{"title":"Aquinas on Predication and Future Contingents. A Reply to Costa","authors":"Luca Gili","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3346","url":null,"abstract":"In his paper “Aquinas, Geach, and Existence”, D. Costa maintains that Aquinas’ solution to the puzzle of future contingent events entails that future contingent entities already exist (in God’s perspective). This is tantamount to state that Aquinas endorsed a form of eternalism, since he maintained that past, present and future timelessly exist in God’s sight. I object that Aquinas’ texts are also compatible with another reading. In any statement of the form “S will be P”, the verb “will be” simply states the truth of the predicative link between S and P, not the existence of either S or P. In other words, I take the verb “to be” occurring in sentences describing future events as having the meaning of the “esse ut verum” (“being as true”).","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122668493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Necessary Gratuitous Evils","authors":"M. Almeida","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3019","url":null,"abstract":"The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133783115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aquinas on the Existence of the Future: A Response to Gili","authors":"Damiano Costa","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3424","url":null,"abstract":"I defend my paper “Aquinas, Geach, and Existence” [1] against objections from Luca Gili, who argued that, according to Aquinas, future contingents do not enjoy genuine existence but exist in God’s mind only. [1] Damiano Costa, “Aquinas, Geach, and existence”, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11, no. 3 (2019).","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"246 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114017513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reply to Deng, Hesse and Gäb","authors":"R. Le Poidevin","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3418","url":null,"abstract":"I am very grateful to Natalja, Jacob and Sebastian for their kind attention to my paper, and for their many insights on this topic, which have materially helped me get clearer about some of the issues. All the points of disagreement are constructive and it has been both a pleasure and an education to engage with them. I’m also happy to note some points of agreement, too! Here I attempt to reply to some of the objections.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122412765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theism & Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Against Moral Realism","authors":"Paul Rezkalla","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3409","url":null,"abstract":"Evolutionary debunking arguments against morality come in a variety of forms that differ both in how they take evolution to be problematic for morality and in their specific target of morality i.e. objectivity, realism, justification for moral beliefs, etc. For the purpose of this paper, I will first articulate several recent debunking approaches and highlight what they take to be problematic features of evolutionary history for morality. In doing so I will be forced to abstract from some of the specific arguments offered, although I will provide replies to particular aspects of the arguments offered by Michael Ruse, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. Then, I will show that theists have independent reasons for rejecting certain, core assumptions of these debunking approaches, thus deflating the major thrust of debunking worries for morality. While there may be good responses available to the non-theist realist with respect to several of the worries raised below, this paper will simply show why the theist need not be troubled by contemporary debunking approaches against morality.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133506737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Evolutionary Explanation for Change in Religious Institutions","authors":"A. Lavazza","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3407","url":null,"abstract":"Many attempts have been made to explain the rise of religious phenomena based on evolutionary models, which attempt to account for the way in which religion can constitute a useful system to increase the fitness of both the individual and the group. These models implicitly mean that beliefs are simply effective adaptations to the environment and in this sense they cannot be truly accepted by those who adhere to the religions in question. In this paper, I use the evolution of culture model elaborated by Cavalli Sforza to propose an approach that can explain the change of institutionalized religions over a more limited time frame than the long times of biological evolution. This model could be heuristically effective in the study of religious phenomena and could also be applicable in terms of theology and philosophy of religion. Given the limits of space, I will only try to take a few steps in this direction, trying to answer some of the major questions that arise about such an approach. In particular, one may ask whether, unlike others, the evolution of culture model applied to religions can make it possible to put into brackets - or to remain agnostic about - the value and the truth of the beliefs and precepts of the religion which is studied.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124507269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agnosticism and Fictionalism: A Reply to Le Poidevin","authors":"Natalja Deng","doi":"10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I3.3413","url":null,"abstract":"I have always found Robin’s writings on religion delightfully insightful and stimulating, and this piece was no exception. What follows are some of the thoughts that occurred to me, in order of occurrence.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128506145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Vagueness of Religious Beliefs","authors":"D. Bertini","doi":"10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.2937","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.2937","url":null,"abstract":"My paper characterizes religious beliefs in terms of vagueness. I introduce my topic by providing a general overview of my main claims. In the subsequent section, I develop basic distinctions and terminology for handling the notion of religious tradition and capturing (religious) vagueness. In the following sections, I make the case for my claim that religious beliefs are vague by developing a general argument from the interconnection between the referential opacity of religious belief content and the long-term communitarian history of the precisification of what such content means. I start from describing an empirical example in the third section, and then I move to settle the matter in a conceptually argumentative frame in the fourth one. My conclusions in the final section address a few of consequences relevant to debates about religious epistemology and religious diversity.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129226983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revelation Through Concealment: Kabbalistic Responses to God’s Hiddenness","authors":"Samuel Lebens","doi":"10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3324","url":null,"abstract":"John Schellenberg presents an argument for atheism according to which theism would be easy to believe, if true. Since theism isn’t easy to believe, it must be false. In this paper, I argue that Kabbalistic Judaism has the resources to bypass this argument completely. The paper also explores a stream of Kabbalistic advice that the tradition offers to people of faith for those times at which God appears to us to be hidden.","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130130121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Guest Editorial - Introduction","authors":"N. Verbin","doi":"10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v12i2.3332","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":428491,"journal":{"name":"European Journal for the Philosophy of Religion","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114343864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}