Necessity, control, and the divine command theory

The simplest Divine Command Theory is one which identifies rightness with being commanded or willed by God. Two clear and appealing arguments for this theory turn on the idea that laws require a lawgiver, and the idea that God is sovereign or omnipotent. Critical examination of these arguments reveals some fundamental principles at odds with the Divine Command Theory, and yields some more penetrating versions of traditional objections to that theory. This paper is dedicated to the memory ofPhilip L. Quinn, in honor of his long and generous service to the profession of philosophy, the discipline of philosophy of religion, and for his kind and uncommonly helpful comments on this paper.     

I CAN'T MAKE YOU WORSHIP ME

This paper argues that Divine Command Theory is inconsistent with the view, held by many theists, that we have a moral obligation to worship God.     

Thinking Outside the Circle: The Place of Kierkegaard in Stern's Understanding Moral Obligation

Abstract

In Understanding Moral Obligation, Robert Stern presents an interesting account of the history of ethics from Kant through Hegel and Kierkegaard. I argue that Stern in this account misinterprets Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Works of Love by reading them as presenting a Divine Command Theory of moral obligation, as a philosophical account meant to compete with those of Kant and Hegel. It mistakes, indeed subverts, Kierkegaard's purposes to read him as engaging in a philosophical dialectic in these texts. I argue that Stern's reading renders Kierkegaard's contribution internal to a philosophical dialectic that Kierkegaard means to speak against, from a position expressly and resolutely external to it.     

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.     

Author Response to Reviews of Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry

The purpose of this article is to respond to three reviews in Pastoral Psychology of the author’s text, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Kelley 2010). This article considers in particular the grief born of injustice, the need for pastoral caregivers to cultivate skills and sensitivities for grief ministry in multicultural and multireligious settings, and the centrality for many of a secure relationship with the Divine as a primary source of hope after loss.     

THE RETURN OF THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY: A DIALOGUE ON HUMAN FLOURISHING

In response to the proposal justifying the morality of homosexual acts offered by Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, this paper seeks to make intelligible the reasoning used by the New Natural Law Theory and others that arrives at the opposite conclusion. This article proposes to explore the weaknesses in the arguments offered in justification. By proposing an expanded notion of human nature so as to include sexual orientation as one of the factors from which to draw moral norms, the authors have adopted the central proposition of the Old Natural Law Theory defended by Francisco Suarez and others, viz., that human nature as such was a fit source from which to draw moral norms. Thus the New Natural Law Theory, formulated by Germain Grisez to answer the charge of the naturalistic fallacy, has curiously found itself being refuted by a reformulation of the Old Natural Law Theory. This article seeks to show how the proportionalistic reasoning used by Salzman and Lawler leads inevitably to a revival of the naturalistic fallacy.     

Decision science: from Ramsey to dual process theories

The hypothesis that human reasoning and decision-making can be roughly modeled by Expected Utility Theory has been at the core of decision science. Accumulating evidence has led researchers to modify the hypothesis. One of the latest additions to the field is Dual Process theory, which attempts to explain variance between participants and tasks when it comes to deviations from Expected Utility Theory. It is argued that Dual Process theories at this point cannot replace previous theories, since they, among other things, lack a firm conceptual framework, and have no means of producing independent evidence for their case.     

Against simulation: the argument from error

According to Simulation Theory, to understand what is going on in another person's mind, the observer uses his or her own mind as a model of the other mind. Recently, philosophers and cognitive neuroscientists have proposed that mirror neurones (which fire in response to both executing and observing a goal directed action) provide a plausible neural substrate for simulation, a mechanism for directly perceiving, or 'resonating' with, the contents of other minds. This article makes the case against Simulation Theory, using evidence from cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social psychology. In particular, the errors that adults and children make when reasoning about other minds are not consistent with the 'resonance' versions of Simulation Theory.     

Book Reviews

B eebe , J ohn . Integrity in Depth
S edgwick , D avid . Jung and Searles: A comparative study
R uszczynski , S tanley (ed.). Psychotherapy with Couples: Theory and Practice at the Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies
K elly , S ean . Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness
S egal , R obert A. The Gnostic Jung: Including 'Seven Sermons to the Dead'
H aule , J ohn R. Divine Madness: Archetypes of Romantic Love     

The influence of complexity and reasoning direction on children's causal reasoning

Causal reasoning is the core and basis of cognition about the objective world. This experiment studied the development of causal reasoning in 86 3.5–4.5-year-olds using a ramp apparatus with two input holes and two output holes [Frye, D., Zelazo, P. D., & Palfai, T. (1995). Theory of mind and rule-based reasoning. Cognitive Development 10, 483–527]. Results revealed that: (1) children performed better on cause–effect inferences than on effect–cause inferences; (2) there was an effect of rule complexity such that uni-dimensional causal inferences were easier than bi-dimensional inferences which, in turn, were easier than tri-dimensional causal inferences; and (3) children's causal reasoning develops rapidly between the ages of age of 3.5 and 4 years.     

STRONG INTERIORITY AND (TRADITIONAL) THEISM: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Central to Spinozism is the thesis that the immanence of the Divine Substance in the cosmos (in natural objects) is – like the immanence of the dancer in the dance –maximal or total. Just as the dance consists entirely of the dancer in aesthetically‐stylized motion, so the domain of nature is nothing in addition to God in cosmic guise. Accordingly, natural objects constitute modes of God. Hence, Spinozism and (traditional) theism are obviously irreconcilable. For it is indispensable to theism that the immanence of God in the cosmos is not maximal; rather, that natural objects are distinct from the Divine Substance. Now it has standardly been presupposed by theists (and many others) that natural objects could not be distinct from God without being ontologically exterior to God; thus, that theism would readily collapse into Spinozism if the cosmos was interior to the Divine Substance. It seems to me that this is a long‐standing mistake. After demonstrating that there is probative warrant for maintaining that theism requires the interiority of natural objects to God, there is shown to be more than adequate justification for denying that this necessitates the collapse of theism into Spinozism.     

Children’s first and second-order false-belief reasoning in a verbal and a low-verbal task

We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We tested second-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people.     

SHORT NOTICES

Why God? Thinking Through Faith, Jim Thompson The Mandate of Heaven: The Divine Command and the Natural Order, Michael Keeling, T. & T. Clark The Times Best Sermons of 1996, Ruth Gledhill (ed.) Calendar: Christ's Time for the Church, Laurence Hull Stookey The ‘Obscrurism’ of Light: A Theological Study into the Nature of Light, Iain M. MacKenzie The Beginning and the End of ‘Religion’, Nicholas Lash Clinging to Faith, Peter D. Bishop Walter Benjamin and the Bible, Brian Britt Religion and Rational Theology: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (eds) The New God-Image: a Study of Jung's Key Letters conceming the Evolution of the Western God-Image, Edward F. Edinger Zeal for Truth and Tolerance, Jan Mili? Lochman Qumran Cave 4 XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XVIII), Joseph Barmgarten (ed.) Mark Pryce, Finding a Voice: Men, Women and the Community of the Church     

儿童信念─愿望推理的研究：争鸣与展望

儿童的信念─愿望推理是心理理论研究的主要内容。多年来,研究者对儿童信念─愿望推理的发展特征及其心理机制进行了大量研究,取得了一系列富有意义的结论。但迄今为止仍有许多问题存在争议,如：儿童究竟何时开始具有信念─愿望推理的能力？儿童在错误信念任务上从不正确到正确反应的转换机制是什么？儿童如何进行信念─愿望推理的加工？该文回顾与探讨了上述存在争鸣的问题,并在此基础上对该领域未来研究方向做了展望。     

Some critical reflections on the hiddenness argument

J.L. Schellenberg’s Argument from Divine Hiddenness maintains that if a perfectly loving God exists, then there is no non-resistant non-belief. Given that such nonbelief exists, however, it follows that there is no perfectly loving God. To support the conditional claim, Schellenberg presents conceptual and analogical considerations, which we subject to critical scrutiny. We also evaluate Schellenberg’s claim that the belief that God exists is logically necessary for entering into a relationship with the Divine. Finally, we turn to possible variants of Schellenberg’s case, and argue that the modifications necessary to accommodate our criticismas leave those variants with much less of a sting than originally suggested by his provocative formulation.     

基于IRT模型的儿童图形推理能力动态评估研究

MRMLC模型是一种常见的动态评估项目反应理论模型。本研究结合小学儿童图形推理能力发展的特点,采用前测-干预-后测的动态评估模式,对来自江西省北部的四到六年级共177名儿童的图形推理能力进行了基于MRMLC模型的动态评估。研究结果表明通过动态评估我们不仅可以获知儿童图形推理能力的当前水平;而且,还可以进一步分析和比较儿童在各测量情景所测的潜在水平。     

Domain-specificity and theory of mind: evaluating neuropsychological evidence

Humans' unique aptitude for reasoning about mental states, known as Theory of Mind (ToM), can help explain the unique character of human communication and social interaction. ToM has been studied extensively in children, but there is no clear account of the cognitive basis of ToM in adults. Evidence from functional imaging and neuropsychology is beginning to address this surprising gap in our understanding, and this evidence is often thought to favour a domain-specific or modular architecture for ToM. We present a systematic approach to this issue for the paradigmatic case of belief reasoning, and argue that neuropsychological data provide no clear evidence for domain-specificity or modularity. Progress in understanding ToM requires new tasks that isolate potentially distinct components of this complex ability.     

Normative Practical Reasoning: John Broome

Practical reasoning is a process of reasoning that concludes in an intention. One example is reasoning from intending an end to intending what you believe is a necessary means: 'I will leave the next buoy to port; in order to do that I must tack; so I';ll tack', where the first and third sentences express intentions and the second sentence a belief. This sort of practical reasoning is supported by a valid logical derivation, and therefore seems uncontrovertible. A more contentious example is normative practical reasoning of the form 'I ought to φ, so I';ll φ', where 'I ought to φ' expresses a normative belief and 'I';ll φ' an intention. This has at least some characteristics of reasoning, but there are also grounds for doubting that it is genuine reasoning. One objection is that it seems inappropriate to derive an intention to φ from a belief that you ought to φ, rather than a belief that you ought to intend to φ. Another is that you may not be able to go through this putative process of reasoning, and this inability might disqualify it from being reasoning. A third objection is that it violates the Humean doctrine that reason alone cannot motivate any action of the will. This paper investigates these objections.     

An Empirical Examination of Religious/Spiritual Struggle Among Israeli Jews

The current investigation examined the prevalence, predictors, and psychological implications of religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles among a sample of Israeli-Jewish university students. R/s struggle was assessed by the Religious and Spiritual Struggles (RSS) Scale. This is a newly constructed scale that assesses a wide array of r/s struggles. The RSS is composed of six factors of struggles: Divine, Doubt, Demonic, Interpersonal, Moral, and Ultimate Meaning. Confirmatory factor analysis of the RSS in this study confirmed this six-factor structure. Of the 164 Jewish participants, between 1.2% and 30.5% experienced various r/s struggles. Beliefs in a cruel God and distant God, religious participation, and fundamentalism predicted higher levels of different types of struggle. All six forms of struggle were correlated with greater psychological distress. In regression equations including r/s struggles and demographic and religious variables, Moral struggles predicted lower life satisfaction, Divine struggles predicted depressive symptoms, and both Divine and Doubt struggles predicted generalized anxiety. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are offered. We conclude by pointing to the limitations of the study and suggesting a few directions for future research.