of time and that for humans time is something to be considered pragmatically.     

Intimations of The Good: Iris Murdoch, Richard Swinburne and the Promise of Theism

Perhaps no one in the English speaking world has carried on a philosophical defence of theism like Richard Swinburne. Yet in all of Swinburne's work there is little use of a long-standing view in the Christian tradition that God is good, and that his goodness is interchangeable with his being. While Swinburne does little with the idea of goodness, Iris Murdoch proposes an anti-theistic view that insists on the Good without God. My argument is that both Swinburne's indifference to the notion of the good and Murdoch's 'Good without God' take away from the promise of theism. I suggest an Augustinian alternative that insists on the equation of God and the Good without falling into the problems inherent in both Swinburne and Murdoch's views.     

THE ESCHATOLOGICAL THEOGONY OF THE GOD WHO MAY BE: EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF DIVINE PRESENCE IN KEARNEY, HEGEL, AND HEIDEGGER

Abstract: While heightening the nihilistic tension underlying the discourse of Richard Kearney, I highlight the positive contribution his book The God Who May Be makes to the debate concerning the need for a postmodern revitalization of religious symbolism. I argue for three qualifications of Kearney's argument, suggesting, in response to Kearney's exclusionary approach to the God who "neither is nor is not but may be," a God whose possibility for meaningfulness arises as an "eschatological theogony" from out of the chaos (confusion and openness) of contemporary religious symbolism. Arguing that such a radical reenvisioning of God must be tempered and given meaning through reentering and reaffirming onto-theology in a qualified (hermeneutical) sense, I sketch a possible renewal of meaning for the traditional Christian parousia -concept as a hermeneutical circle between Hegel's systematic closure of Western metaphysics and Heidegger's deconstructive appropriation of the hidden possibilities of presence within the onto-theological tradition.     

God and Prepunishment

Abstract

The belief that some misfortunes are punishments sent from God has been affirmed by many different cultures and religions throughout human history. The belief has proved a pervasive one, and is still endorsed today by many adherents of the great western religions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Invariably, what is believed is that a present misfortune is divine punishment for a past sin. But could a present misfortune in fact be divine punishment for a future sin? That is, could God prepunish people for their future transgressions? The aim of this paper will be to show that there are solid philosophical grounds for supposing that he could and would do so.     

Racism in the Hands of an Angry God: How Image of God Impacts Cultural Racism in Relation to Police Treatment of African Americans

Previous research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Baylor Religion Survey to examine the correlation between an angry God image and the belief that police shoot Blacks more often because Blacks are more violent than Whites (a context-specific form of cultural racism). Engaging critical insights from intersectionality theory, we also interact angry God image with both racialized identity and racialized religious tradition. Results suggest that the angry God schema is associated with this form of cultural racism for White people generally as well as White Evangelicals, yet for Black Protestants, belief in an angry God is associated with resistance against this type of cultural racism.     

Attachment to God,religious tradition,and firm attributes in workplace commitment

Research on organizational commitment suggests there is an association between American theists’ emotional attachment to God and their emotional commitment to the workplace. A sense of divine calling has been shown to partially mediate this association but, beyond that, little is known. The purpose of this study is to shed further light on the relationship between secure attachment to God and affective organizational commitment. I do so by testing whether the employee’s religious tradition is associated with affective organizational commitment and whether the employee’s firm attributes moderate the relationship between attachment to God and organizational commitment. Results suggest that: 1) Catholics evince higher levels of organizational commitment than Evangelicals, and 2) firm size significantly moderates the relationship between attachment to God and organizational commitment across religious affiliations.     

On the Argument from Divine Arbitrariness

William Rowe in his Can God be Free? (2004) argues that God, if there is a God, necessarily chooses the best. Combined with the premise that there is no best act of creation, this provides an a priori argument for atheism. Rowe assumes that necessarily God is a ??morally unsurpassable?? being, and it is for that reason that God chooses the best. In this article I drop that assumption and I consider a successor to Rowe??s argument, the Argument from Arbitrariness, based on the premise that God does not act arbitrarily. My chief conclusion will be that this argument fails because, for all we know, there can be non-arbitrary divine choices even if there is no best act of creation.