A reply to Mr. Dowling

This paper examines the interpretation of Hobbes as a political formalist which is developed by F. S. McNeilly in The Anatomy of Leviathan. McNeilly argues that Hobbes's demonstration of the necessity of political society is independent of Hobbes's particular view of man as an egotist bent at all costs on his own preservation. The first part of the argument of the paper uses techniques of decision theory and game theory to show that this argument which McNeilly ascribes to Hobbes is not valid. However, the argument which Hobbes is traditionally supposed to put forward is shown to be valid. The second part of the paper examines McNeilly's interpretation of the text of Leviathan and shows that he has insufficient grounds for supposing that Hobbes attempted to construct a purely formal science of politics.     

Longuenesse on Kant and the Priority of the Capacity to Judge

'Hobbes and the Imitation of God' ( Inquiry , 44, 223-6) is Eric Brandon's criticism of my article, 'Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that Enable the Imitation of God' ( Inquiry , 42, 149-76). Brandon's criticisms are rooted in a misunderstanding of what is argued. Observations made concerning Hobbes's claims about prudence - a form of thinking Hobbes distinguishes from philosophic practice - are erroneously described by Brandon as a part of arguments concerning Hobbes's claims about philosophy. Brandon's own account reaffirms a conventional interpretation by claiming that Hobbes envisioned philosophers discovering order, an interpretation challenged in the original argument. Hobbes privileged the creation of order over attempts to discover the order of the world, and this is reflected in his affinity for geometry over physics.     

Hobbes's Theory of Rights – A Modern Interest Theory

The received view in Thomas Hobbes scholarship is that theindividual rights described by Hobbes in his political writings andspecifically in Leviathan are simple freedoms or libertyrights, that is, rights that are not correlated with duties orobligations on the part of others. In other words, it is usually arguedthat there are no claim rights for individuals in Hobbes's politicaltheory. This paper argues, against that view, that Hobbes does describeclaim rights, that they come into being when individuals conform to thesecond law of nature and that they are genuine moral claim rights, thatis, rights that are the ground of the obligations of others to forebearfrom interfering with their exercise. This argument is defended againstboth Jean Hampton's and Howard Warrender's interpretations of rights inHobbes's theory. The paper concludes that the theory of rightsunderlying Hobbes's writing is not taken from Natural Law but isprobably closer to a modern interest theory of rights.     

Grace in Nature and History: Luther's Doctrine of Creation Revisited1

Abstract: Interpreting Luther's Trinitarian theology of creation, it is shown how Luther's doctrine of creation is modelled on his soteriology. In his writing Against Latomus(1521) Luther established his famous distinction between the external grace of God (favor dei) and the divine gift (donom): the living Christ. A similar distinction can be re‐constructed from Luther's theology of creation as presented in his catechisms, sermons, tracts, and exegetical writings. Just as Luther makes a distinction between the Christ who takes side for us within God, and the Christ who is dwelling in the heart of the believer, Luther makes a the distinction between the fatherly love toward humankind (benevolentia), and the Father, Son and Spirit, who are at work from within the life of the creatures in God's blessing (benedictio). There is an implicit notion of a pater pro nobis and a pater in nobis, which reflects, in the order of creation, the classic distinction between Christus pro nobis and Christus in nobis. According to Luther's theology of the Eucharist and divine blessing, there exists a union between God and creature, which has a similar structure as the union between Christ and believer. There are distinctions to be drawn as well as correlations to be seen between the order of creation and the order of salvation.     

THE LOST LEGACY OF ANSELM'S ARGUMENT: RE‐THINKING THE PURPOSE OF PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

In his Proslogion, Anselm presents a proof for God's existence which has attracted a tremendous amount of scholarly attention. In spite of all that has been said about this proof and proofs for God's existence more generally, scholarly consensus seems to dissipate when it comes to determining whether theistic proofs are persuasive and sound. In this article, I will argue that there is a way to provide compelling proof for the existence of God. To substantiate this claim, I will not attempt to prove that God exists apart from His revelation in any of the ways that have been advocated by various philosophers of religion. Rather, I will endeavor to explain that Anselm's approach to offering evidence for God's existence is quite different from the approach that modern philosophers tend to attribute to him and to elaborate on what that approach involves by reading Anselm's argument in the context of Augustine's De Trinitate and the whole of the Proslogion.     

The Theological Foundation of Hobbesian Physics: A Defence of Corporeal God

In 1668, the octogenarian Hobbes finally affirmed openly a doctrine that was unavoidable given his longstanding embrace of both theism and materialism: God is corporeal. However, this doctrine has generally been downplayed or dismissed by scholars, who have alleged that Hobbes's corporeal theism is irreconcilable with his more orthodox theological pronouncements or with his fundamental metaphysical principles. This paper defends the coherence of Hobbes's corporeal God against particularly vigorous criticisms of Douglas Jesseph and others. The aim of the paper is not, however, to situate Hobbes's deity safely within the boundaries of seventeenth century protestant theology, as defenders of Hobbesian theism have often wanted to do. Rather, the paper places the corporeal God at the metaphysical foundations of Hobbes's natural philosophy. Despite his early reticence about theological speculation, Hobbes eventually relied on God to provide a continuous, resistance-free source of motion or conatus to a material plenum whose parts would otherwise quickly slow to an infinitesimal crawl. Hobbes's late theology, while certainly heterodox in content, is not so different in function from that of contemporaries like René Descartes and Henry More, whose religious sincerity is rarely questioned. Hobbes' corporeal deity deserves a place in the seventeenth century pantheon.     

Quantum perichoresis: Quantum field theory and the Trinity

The main thesis of this article is that the Trinitarian theological doctrine of perichoresis can be metaphorically interpreted as a form of Divine phase entanglement with the world. Such entanglement would entail non-local, relational holism and superposition through which the immanent unity of the Trinity is economically present in creation. Christ kenoticly empties himself of the immanent perichoresis of the Trinity in order to enter the economic perichoresis of the creation. The Spirit is then the continuing perichoretic love of God sanctifying the creation toward life and fulfillment from within. It is the Trinity in ongoing perichoretic entanglement with the creation, affirming Divine ubiquity and panentheism.     

The composition of R. G. Collingwood's The New Leviathan

Collingwood's The New Leviathan is a difficult text. It comprises philosophy, political theory, political opinion and history in what is sometimes an uneasy amalgam. Despite its being the culmination of thirty years of work in ethics and political theory, the final text was clearly affected by the adverse circumstances under which it was written, these largely being Collingwood's illness which increasingly affected his ability to work as the writing of The New Leviathan progressed. This paper seeks to disentangle the composition of the book thereby shedding light on its distinctive character as the last substantial piece of philosophical work published in Collingwood's lifetime.     

Meeting the Evil God Challenge

The evil God challenge is an argumentative strategy that has been pursued by a number of philosophers in recent years. It is apt to be understood as a parody argument: a wholly evil, omnipotent and omniscient God is absurd, as both theists and atheists will agree. But according to the challenge, belief in evil God is about as reasonable as belief in a wholly good, omnipotent and omniscient God; the two hypotheses are roughly epistemically symmetrical. Given this symmetry, thesis belief in an evil God and belief in a good God are taken to be similarly preposterous. In this paper, we argue that the challenge can be met, suggesting why the three symmetries that need to hold between evil God and good God – intrinsic, natural theology and theodicy symmetries – can all be broken. As such, we take it that the evil God challenge can be met.     

Bulgakov's Account of Creation: Neglected Aspects,Critics and Contemporary Relevance

The article focuses on a central, yet neglected dimension of the ‘Sophia Debate’ in twentieth‐century Russian Orthodox theology: Bulgakov's panentheistic account of creation and its critique by Nikolai Lossky. Bulgakov understood the doctrine of creation to be negatively defined as creatio ex nihilo and positively defined as creatio ex Deo. Bulgakov's sophiology seeks to relate God and the world through the intermediate concept of Sophia, balancing an account of God's being in the world with an account of the world's eternal foundation in God. Lossky objected that Bulgakov's account underemphasizes novelty, contingency and the free character of creation. Lossky's objections notwithstanding, Bulgakov's version of panentheism – especially its trinitarian, antinomian and kenotic dimensions – finds significant points of contact with contemporary accounts of creation.     

Revisiting the God/World Difference

On what basis do we distinguish God from the world? I argue that the doctrine of creation, more specifically the analogical notion of causa , supplies a salutary foundation. My conversation partners are Karl Barth and Thomas Aquinas. I take up the former's five conditions for a right theological use of causa , demonstrating that despite his basic misreading of Thomas, both theologians share some basic convictions regarding God's independence. I argue, moreover, that Thomas provides a more theologically satisfying anchor for what distinguishes God from what is not God. I conclude by reflecting on the importance of experience in articulating the distinction.     

On preferring God's non-existence

For many centuries, philosophers have debated this question: ‘Does God exist?’ Surprisingly, they have paid rather less attention to this distinct – but also very important – question: ‘Would God's existence be a good thing?’ The latter is an axiological question about the difference in value that God's existence would make (or does make) in the actual world. Perhaps the most natural position to take, whether or not one believes in God, is to hold that it would be a very good thing if such a being were to exist. After all, God is traditionally thought to be perfectly powerful and good, and it might seem obvious that such a being's existence would make things better than they would otherwise be. But this judgment has been contested: some philosophers have held that God's existence would make things worse, and that, on this basis, one can reasonably prefer God's non-existence. We first distinguish a wide array of axiological positions concerning the value of God's existence which might be held by theists, atheists, and agnostics alike. We next construe these positions as comparative judgments about the axiological status of various possible worlds. We then criticize an important recent attempt to show that God's existence would make things worse, in various ways, than they would otherwise be.     

Hobbes on the Order of Sciences: A Partial Defense of the Mathematization Thesis

Accounts of Hobbes's “system” of sciences oscillate between two extremes. On one extreme, the system is portrayed as wholly axiomatic‐deductive, with statecraft being deduced in an unbroken chain from the principles of logic and first philosophy. On the other, it is portrayed as rife with conceptual cracks and fissures, with Hobbes's statements about its deductive structure amounting to mere window‐dressing. This paper argues that a middle way is found by conceiving of Hobbes's Elements of Philosophy on the model of a mixed‐mathematical science, not the model provided by Euclid's Elements of Geometry. I suggest that Hobbes is a test case for understanding early‐modern system construction more generally, as inspired by the structure of the applied mathematical sciences. This approach has the additional virtue of bolstering in a novel way the thesis that the transformation of philosophy in the long seventeenth century was indebted to mathematics, a thesis that has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years.     

Does Anselm beg the question?

Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God, formulated nearly a millennium ago, continues to bedevil philosophers. There is no consensus about what, if anything, is wrong with it. Some philosophers insist that the argument is invalid. Others concede its validity but insist that it is unsound. A third group of philosophers maintain that Anselm begs the question. It has been argued, for example, that Anselm’s use of the name “God” in a premise assumes (or presupposes) precisely what has to be proved, namely, that God exists. Another tack is to argue that the premise that God is possible implies or presupposes the conclusion that God exists, or perhaps that, in order to know that God is possible, one must know that God exists. Just as no consensus has emerged about what, if anything, is wrong with Anselm’s argument, no consensus has emerged about whether the argument begs the question. In this essay, I focus on the second type of claim made by the third group of philosophers—the claim that Anselm’s argument begs the question by assuming, as a premise, that God is possible. In particular, I focus on the argument of the contemporary analytic philosopher William Rowe, who has claimed, since at least 1975, that Anselm’s ontological argument begs the question. I argue that Rowe’s argument fails.     

Thomas Aquinas’ Divine Simplicity as Biblical Hermeneutic

Long draws from the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Jeremiah some strong reasons for rejecting the traditional teaching on divine simplicity. Above all, for Brueggemann the book of Jeremiah simply will not work if God is simple: God explicitly tells Jeremiah that God suffers and also that God changes in response to Israel. According to Long, however, Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity actually upholds the points that Brueggemann draws from Jeremiah. Long argues that theological accounts of divine simplicity should especially have two purposes: to serve as a way of manifesting in speech the mystery of the Triune God, and to affirm God's transcendent sovereignty over creation. In light of Brueggemann's approach, Long examines four early Reformed theologians: Peter Vermigli (1499‐1562), Girolamo Zanchi (1516‐1590), John Biddle (1615‐1662) and John Owen (1616‐1683). While Biddle rejects divine simplicity, the others uphold it. Long shows that their teaching on divine simplicity focuses on God's transcendent sovereignty over creation. By contrast, Long finds Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity to be more helpful in upholding Brueggemann's insights, insofar as Aquinas uses the doctrine to defend the simplicity of the Triune God. Rather than focusing on God's sovereign power, Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity focuses on getting the Trinitarian processions right.     

The world in itself: Neither uniform nor physical

Since Hume, philosophers of induction have debated the question of whether we have any reason for assuming that nature is uniform. This debate has always presumed that the uniformity hypothesis is itself coherent. In Part 1 of the following I argue that a proper appreciation of Nelson Goodman's so-called grue-green problem¹ should lead us to the conclusion that the uniformity hypothesis, under its usual interpretation as a strictly ontological thesis, is incoherent. In Part 2 I argue that further consideration of the grue-green problem leads to the conclusion that certain popular versions of the thesis of physical supervenience/the primacy of physics, under their usual interpretation as strictly ontological theses, are false. In Part 3 I argue that the notions of natural kinds and nature's joints should not be taken as ontologically objective notions but as interest relative. Together Parts 1, 2, and 3 provide support for the Nietzsche-Goodman thesis that philosophers are prone to mistakenly identify as absolute, mind and language independent, features of the world which are in fact only features of a particular discourse, or of the world relative to a particular discourse.     

“Rethinking” the Preface of the Tractatus

This paper is principally a re‐evaluation of the meaning of Denken in the puzzling third paragraph of the Preface to Wittgenstein's Tractatus. It shows that there is a uniform misreading of this paragraph throughout the literature and suggests a corrected reading and some of its implications. The paper asserts that the influential “New Wittgenstein” reading of the Preface as containing Wittgenstein's all important “framing” thoughts on the Tractatus, is correct. However it also argues that the anti‐metaphysical reading the New view draws by way of its frame thesis is incorrect since it is still premised on the incorrect reading of the Preface's third paragraph. With the correct reading of the third paragraph, the paper shows the anti‐metaphysical reading of the Tractatus lacks substantive support.     

Timelessness and freedom

One way that philosophers have attempted to defend free will against the threat of fatalism and against the threat from divine beliefs has been to endorse timelessness views (about propositions and God’s beliefs, respectively). In this paper, I argue that, in order to respond to general worries about fatalism and divine beliefs, timelessness views must appeal to the notion of dependence. Once they do this, however, their distinctive position as timelessness views becomes otiose, for the appeal to dependence, if it helps at all, would itself be sufficient to block worries about fatalism and divine beliefs. I conclude by discussing some implications for dialectical progress.