Miracles in Science and Theology

Miracles are not "violations" of nature. Contemporary miraculous healings seem to follow natural healing processes but to be enormously accelerated. Like grace, miracles elevate but do not contradict nature. Scriptural miracles, but also contemporary miracle accounts, have something to tell us about how God acts in the world.     

The Poor Lady Immured

This essay offers cautionary considerations on what has come to be called “public philosophy.” A conception of philosophy is set forth using Socrates as the paradigm of relentless philosophical questioning. The essay then outlines three types of public philosophy: a philosophy situated in a public setting, a philosophy whose content is modified for a varied public, and a philosophy that functions as normative consensus. The most important of these three is the philosophy modified for the public. The discussion notes examples of public philosophy from the history of philosophy, and examines the contribution of eighteenth‐century philosophers (such as David Hume) to a version of public philosophy. The risks of public philosophy are noted—in particular, that a modified philosophy may substitute the inculcation of belief over the modeling of philosophy. The essay concludes by noting that the university classroom remains an important but forgotten venue of public philosophy.     

HUMANS CREATED ACCORDING TO THE IMAGO DEI: AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

Classical approaches to the idea of the imago Dei in the theology of creation have tended to postulate a distinctive element of the human being not found in other creatures, with the possible exception of angels. This is often combined with attempts to use the imago concept as an organizing principle within Christian theology. Such approaches are now problematic not merely on account of their exegetical findings, but for methodological reasons. In light of recent exegesis, the imago Dei in Genesis 1:26–27 should be seen as a signifier of human life under God, rather than a single determining characteristic or essential attribute. Following the wisdom literature, the imago Dei can be understood, in a more diffused manner, as represented by human persons over long periods of evolutionary history in their characteristic quotidian forms of life, thus signifying the providential ordering of human life everywhere. The recent work of David Kelsey on theological anthropology is engaged in this context.     

Trends and Progress in Philosophy

This article is in three parts. The first discusses trends in philosophy. The second defends reliance on intuitions in philosophy from some doubts that have recently been raised. The third discusses Philip Kitcher's contention that contemporary analytic philosophy does not have its priorities straight. While the three parts are independent, there is a common theme. Each part defends what is regarded as orthodoxy from attacks. Of course there are other reasonable challenges to philosophical methodology. The article's aim is just to respond to some charges that have been made.     

From Independence to Conciliationism: An Obituary

Conciliationists about peer disagreement hold that when one disagrees with an epistemic peer about some proposition p, one should significantly change one's view about p. Many arguments for conciliationism appeal to a principle Christensen [2011] dubs Independence. Independence says that evaluations of the beliefs of those with whom one disagrees should not be made on the basis of one's initial reasoning about p. In this paper, I show that this principle is false. I also show that two weaker principles that vindicate conciliationism are either false, unmotivated, or both.     

Quasi-Realism and Inductive Scepticism in Hume’s Theory of Causation

Interpreters of Hume on causation consider that an advantage of the ‘quasi-realist’ reading is that it does not commit him to scepticism or to an error theory about causal reasoning. It is unique to quasi-realism that it maintains this positive epistemic result together with a rejection of metaphysical realism about causation: the quasi-realist supplies an appropriate semantic theory in order to justify the practice of talking ‘as if’ there were causal powers in the world. In this paper, I problematise the quasi-realist reading of Hume on causation by showing how quasi-realism does not speak to inductive scepticism. I also offer evidence that Hume takes inductive scepticism to result from his theory of causation, and that his scepticism is tied to his rejection of metaphysical causal realism.     

What's love got to do with it?: (Un)bending identities and conventions in Gurinda Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham

The connection between religion and football is not lost on film-maker Gurinder Chadha, who, in her film Bend it Like Beckham Bend it Like Beckham. Directed by Gurinder Chadha. Kintop Picture, 2002  [Google Scholar], charts the passions of a young woman called Jesminder (Jess), whose devotion to the game of football, and in particular David Beckham, and her determination not to cut herself off from her Sikh faith, culture and family, feature prominently in this cinematic depiction charting a young woman's quest to become a professional footballer. When applied to the study of identity formation, Gurinder Chadha transforms the bend-it-like-Beckham technique into a theoretical premise through which a critical examination into the complex trajectories and contesting traditions underscoring culture, race, gender and religious formation(s) can be examined on and off the football field.     

What makes a saint? A Lincoln case study in the communion of the local and the universal Church

Within the curtilage of Lincoln Cathedral lie buried the remains of three very different people to whom sainthood has been attributed: Saint Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln (d.1200); 'Little Saint Hugh' (d.1255), a child maliciously alleged to have been murdered by the local Jewish community; and Edward King (d.1910), Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Hugh is a saint of the Catholic Church, commemorated by Catholics and Anglicans; 'Little Saint Hugh' was for a short while acclaimed by local people as a saint but never officially recognised as one; Edward King is commemorated by Anglicans but not formally recognised as a saint. The marked difference of approach to the attribution of sainthood between local Christians and Catholic Church authorities, as well as between Catholics and Anglicans, is illustrated by this case study, which raises important ecumenical questions: 'What makes a saint?’, ‘How are non-Catholics to regard the Roman Catholic procedure for beatification and canonisation?’, ‘To what extent can there be fully ecumenical calendars of local saints?’, ‘Does beatification offer a way forward by which Catholics may recognise the holiness of non-Catholic Christians?’     

Ethics and Intuitions

For millennia, philosophers have speculated about the origins of ethics. Recent research in evolutionary psychology and the neurosciences has shed light on that question. But this research also has normative significance. A standard way of arguing against a normative ethical theory is to show that in some circumstances the theory leads to judgments that are contrary to our common moral intuitions. If, however, these moral intuitions are the biological residue of our evolutionary history, it is not clear why we should regard them as having any normative force. Research in the neurosciences should therefore lead us to reconsider the role of intuitions in normative ethics.     

Room for a view: on the metaphysical subject of personal identity

Sydney Shoemaker leads today’s “neo-Lockean” liberation of persons from the conservative animalist charge of “neo-Aristotelians” such as Eric Olson, according to whom persons are biological entities and who challenge all neo-Lockean views on grounds that abstracting from strictly physical, or bodily, criteria plays fast and loose with our identities. There is a fundamental mistake on both sides: a false dichotomy between bodily continuity versus psychological continuity theories of personal identity. Neo-Lockeans, like everyone else today who relies on Locke’s analysis of personal identity, including Derek Parfit, have either completely distorted or not understood Locke’s actual view. Shoemaker’s defense, which uses a “package deal” definition that relies on internal relations of synchronic and diachronic unity and employs the Ramsey–Lewis account to define personal identity, leaves far less room for psychological continuity views than for my own view, which, independently of its radical implications, is that (a) consciousness makes personal identity, and (b) in consciousness alone personal identity consists—which happens to be also Locke’s actual view. Moreover, the ubiquitous Fregean conception of borders and the so-called “ambiguity of is” collapse in the light of what Hintikka has called the “Frege trichotomy.” The Ramsey–Lewis account, due to the problematic way Shoemaker tries to bind the variables, makes it impossible for the neo-Lockean ala Shoemaker to fulfill the uniqueness clause required by all such Lewis style definitions; such attempts avoid circularity only at the expense of mistaking isomorphism with identity. Contrary to what virtually all philosophers writing on the topic assume, fission does not destroy personal identity. A proper analysis of public versus perspectival identification, derived using actual case studies from neuropsychiatry, provides the scientific, mathematical and logical frameworks for a new theory of self-reference, wherein “consciousness,” “self-consciousness,” and the “I,” can be precisely defined in terms of the subject and the subject-in-itself.