Affirming that divine knowledge of occurrent changes among particulars is incompatible with the doctrine of divine immutability, this article seeks to resolve this tension by denying the latter. Reviewing this long-running debate, I first formalize the exchange between al-Ghazālī and Avicenna on this topic, and then set out the ways in which contemporary Sadrāean philosophers have tried to resolve the incompatibility. I argue that none of the cited Sadrāean attempts to resolve the incompatibility between divine omniscience and immutability is successful. Then, by reference to certain principles drawn from Shia theology, I indicate how one might seek to reject the dogma of divine immutability. I conclude that by emancipating ourselves from that dogma, new horizons could be opened for Islamic philosophy, free from traditional Hellenistic constraints.

This article responds to recent arguments that worshipping God cannot be obligatory. It shows how a respect-based account of worship is compatible with the claim that only God is worthy of worship, and compatible with the view that worship is very different from attitudes we owe to creatures. Then, it develops a respect-based account in enough detail to show how our moral motivations to respect creatures generate an obligation to worship God. The upshot is an analysis of worship which can weather recent arguments that worshipping God is not morally motivated.

The Dutch writer Menno ter Braak once observed that when there is no bacon in the larder you tend to spend your time sharpening your knives. In a different context a somewhat similar remark concerning his preoccupation with the sharpening of his analytical tools was made by the philosopher Husserl. Applying these remarks—without the least intent of facetiousness—to the comparative study of religions, we might say that concern with methodology should be an occasional pastime, in which we may indulge at moments when we take an occasional respite from our substantive labours—but with plenty of bacon, as it were, in the larder. The quinquennial congresses of the International Association for the History of Religions are undoubtedly an appropriate occasion for such critical and reflective introspection. In fact, some of the best methodological clarifications come not from a priori legislators but from active researchers stepping back for a moment, putting some distance between their nose and the grindstone, and asking themselves what exactly they and their colleagues have been and are doing, and how they should best proceed. (I am thinking, e.g., of J. Schwab's penetrating and profound essay ‘What do Scientists do?’ as an outstanding example of such reflection by a natural scientist.) Whilst the sterility of abstract discussions about the definition of religion is generally admitted, it should be acknowledged that some exceedingly helpful suggestions have been made by practising field-workers and historians of religion. I am thinking of e.g., C. Geertz, M. Spiro, and Th. van Baaren. Other examples of the theoretical clarifications resulting from the interaction—addicts of the currently fashionable jargon would say ‘feedback’—between attempts at definition and the actual praxis of historians of religion are H. Ch. Puech's short introduction and A. Brelich's major Prolégomènes in vol. i of the Pléiade Histoire des Religions (1970), as well as U. Bianchi's thoughtful and thought-provoking recent contribution. Clearly students of religion continue to be very much exercised by the double problem of the nature of their subject-matter and of the proper methods of studying it.

In his book The Existence of God, Professor Swinburne develops a cumulative case for theism. As part of this case, he presents two forms of the argument from design, one form taking as its premise the fact of spatial order, the other proceeding from the fact of temporal order. In this paper, I shall concern myself with the second of these arguments; that is, in Swinburne's terms, I shall concern myself with the argument from regularities of succession.

What is the self? What is the ‘I’ that appears to be the subject of all ‘my’ thoughts and imaginings, my experiences and desires? This is not simply about problems of identification. How I pick you out or you recognize me are questions related to the problem of what it is to be or you, but they are not the same issue. If our ‘true selves’ are inaccessible to public scrutiny, how we are identified and re-identified publicly will be different from who ‘we’ are. The problem of the self is a genuinely metaphysical question which cannot be reduced to the epistemological one of how we know each other, without further argument.

What is a religion? As Socrates might have asked: What feature do all and only religions share in virtue of which they are religions? This question may seem misguided. Confronted with the diversity of behaviour called ‘religious’, we may easily doubt the existence of a single feature that explains the religiosity of every religion. To use Wittgenstein's term, there may only be a `family resemblance’ between religions, a network of features generally shared, most of which belong to each religion, no one of which belongs to every religion. Efforts to produce the single defining feature tend to streng-then the doubt that one exists. Is a religion an attempt to approach God or appropriate the sacred? Then Theravada Buddhism is not a religion, for God and the sacred are irrelevancies in this tradition. Is a religion a practice that expresses and advances the ultimate concern of a large number of people? Then the stockmarket is a religion and so is the drug trade. Such accounts are typically too narrow or too general, unless they are circular. Perhaps religion has no essence.

In ‘Belief-In and Belief in God’ (Religious Studies, 28, 1992), J. N. Williams suggests that belief in God cannot be rational unless one has rational beliefs that God exists. While agreeing with his conclusion (though not with his statement of it), I disagree at almost every step with his method of arriving at it. In particular I suggest that Williams goes astray concerning the dual aspect of belief in, the nature of performatives, the arousal of belief states, and the correct account of belief in God.

Enric F. Gel has recently argued that classical theism enjoys a significant advantage over Graham Oppy's naturalism. According to Gel, classical theism – unlike Oppy's naturalism – satisfactorily answers two questions: first, how many first causes are there, and second, why is it that number rather than another? In this article, I reply to Gel's argument for classical theism's advantage over Oppy's naturalism. I also draw out wider implications of my investigation for the gap problem and Christian doctrine along the way.

This paper explores some implications of the idea that religious thoughts can enter into the sensory appearances of things. I begin by clarifying this idea, using some examples drawn from Roger Scruton's discussion of the phenomenology of architectural experience. Then I consider the bearing of the idea on the case for religious belief in pragmatic and epistemic terms. More exactly, I explore how the idea of an internal relation between religious thought and the sensory appearances of things can be used (1) to state William James's case in ‘The will to believe’ with new nuance, and (2) to set out an epistemic case for religious belief whose central claims seem quite commonly to weigh with believers, but which has not been much discussed by philosophers.

In ‘Moral critique and defence of theodicy’ (2013) Samuel Shearn argues that ambitious theodicies trivialize horrendous suffering in an unacceptable way by reinterpreting evils in a way sufferers do not accept. Against Shearn, the authors of this article will argue that sufferer acceptance should not be used as a criterion for the moral acceptability of what theodicies say about horrendous evils. Also, since theodicy is done in the public square, Shearn does not find it relevant to distinguish between contexts in which it is morally improper to communicate theodicies and those in which it is not. We disagree, and present some arguments as to why making such distinctions is morally relevant. Furthermore Shearn argues that theodicy is self-defeating if it aims to comfort sufferers of horrendous evils. We will critically re-examine the examples used to support his conclusion, and suggest that theodicies do have a comforting function. Finally, Shearn describes the difference between theodicy and anti-theodicy as an aesthetic impasse, rather than a moral issue. Against this, we find good reasons to affirm its predominant moral character.

Split brains that result in two simultaneous streams of consciousness cut off from each other are wrongly held to be grounds for doubting the existence of the divinely created soul. The mistake is based on two related errors: first, a failure to appreciate the soul's dependence upon neurological functioning; second, a fallacious belief that if the soul is simple, i.e. without parts, then there must be a unity to its thought, all of its thoughts being potentially accessible to reflection or even unreflective causal interactions. But a soul theorist can allow neurological events to keep some conscious thoughts unavailable to others.

It is shown that, for certain classes of cosmological model which either postulate or give rise to infinitely many universes, only a measure zero subset of the set of possible universes above a given size can in fact be physically realized. It follows that claims to explain the fine tuning of our universe on the basis of such models by appeal to the existence of all possible universes fail.

Counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs) are notoriously puzzling. One puzzle has to do with truth-making: we wonder how any CCFs could be true prior to the existence of all creatures. Another, less addressed puzzle has to do with truth-explaining: what antecedent conditions or facts might explain a given CCF? The usual answer to the ‘explanation’ question is that true CCFs are brute: nothing explains them. We motivate an alternative answer by arguing that there can be an explanation of CCFs if there can be an explanation of free actions. Our argument reveals that theoretical frameworks, such as Molinism, that make use of CCFs do not automatically carry an explanatory cost.

My object is to suggest some ways of amplifying and applying Bochenski's account,1 in order to bring out its value for philosophical investigation of the doctrines of particular religious communities.

The thought of God as transcendent is central to theism. Although the expression ‘divine transcendence’ does not appear to have been used by theologians (as distinct from philosophers) before the nineteenth century,1 the idea itself is very deep-rooted. If we ask where it is ultimately grounded, I think the answer may well be: in the idea of the holy.

Many authors claim that certain Indian (Hindu) texts and traditions deny that nature has intrinsic value. If nature has value at all, it has value only as a means to mokṣa (liberation). This view is implausible as an interpretation of any Indian tradition that accepts the doctrines of ahiṃsā (non-harm) and karma. The proponent must explain the connection between ahiṃsā and merit by citing the connection between ahiṃsā and mokṣa: ahiṃsā is valuable, and therefore produces merit, because ahiṃsā is instrumentally valuable as a means to mokṣa. Ahiṃsā is a means to mokṣa, however, because it produces merit. Hence the explanation is circular. Additionally, this view entails that morality is strictly arbitrary – it might just as well be that hiṃsā (harm) produces merit, and ahiṃsā produces demerit. An alternative interpretation that avoids these problems states that the value of ahiṃsā derives from the intrinsic value of the unharmed entities.

The question of why humanity first chose to sin is an extension to the problem of evil to which the free-will defence does not easily apply. In De libero arbitrio and elsewhere Augustine argues that as an instance of evil, the fall is necessarily inexplicable. In this article, I identify the problems with this response and attempt to construct an alternative based on Peter van Inwagen's free will ‘mysterianism’. I will argue that the origin of evil is inexplicable not because it is an instance of evil, but because it is an instance of free will.

Philosophers have paid almost no attention to the baptismal rite. This is puzzling not only because the rite is central to the Christian life but also because the rite itself is very puzzling, making audacious claims about what its performance accomplishes. According to one of these audacious claims, by the performance of the rite the one baptized is transformed, enjoying states such as purification, sanctification, regeneration, and illumination – what I call the regenerate states. But how could this be so? And isn't there good empirical evidence that the imposition of the regenerate states on the one baptized is not accomplished in the vast majority of cases? In this article, I consider an ancient and audacious version of the baptismal rite, namely, that used by Eastern Orthodox Christians. I propose a model for understanding this rite – what I call the process-interpretation – which I believe comes close to being satisfactory, since it implies that the imposition of the regenerate states is not nearly as perplexing as it might seem at first glance.

I have been asked to consider two questions: How Christian ‘oughts’ are related to Christian ‘is-es’, and, What does Christianity take flourishing to be? The background to these questions is that Christian ethics have traditionally been taken, both by supporters and opponents, as au ethic of creature-hood, sometimes quite crudely conceived. It is a sketch, but by no means a caricature, of a great deal of standard Christian thinking, to depict it as answering the two questions as follows: (1) God is your Creator: therefore you ought to obey him. (2) The end of man (his true flourishing) is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever.