Philosophers and theologians acknowledge that ‘fideism’ is difficult to define but rarely agree on what the best characterization of the term is. In this article, I investigate the history of use of ‘fideism’ to explore why its meaning has been so contested and thus why it has not always been helpful for resolving philosophical problems. I trace the use of the term from its origins in French theology to its current uses in philosophy and theology, concluding that ‘fideism’ is helpful in resolving philosophical problems only when philosophers scrupulously acknowledge the tradition of use that informs their understanding of the word.

In this essay, I defend theology against a recent argument made by Peter Byrne. According to Byrne, any discipline of thought that can be interpreted realistically shows the accumulation of reliable or widespread belief about the reality it investigates. I challenge this claim, first, by showing how theology, so construed as an exercise of ‘faith seeking understanding’, can and should be interpreted realistically, even if it does not show the accumulation of reliable or widespread belief about divine reality. Second, I give a plausible account of why theology is beset by internal disagreement and division, even if the goal of theological enquiry is to overcome such disagreement and division.

One common interpretation of the orthodox Indian prohibition on desire is that it is a prohibition on phenomenologically salient desires. The Nyāyasūtra and Brahmasiddhi seem to support this view. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken. The Vedāntins draw a distinction between counting some fact as a reason for acting (icchā) and counting one's desire (rāga) as a reason for acting, and prohibit the latter. The Naiyāyikas draw a distinction between desiring to avoid some state of affairs (dveṣa) and believing that some state of affairs is unimportant (vairāgya), and advocate the latter. Both deny that the state to which the English word ‘desire’ refers is a necessary condition of acting.

A powerful argument against the resurrection of the body is based on the premise that all resurrection theories violate natural laws. We counter this argument by developing a fully naturalistic resurrection theory. We refer to it as the revision theory of resurrection (RTR). Since Hick's replica theory is already highly naturalistic, we use Hick's theory as the basis for the RTR. According to Hick, resurrection is the recreation of an earthly body in another universe. The recreation is a resurrection counterpart. We show that the New Testament supports the idea of resurrection counterparts. The RTR asserts that you are a node in a branching tree of increasingly perfect resurrection counterparts. These ever better counterparts live in increasingly perfect resurrection universes. We give both theological arguments and an empirical argument for the RTR.

The cognitive science of religion seeks to find genuine causal explanations for the origin and transmission of religious ideas. In the cognitive approach to religion, so-called intuitive and counter-intuitive concepts figure importantly. In this article it is argued that cognitive scientists of religion should clarify their views about the explanatory and semantic role they give to counter-intuitive concepts and beliefs in their theory. Since the cognitive science of religion is a naturalistic research programme, it is doubtful that its proponents can remain neutral on important ontological questions.

We argue that there is a tension between two types of design arguments: the fine-tuning argument (FTA) and the biological design argument (BDA). The tension arises because the strength of each argument is inversely proportional to the value of a certain currently unknown probability. Since the value of that probability is currently unknown, we investigate the properties of the FTA and BDA on different hypothetical values of this probability. If our central claim is correct this suggests three results: (1) It is not very plausible that a cumulative case for theism include both the FTA and the BDA (with one possible qualification); (2) Self-organization scenarios do not threaten theism but in fact provide the materials for a good FTA; (3) A plausible design argument of one sort or another (either FTA or BDA) will be available for a wide variety of values of the key probability.