Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, Mar 26, 2020
In this paper, I consider whether (religious) faith has any role to play in conferring positive e... more In this paper, I consider whether (religious) faith has any role to play in conferring positive epistemic status to (especially religious) beliefs. I outline several conceptions of faith that have been historically important within Western religious traditions. I then consider what role faith might be supposed to play, so understood, within the framework of internalist and externalist accounts of knowledge. My general conclusion is that, insofar as faith itself is a justified epistemic attitude, it requires justification and acquires that justification only through the regular faculties for contingent truths: sense perception and reason. I also argue, however, that the operations of our cognitive faculties in arriving at epistemic judgments on matters of substance are sufficiently complex, subtle, and often temporally prolonged, to make it exceptionally difficult to reconstruct the cognitive process and to judge whether it meets standards of rationality.
... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed i... more ... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed in a way that is successfully aimed at truth, 2) functioning 1 See Evan Fales, Critical Discussion of Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, Nous 37 (2003), 353-370. Page 3. ...
Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws... more Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws of Nature 4 Trouble With Time 5 Eternal God as Author of Nature 6 What Can God Know? 7 Healed Hearts, Inspired Minds 8 Mystical Revelations 9 Is Science a Mystic's Friend? 10 Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index
<jats:p>Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this b... more <jats:p>Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a way to navigate between two pitfalls that undermine comprehension of alien cultures and their sacred literature. First, it offers a vigorous defense of the principle of charity when interpreting religious texts. But this, then, must confront the oddity, even deep implausibility, of many religious claims. The "way out" of this dilemma takes seriously Durkheim's seminal hypothesis that religious belief systems reflect native efforts to understand the social realities of their society. It brings to bear Lévi-Strauss's claim that the structure of religious narratives reflects attempts to bring intellectual order to those realities in a way we can decipher through the use of certain analytic techniques. The next major element to this book is philosophical. What are such things as social roles, institutions, and conventions? Finding possible answers to that question enables the discovery of match-ups between religious concepts-of souls, gods, demons, and the like-and social realities, giving substance to Durkheim's general thesis. But what about the Bible? The second half of this book is devoted to exploring what the implications might be for an understanding of the origins of Judaism and Christianity. It does so by applying anthropological analyses to puzzles posed by stories found in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Matthew. The upshot is both a political reading of the texts and a conceptual re-framing of such baffling claims as the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Transubstantiation.</jats:p>
We examine animism as a philosophically rich religious attitude that offers scope to expand the p... more We examine animism as a philosophically rich religious attitude that offers scope to expand the philosophy of religion. We show that animism rests on cognitive biases that make it an intuitive option, though, like other religious systems, animisms need cultural elaboration. Cultural elaboration requires philosophical presuppositions to ground the ontological, epistemic, and ethical aspects of animistic thinking. Philosophers of religion can not only broaden their toolkit significantly; they can also expand the range of problems they investigate (e.g., ecological deterioration) by considering animisms within the scope of philosophy of religion.
Socio-historical examination of religion and ministry, Dec 10, 2021
Do mystical experiences make it rational to believe in God? A fair number of theistic philosopher... more Do mystical experiences make it rational to believe in God? A fair number of theistic philosophers have thought so, and, for the mystic who is ignorant of current scientific findings, perhaps that conclusion is correct. But the ignorant are not best qualified to judge: let us see how science might inform judgment. Here I will focus most particularly on the neurological basis of mystical experiences (MEs). It might initially seem that the evidence for such a basis is theologically benign—neutral on the question whether MEs may reasonably be considered veridical perceptions of the divine. I shall argue that this is a mistake.
... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed i... more ... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed in a way that is successfully aimed at truth, 2) functioning 1 See Evan Fales, Critical Discussion of Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, Nous 37 (2003), 353-370. Page 3. ...
Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a... more Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a way to navigate between two pitfalls that undermine comprehension of alien cultures and their sacred literature. First, it offers a vigorous defense of the principle of charity when interpreting religious texts. But this, then, must confront the oddity, even deep implausibility, of many religious claims. The "way out" of this dilemma takes seriously Durkheim's seminal hypothesis that religious belief systems reflect native efforts to understand the social realities of their society. It brings to bear Lévi-Strauss's claim that the structure of religious narratives reflects attempts to bring intellectual order to those realities in a way we can decipher through the use of certain analytic techniques. The next major element to this book is philosophical. What are such things as social roles, institutions, and conventions? Finding possible answers to that question enables ...
EVAN FALES Darwin's Doubt, Calvin's Calvary In the closing chapter of his book Warrant ... more EVAN FALES Darwin's Doubt, Calvin's Calvary In the closing chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga turns the tables on the theories of knowledge gener-ally described as naturalized epistemologies. What is ingenious about the attack is that Plantinga's own ...
Naturalism and physicalism are metaphysical positions commonly associated with atheism. Both are ... more Naturalism and physicalism are metaphysical positions commonly associated with atheism. Both are stronger than atheism: they entail atheism, conceived (minimally) as the denial that there is an all-powerful, omniscient, perfectly good disembodied personal being who has created the physical universe. Naturalism and physicalism are, therefore, natural allies of atheism, and offer a philosophical framework within which atheism finds a natural home. PHYSICALISM Main Positions on the Mind/Body Problem Physicalism may be understood, roughly, as the claim that minds are not distinct from matter and hence cannot exist apart from it. There are many varieties of physicalism. They may be graded, from most “extreme” to least, as follows. eliminative materialism . On this view, there simply are no mental events, and no “inner theater.” Subjective experience is an illusion; all that is happening “in our heads” are neurochemical events in our brains. reductive materialism . This view allows that there are mental events, but holds that each mental event type is identical with a physical event type in the brain. supervenience theories . Supervenience is a relation that holds between a physical and a mental state just in case it is necessary that when that physical state obtains, so does the mental state. A supervenience theorist could hold, for example, that each instance (token) of a certain mental state type is identical to an instance of some physical state type, without holding that the two state types can be identified. For example, those who maintain that mental characteristics are functional properties often subscribe to such a view. There are those (such as Hilary Putnam) who define functional states in terms of their logical role in the execution of a computation (i.e., the formal states a computer is in when it executes a program) or those (such as David Lewis) who define them in terms of the causal role of the state. property dualism . Property dualists deny that mental properties are in any sense identical to physical properties. They may hold, however, that there are only material substances, some of which have mental properties. It is not clear in what principled way one ought to distinguish mental from physical properties. A property dualist may further hold that the instantiation of mental properties by a material thing is strongly dependent on which physical properties it has: that the relation between the instances is either one of nomological (lawlike) necessity or one of metaphysical necessity.
Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws... more Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws of Nature 4 Trouble With Time 5 Eternal God as Author of Nature 6 What Can God Know? 7 Healed Hearts, Inspired Minds 8 Mystical Revelations 9 Is Science a Mystic's Friend? 10 Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index
The objections to which Gellman responds are (in order of appearance): 1) the argument that mysti... more The objections to which Gellman responds are (in order of appearance): 1) the argument that mystical experiences (ME&amp;amp;amp;#x27;s) have little or no evidential value because, unlike sense perception, these experiences have &amp;amp;amp;#x27;private&amp;amp;amp;#x27;content and are not susceptible to ...
Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, Mar 26, 2020
In this paper, I consider whether (religious) faith has any role to play in conferring positive e... more In this paper, I consider whether (religious) faith has any role to play in conferring positive epistemic status to (especially religious) beliefs. I outline several conceptions of faith that have been historically important within Western religious traditions. I then consider what role faith might be supposed to play, so understood, within the framework of internalist and externalist accounts of knowledge. My general conclusion is that, insofar as faith itself is a justified epistemic attitude, it requires justification and acquires that justification only through the regular faculties for contingent truths: sense perception and reason. I also argue, however, that the operations of our cognitive faculties in arriving at epistemic judgments on matters of substance are sufficiently complex, subtle, and often temporally prolonged, to make it exceptionally difficult to reconstruct the cognitive process and to judge whether it meets standards of rationality.
... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed i... more ... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed in a way that is successfully aimed at truth, 2) functioning 1 See Evan Fales, Critical Discussion of Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, Nous 37 (2003), 353-370. Page 3. ...
Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws... more Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws of Nature 4 Trouble With Time 5 Eternal God as Author of Nature 6 What Can God Know? 7 Healed Hearts, Inspired Minds 8 Mystical Revelations 9 Is Science a Mystic's Friend? 10 Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index
<jats:p>Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this b... more <jats:p>Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a way to navigate between two pitfalls that undermine comprehension of alien cultures and their sacred literature. First, it offers a vigorous defense of the principle of charity when interpreting religious texts. But this, then, must confront the oddity, even deep implausibility, of many religious claims. The "way out" of this dilemma takes seriously Durkheim's seminal hypothesis that religious belief systems reflect native efforts to understand the social realities of their society. It brings to bear Lévi-Strauss's claim that the structure of religious narratives reflects attempts to bring intellectual order to those realities in a way we can decipher through the use of certain analytic techniques. The next major element to this book is philosophical. What are such things as social roles, institutions, and conventions? Finding possible answers to that question enables the discovery of match-ups between religious concepts-of souls, gods, demons, and the like-and social realities, giving substance to Durkheim's general thesis. But what about the Bible? The second half of this book is devoted to exploring what the implications might be for an understanding of the origins of Judaism and Christianity. It does so by applying anthropological analyses to puzzles posed by stories found in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Matthew. The upshot is both a political reading of the texts and a conceptual re-framing of such baffling claims as the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Transubstantiation.</jats:p>
We examine animism as a philosophically rich religious attitude that offers scope to expand the p... more We examine animism as a philosophically rich religious attitude that offers scope to expand the philosophy of religion. We show that animism rests on cognitive biases that make it an intuitive option, though, like other religious systems, animisms need cultural elaboration. Cultural elaboration requires philosophical presuppositions to ground the ontological, epistemic, and ethical aspects of animistic thinking. Philosophers of religion can not only broaden their toolkit significantly; they can also expand the range of problems they investigate (e.g., ecological deterioration) by considering animisms within the scope of philosophy of religion.
Socio-historical examination of religion and ministry, Dec 10, 2021
Do mystical experiences make it rational to believe in God? A fair number of theistic philosopher... more Do mystical experiences make it rational to believe in God? A fair number of theistic philosophers have thought so, and, for the mystic who is ignorant of current scientific findings, perhaps that conclusion is correct. But the ignorant are not best qualified to judge: let us see how science might inform judgment. Here I will focus most particularly on the neurological basis of mystical experiences (MEs). It might initially seem that the evidence for such a basis is theologically benign—neutral on the question whether MEs may reasonably be considered veridical perceptions of the divine. I shall argue that this is a mistake.
... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed i... more ... Evan Fales The past fifty years have witnessed the emergence, and now the ... well-designed in a way that is successfully aimed at truth, 2) functioning 1 See Evan Fales, Critical Discussion of Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, Nous 37 (2003), 353-370. Page 3. ...
Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a... more Drawing significantly on the work of Emile Durkheim and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this book proposes a way to navigate between two pitfalls that undermine comprehension of alien cultures and their sacred literature. First, it offers a vigorous defense of the principle of charity when interpreting religious texts. But this, then, must confront the oddity, even deep implausibility, of many religious claims. The "way out" of this dilemma takes seriously Durkheim's seminal hypothesis that religious belief systems reflect native efforts to understand the social realities of their society. It brings to bear Lévi-Strauss's claim that the structure of religious narratives reflects attempts to bring intellectual order to those realities in a way we can decipher through the use of certain analytic techniques. The next major element to this book is philosophical. What are such things as social roles, institutions, and conventions? Finding possible answers to that question enables ...
EVAN FALES Darwin's Doubt, Calvin's Calvary In the closing chapter of his book Warrant ... more EVAN FALES Darwin's Doubt, Calvin's Calvary In the closing chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga turns the tables on the theories of knowledge gener-ally described as naturalized epistemologies. What is ingenious about the attack is that Plantinga's own ...
Naturalism and physicalism are metaphysical positions commonly associated with atheism. Both are ... more Naturalism and physicalism are metaphysical positions commonly associated with atheism. Both are stronger than atheism: they entail atheism, conceived (minimally) as the denial that there is an all-powerful, omniscient, perfectly good disembodied personal being who has created the physical universe. Naturalism and physicalism are, therefore, natural allies of atheism, and offer a philosophical framework within which atheism finds a natural home. PHYSICALISM Main Positions on the Mind/Body Problem Physicalism may be understood, roughly, as the claim that minds are not distinct from matter and hence cannot exist apart from it. There are many varieties of physicalism. They may be graded, from most “extreme” to least, as follows. eliminative materialism . On this view, there simply are no mental events, and no “inner theater.” Subjective experience is an illusion; all that is happening “in our heads” are neurochemical events in our brains. reductive materialism . This view allows that there are mental events, but holds that each mental event type is identical with a physical event type in the brain. supervenience theories . Supervenience is a relation that holds between a physical and a mental state just in case it is necessary that when that physical state obtains, so does the mental state. A supervenience theorist could hold, for example, that each instance (token) of a certain mental state type is identical to an instance of some physical state type, without holding that the two state types can be identified. For example, those who maintain that mental characteristics are functional properties often subscribe to such a view. There are those (such as Hilary Putnam) who define functional states in terms of their logical role in the execution of a computation (i.e., the formal states a computer is in when it executes a program) or those (such as David Lewis) who define them in terms of the causal role of the state. property dualism . Property dualists deny that mental properties are in any sense identical to physical properties. They may hold, however, that there are only material substances, some of which have mental properties. It is not clear in what principled way one ought to distinguish mental from physical properties. A property dualist may further hold that the instantiation of mental properties by a material thing is strongly dependent on which physical properties it has: that the relation between the instances is either one of nomological (lawlike) necessity or one of metaphysical necessity.
Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws... more Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 How Does God Do Things? 3 Divine Governance and the Laws of Nature 4 Trouble With Time 5 Eternal God as Author of Nature 6 What Can God Know? 7 Healed Hearts, Inspired Minds 8 Mystical Revelations 9 Is Science a Mystic's Friend? 10 Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index
The objections to which Gellman responds are (in order of appearance): 1) the argument that mysti... more The objections to which Gellman responds are (in order of appearance): 1) the argument that mystical experiences (ME&amp;amp;amp;#x27;s) have little or no evidential value because, unlike sense perception, these experiences have &amp;amp;amp;#x27;private&amp;amp;amp;#x27;content and are not susceptible to ...
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