‘Doctrina Deo vivendi’: William Ames,the Nature and Sources of His Voluntarism

ABSTRACT

To establish his vision of theology as the doctrine of ‘living to God,’ William Ames, the English puritan theologian exiled in The Netherlands, strongly emphasized the will as the seat of faith. This prominence has often been interpreted as an extreme version of voluntarism eliminating the intellective elements altogether and regarded as something outside mainstream, Reformed orthodoxy. However, when analysed through the distinction between habit and action, it will be clear that Ames’s emphatic statements on the will reflect his concern for the singularity of virtue, and that he did assign some roles to the intellect in terms of the action of faith. Therefore, the difference over the question of the seat of faith is highly technical in nature and should not be exaggerated. Ames argued for the priority of the will over the intellect by drawing from Scotist sources, which was compatible with the Thomistic idea of premotion.     

Christian Supersessionism,Zionism, and the Contemporary Scene

Postliberal theology has been a topic of considerable theological debate over the past few decades. In his 2011 book Another Reformation, Peter Ochs deploys a postliberal theological model for the purpose of developing a sophisticated understanding of the future of interreligious relations. Ochs argues that postliberal theology is a reparative theology focusing on alleviating human suffering. He argues that the Christian idea of supersessionism may be the most challenging for Christians to confront as they explore avenues for making interreligious dialogue more effective. Ochs critiques the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's understanding of Zionism as Jewish Constantianism for being an instance of an ostensibly postliberal theology losing its way. In this essay, I offer a critique of Ochs's reading of Yoder, claiming that Yoder's view actually mirrors an important intra‐Jewish debate about the relationship between political power and piety, and retrieves an ingenious contribution of both early Judaism and early Christianity that is effaced in today's growing Constantinian approach to Christian imperialism and Jewish nationalism.     

HISTORICISM IN PRAGMATISM: LESSONS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: Pragmatism involves simultaneous commitments to modes of inquiry that are philosophical and historical. This article begins by demonstrating this point as it is evidenced in the historicist pragmatisms of William James and John Dewey. Having shown that pragmatism focuses philosophical attention on concrete historical processes, the article turns to a discussion of the specific historiographical commitments consistent with this focus. This focus here is on a pragmatist version of historical inquiry in terms of the central historiographical categories of the object of historical inquiry and mode of historical periodization. After describing the basic historiographical consequences of pragmatism's historicism, the article moves to a discussion of the philosophical results of this historicism. The focus here is on the role that historical inquiry can play in the general philosophical perspective of pragmatism as well as on some recent texts that exemplify the dual pragmatist commitment to philosophy and history.     

ON JOHN RAWLS'S A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE MEANING OF SIN AND FAITH

This essay challenges the view that John Rawls's recently published undergraduate thesis A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith provides little help in understanding his mature work. Two crucial strands of Rawls's Theory of Justice are its critique of teleology and its claims about our moral nature and its expression. These strands are brought together in a set of arguments late in Theory which are important but have attracted little sustained attention. I argue that the target of Rawls's undergraduate thesis is a form of Christianity which rests on assumptions Rawls later came to think were fundamental to teleological views, and that the thesis defends an alternative form of religiosity that anticipates what Rawls says in Theory about the expression of our nature. Those sections of Theory also provide resources Rawls could have used to respond to a number of prominent and recurrent criticisms of his account of moral motivation. Seeing the continuities between Brief Inquiry and Theory of Justice shows how long Rawls wrestled with problems he took up in the neglected sections of Theory and thereby shows their importance to Rawls's thought.     

Eudaimonism and the Ground of Normative Reasons

This essay develops an argument against eudaimonism in support of John Hare's earlier critique of eudaimonism. In contrast to Hare, who mounts a Kantian-Scotist objection to what he calls a single-source view of motivation in eudaimonism, my critique of eudaimonism focuses on the ground of normative reasons in eudaimonism while also taking a page from Scotus's ethics. I argue that the main issue with eudaimonism is with the ultimate end and manner of our willing, which fails to correspond to the right ordering of love based on the nature of goodness in the object.     

CONSTRUCTING A THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION: BUILDING ON JOHN HAUGHT

The construction of a distinctively Christian “theology of evolution” or “theistic evolution” requires the incorporation of the science of evolutionary biology while building a more comprehensive worldview within which all things are understood in relation to our creating and redeeming God. In the form of theses, this article brings four support pillars to the constructive work: (1) orienting evolutionary history to the God of grace; (2) affirming purpose for nature even if we cannot see purpose in nature; (3) employing the theology of the cross to discern divine compassion in the natural world; and (4) relying on the divine promise of new creation. Among other things, John Haught's blueprint has located the pedestals on which these pillars will stand. For this groundwork, Haught deserves thanks.