In this paper, I defend Gareth Moore from the charge that he espoused some kind of crypto-atheism in Believing in God. I do so by examining the case against Gareth outlined in Howard Robinson's New Blackfriars article “Gareth Moore's Radical Wittgensteinianism”. I examine both the directly textual arguments Robinson presents, as well as his claim that Gareth adhered to a kind of “radical Wittgensteinianism” that involves, among other things, a commitment to materialism. More importantly, I emphasize the true integrity of Believing in God. By this I mean two things: like any worthwhile exercise in philosophy, the book has to be read as forming an integral whole. This requires both an appreciation of Gareth's philosophical and religious motives in writing it and a sense of how it hangs together as a “seamless garment”. In addition, I mean the forthrightness of Gareth's efforts to be faithful to Christianity, not a Christianity of mere – or as he puts it “empty” – belief, but a Christianity that is to be lived out truthfully in thought, word, and deed.

Hinton's defence of Gareth's philosophy is welcome - but I don't think it works. This is because he does not show how, on Gareth's theory, ‘God’ can be referential, and, if it is not referential, then ‘belief in God’ cannot be taken in any literal sense. Sadly, I stand by my original claim that the radical, Phillipsian Wittgensteinianism that Gareth adopts is a form of informal positivism that only allows an expressivist sense to religious, and, indeed, all metaphysical language.

Howard Robinson believes, and would have the rest of us believe, that Gareth Moore was the equivalent of an atheist. To which I say, once again: there is not a single good reason to believe that Gareth was any such thing. I begin with a reminder about our duty to think of Gareth as innocent until proven guilty. I then argue that Gareth's insistence that there is no such thing as an invisible person named ‘God’ did not commit him to atheism. I show that people such as Herbert McCabe, whose orthodoxy is unimpeachable, say the same sort of thing. I then demonstrate that Gareth said nothing that would imply that, on his view, ‘God’ is not a referring expression. I end by explaining that Gareth embraced a theory of truth fully consistent with moderate expressivism.

In much of the theological discourse concerning human evolution, the emergence of the human “soul” is commonly treated as off limits from any naturalistic analysis, lest one reduce human uniqueness or the immortality of the soul. This article offers a naturalistic approach to the “soul's” emergence in conversation with Catholic theological commitments, using René Girard's mimetic theory. I argue that locating “religion”—defined as the taboos, culture, and rituals that contained early human violence—as prior to cognition and language better orients our conceptions of what we mean by the human soul and how we evolved into our current form.

For Aquinas, the very meaning of perfection demands that there could be no absolute perfection that was not shared by three Persons. My first aim in this paper is to establish this point, which has been acknowledged only rarely by readers of Thomas, yet which follows unavoidably from Thomas's theology of the Word. I show as much by engaging with scholars who, rightfully attentive to Thomas's teaching on faith and reason, and to his rejection of “necessary reasons” for the Trinity, deny or fail to recognize this link between the meaning of perfection and the necessity of the Trinity. Such scholars, however, all end up running aground on claims that Thomas consistently registers. I hope to show, therefore, that new approaches to this area of Thomas's Trinitarian thought are needed: approaches that can acknowledge his presentation of perfection as necessarily Triune without violating the limits he places on natural reason.

Beneath the appalling incidents of sexual abuse in the Church, there are key theological issues. Along with Pope Francis, I argue that central to this crisis is the abuse of power. I propose that part of the way to address this is through a discussion of the appropriate use of power; and perhaps the best way to think about the appropriate use of power is through the notion of the appropriate use of authority - as service. Here, I suggest there could be the beginning of an ecclesial response that would involve the wider Church along the developing lines of synodality that Pope Francis promotes. After an initial introduction focusing the abuse of authority and the call for a greater synodal way of relating in the Church, there is consideration of the vital foundation of authority rooted in intimacy with God. This leads to an exploration of the centrality of the example of Christ for authentic exercise of authority. Dialogue is seen as a healthy expression of authority, while living the tensions in the exercise of authority suggests a true witness to authority could be the formation of communities of discourse bearing many of the hallmarks of the synodal process.

This article engages with an example of Newman's reception in 20th Century thought, in Raymond Williams's Culture and Society from 1958. Williams considers that Newman's wording in The Idea of a University demonstrates a particular moment in the development of the semantic field of the word ‘culture’, which is indicated by the fact Newman does not use the word at an important juncture in his text. Williams also locates Newman in a developing trajectory of English understandings of culture at a point when (what we now term) culture was presented as a surrogate religion. Both of these points are responded to by showing that the word ‘culture’ would not have served the purpose Williams apportions to it for Newman's argument, and that Newman should not be associated with those for whom the domain of culture was emerging as an alternative to religion in the 19th Century. Moreover, this analysis will show that Newman's understanding of what we today term ‘culture’ should be understood in terms of a broader semantic cluster best captured by the word “sensibility”: a set of pervasive tendencies, predispositions, and qualities.

The passion of despair, according to Thomas Aquinas, is an appetitive movement away from a future arduous good that is impossible to attain. Criticism of his account of despair abounds. Nicholas Lombardo argues that despair cannot be proper passion because the appetite cannot move away from a good. Eric D'Arcy and Susan James argue that Aquinas's description of passions as movements casts doubt on his understanding of some passions, including despair. Michael Miller and John Patrick Reid deny that despair can be morally praiseworthy and conducive to action. In this paper, I defend Aquinas's account of the passion of despair from these criticisms.