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 article concerns the problem of eternal hell in Islam as an aporetic problem of evil with a focus on Aijaz's description of the Islamic soteriology. I contest his description of Islamic culpability and his claim that all non-Muslims are regarded as kâfir and consigned to eternal hell. First, I aim to illustrate the pitfalls in his line of argumentation such as crude generalizations and selective reading of the Islamic sources, which seem to render his argument a strawman fallacy. I offer a more accurate analysis of the Islamic view, by arguing that only a limited group of people who fight against truth through evil actions are considered as kâfir. Second, building on my analysis of the notion of kâfir, I address the question whether God's perfect love and wisdom are compatible with limited salvific exclusivism. Thus, I aim to elaborate on the rationale behind the prescription of eternal punishment for the kâfir in the Quran in the rest of the article, by arguing that the kâfir is incapable of genuine repentance due to his character formed by his free choices. This, in turn, makes it impossible to achieve retributive justice through a finite punishment concerning the kâfir's evil actions.

I argue that the story of God's commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac can be read as a variant of Kavka's (1983) Toxin Puzzle. On this reading, Abraham has no reason to kill Isaac, only reason to intend to kill Isaac. On one version of the Kavkan reading, it's impossible for Abraham, thus situated, to form the intention to kill Isaac. This would make the binding an impossible story: I explore the ethical and theological consequences of reading the story in this way. Finally, I suggest that analytic philosophers may have more to contribute to interpretative projects in philosophical theology than generally practised.

To bolster his consequence argument against David Lewis's rejoinder, Peter van Inwagen uses the concept of miracle. He claims that the Lewisian compatibilist must admit that under determinism, we possess the ability to work miracles par excellence, that is, not just in some purely technical sense of the term. The article argues that van Inwagen's definition of a ‘miracle’ is too broad even if it is interpreted merely as an explication of one component often thought to be inherent in the religious concept of miracle, namely the concept of an event that breaks the laws of nature. Nomological effects of miracles are not miracles themselves.

Some people display a general attitude towards God which does not fulfil the criteria of full-blown faith but also does not amount to lack of faith. I argue that in some cases such an attitude, best described as partial faith, is likely to be the all-things-considered best option – even if God exists and the best possible relationship with God is the greatest possible good. This is because, in a universe as religiously ambiguous as ours, some people seem unable to have full-blown faith, and for some others such faith is likely to be possible only at the cost of contradicting some values relevant for the relationship to God. Somehow paradoxically, God-related worries and doubts leading to spiritual struggles and enquiries can improve one's relationship with God, so that, for some people at some times, the advantages of partial faith may override those of full-blown faith. If I am right, it offers some reason to think that partial faith does not deserve the criticism which has traditionally been directed at it. In addition to that, I argue that, independently of the normative assessment, partial faith is a useful descriptive concept, which can throw light on many issues surrounding faith in general and make it easier to describe some themes belonging to continental philosophy of religion in analytic terms.

This article outlines and defends an ‘Integral Advaitic’ theodicy that takes its bearings from the thought of three modern Indian mystics: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. Their Integral Advaitic theodicy has two key dimensions: a doctrine of spiritual evolution and a panentheistic metaphysics. God has created this world as an arena for our moral and spiritual evolution in which evil and suffering are as necessary as good. The doctrine of spiritual evolution presupposes karma, rebirth, and universal salvation. The doctrines of karma and rebirth shift moral responsibility for evil from God to His creatures by explaining all instances of evil and suffering as the karmic consequence of their own past deeds, either in this life or in a previous life. The doctrine of universal salvation also has important theodical implications: the various finite evils of this life are outweighed by the infinite good of salvation that awaits us all. After outlining this Integral Advaitic theodicy, I address some of the main objections to it and then argue that it has a number of comparative advantages over John Hick's well-known ‘soul-making’ theodicy.

1 Th. 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing. Many have worried that praying without ceasing seems impossible. Most address the problem by giving an account of the true nature of prayer. Unexplored are strategies for dealing with the problem that are neutral on the nature of prayer, strategies consistent, for example, with the view that only petition is prayer. In this article, after clarifying the nature of the problem for praying without ceasing, I identify and explore the prospects of five different strategies that are neutral in this sense. I also raise problems for each strategy.

I argue that the Hebrew Bible adopts a non-doxastic account of propositional faith. In coming to this conclusion, we shall discover that Biblical Hebrew has no word for belief. What ramifications might this have had for biblical and Jewish epistemology? I begin to trace the sort of epistemic norms that might emerge from an epistemology that approaches knowledge by thinking about faith, rather than belief.

Compositionalists hold that God the Son became human by acquiring all the parts that ordinarily compose a human being (his ‘human nature’). To be orthodox, though, they must deny that Christ's human nature is a person, even though it has all the parts that human persons ordinarily have. One way to do this is by appealing to the principle that no member of a natural kind can have another member of the same kind as a proper part. Since Christ is a person, he cannot have another person as a part, so if his human nature is a part of him, it cannot be a person. This principle is defended on the grounds that it can resolve metaphysical problems involving apparently multiple individuals of the same natural kind that share the same space. I argue that this is a weak strategy. First, it leaves unanswered key questions about how and why the principle applies to the incarnation. Second, counter-examples to the principle exist, suggesting that it is not true. Third, there is a better solution to the kinds of metaphysical paradoxes for which this principle is usually invoked, but this solution cannot be applied to the case of Christ. Consequently, compositionalists should not rely on this principle as a means of avoiding Nestorianism.

This article articulates and defends an underexplored account of faith – the perspectival account of faith – according to which faith is a value-oriented perspective on the world towards which the subject has a pro-attitude. After describing this account of faith and outlining what it is to have faith on the perspectival account, I show that the perspectival account meets methodological criteria for an account of faith. I then show that this account of faith can be used to unify various faith locutions: having faith that p (propositional faith), having faith in something (attitudinal faith), being a person of faith (global faith), articles of faith (creedal faith), and acts of faith (praxical faith). Finally, since the perspectival account of faith is a cognitive account of faith, I defend the perspectival view against objections to cognitive accounts of faith.

‘Faith’ (pistis) is a key term in early Christianity. It not only describes the self-understanding of an individual Christ-follower, but also operates as the social marker of the Christ-groups. Rather than adding to the renaissance of studies on faith in recent years, this article seeks to illuminate what faith is by focusing on the phenomenon of doubt, broadly understood. After some linguistic reflections, the article identifies six basic types of doubt in early Christian writings and then compiles eighteen coping strategies and patterns of resilience reflected in the most prominent texts. The article is not an attempt at systematizing early Christian reflections on doubt but is rather a cornucopia of insights into how the first Christian theologians talked about doubt, dealt with it, and tried to overcome it.

According to religious fictionalism, a non-believer can participate in religious life by playing a game of make-believe. Considering how games of make-believe build on imagination and pretence, I argue that religious fictionalism requires the non-believing participant to engage in role-playing. Turning to the literature on role-playing games, I demonstrate how religious fictionalism conforms to a qualified definition of such games. I also explore the theoretical consequences of adopting the role-playing perspective, by considering its impact on two key issues concerning religious fictionalism.

Traditionally, the problem of evil, in its various formulations, has been one of the strongest objections against perfect being theism. In the voluminous literature on this problem, the motif of evil has usually been discussed with respect to human flourishing. In recent decades more focused attention has been paid to animal suffering and the philosophical problems that such suffering poses for perfect being theists. However, this growing body of literature, in Anglo-American philosophical milieus, is largely aimed at sketching a specifically Christian or Christianity-inflected theodicy that would reconcile animal suffering with the existence of an omni-God. In contrast, there are few, if any, systematic attempts to put forth a Hindu theodicy that aims to offer morally justifiable reasons that God has for allowing animal suffering. In this article, we address this scholarly lacuna by illustrating how a Hindu perfect being theist might respond to the problem of animal suffering.

This article presents an argument for atheism that contains a premise stated from the first-person perspective and that is intended to rationally persuade people who satisfy certain conditions. The argument also contains a premise about what God would do, if God existed, that is acceptable to theists and is affirmed in some major monotheistic religious traditions. This article explains how the argument differs from some other familiar arguments for atheism and then discusses some critical responses to it.

Pagan revivalism is a growing trend in the contemporary religious landscape. Is it possible to be a neopagan without disregarding the demands of reason? While outright belief in the old gods seems out of the question, I argue that polytheism represents a live epistemic possibility, and that non-doxastic paganism is therefore a viable option. However, the rational, non-doxastic neopagan should only commit to general polytheism, rather than a detailed, specific pagan pantheon (such as the Greek or Old Norse). I also suggest that the ancient pagan conception of the divine as radically immanent must be rejected.

Many Muslims take the position that religious doubts constitute a serious problem for anyone who regards himself or herself as a Muslim, arguing that such a predicament may even result in apostasy. According to this position, the main problem with a Muslim who harbours religious doubts, a ‘Sceptical Muslim’, is that he or she is culpable for failing to respond appropriately to epistemic certainty about fundamental Islamic doctrine, primarily the existence of God and the Prophethood of Muhammad. I shall argue that, contrary to what many Muslims have asserted, the position of the ‘Sceptical Muslim’ is a viable one in an Islamic context.

The fluctuating maximal God thesis, developed by Jeffrey et al., offers a conception of God that removes the characteristic of divine immutability, allowing the degrees of God's great-making properties to change over time. This god-concept provides a substantial advantage over the ‘static’ maximal God thesis proposed by Yujin Nagasawa if it can adequately sidestep what I call ‘the problem of inconsistent evil’. This problem questions how a static god can be compatible with the inconsistent dispersion of evil in the world. It is founded on the observation that evil is distributed neither equally nor fairly across time, space, and individuals. I distinguish between temporally inconsistent, spatially inconsistent, and interpersonally inconsistent evil and argue that the fluctuating maximal God thesis can account for all types of inconsistent evil if God fluctuates not only through time but also through space.

Much of historic Christian philosophical theology has affirmed that God not only exists, but is Existence itself. Nowadays, this claim is widely rejected as unintelligible by theists and non-theists alike. I argue in contrast that if there is such a thing as Existence itself, that thing must be a maximally excellent being, which is what many philosophers call God. This is because Existence would itself need to exist, which is only possible if Existence exists in a paradigmatic way, that is, as a perfect instance of existence. My argument thus offers both a defence of the coherence of the claim that God is Existence itself, and a new way of arguing for theism.

I begin by retracing an argument from Aristotle for final causes in science. Then, I advance this ancient thought, and defend an argument for a stronger conclusion: that no scientific explanation can succeed, if Naturalism is true. The argument goes like this: (1) Any scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity. Next, I argue that (2) any explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves no element that calls out for explanation but lacks one. From (1) and (2) it follows that (3) a scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity, and this regularity does not call out for explanation while lacking one. I then argue that (4) if Naturalism is true, then all every natural regularity calls out for explanation but lacks one. From (3) and (4) it follows that (5) if Naturalism is true, then no scientific explanation can be successful. If you believe that scientific explanation can be (indeed, often has been) successful, as I do, then this is a reason to reject Naturalism.