Critics of Berkeley's divine language argument usually dismiss it for one of two main reasons: (1) it appears to be a mere variation on Descartes's argument for the existence of other minds, or (2) there is too little similarity between human languages and the ‘discourse of nature’. I will first show that the compositional features of language on which Berkeley partially bases his argument include systematicity and productivity – not merely the generativity on which Descartes's is based. I will then show that the analogy between human languages and the discourse of nature is stronger than typically appreciated, even given contemporary understandings of language.

In his highly important work I and ThouMartin Buber speaks of God as the ‘Eternal Thou’, ‘who can only be addressed, not asserted’. Buber might therefore aptly be described as an ‘anti-theologian’: one may legitimately enter into a relationship with God, which is the appropriate response, but any attempt to theorize about God is not simply irreverent or excessively academic, but a genuine impossibility. At best, statements about God can only be understood ‘allegorically’.

It appears to me that most traditional criticism of the Ontological argument misses the mark because the proponents imply a premise which, if true, would validate their argument on precisely the point attacked by the opponents. In view of this possibility, I propose the following analysis:

(1) state the traditional ontological argument without the implied premise;

(2) state the traditional criticisms, showing how they miss the mark;

(3) restate the ontological argument with the implied premise made clear;

(4) offer a defence of the implied premise;

(5) show how the ontological argument is still invalidated by another criticism;

(6) argue that the only way to avoid this other criticism is to borrow another premise from the cosmological argument, and

(7) that when these premises are borrowed the result is a valid form of the cosmological argument for the existence of a necessary being.

Since the last half of the nineteenth century western Christian theologians have argued periodically about the supernatural, with liberals ordinarily denying the value of the concept and conservatives affirming it. The debate has usually turned around its function or disfunction within apologetics or the philosophy of religion. The anti-supernaturalists have claimed that the concept seriously inhibits the conversation between Christianity and contemporary culture. The pro-supernaturalists have replied that, whatever its current cultural status, the supernatural is absolutely essential to Christianity. And any attempt to abandon it for apologetic or philosophical reasons would falsify the very meaning of the Christian message itself. The debate commonly ends there with both sides fixed in disagreement.

In rejecting Plantinga's ‘reformed epistemology’, Jeremy Koons has argued that no beliefs are epistemically basic, since even perceptual beliefs arise from observations that are theory-dependent. But even if all observations are theory-dependent, not all theories are alike. Beliefs that are dependent on uncontroversial bodies of theory may be ‘basic’ in the sense that they play a foundational role in the acquisition of knowledge. There is, however, another problem with reformed epistemology. It is that even if Christian beliefs were basic in this sense, they could face evidential challenge, for the epistemic status of a ‘basic’ belief depends, in part, on its probabilistic or explanatory relations to our other beliefs. It follows that Christian faith remains vulnerable to evidential arguments, such as Paul Draper's argument from evil.

I propose to begin with some fairly unexciting and uncontroversial remarks about possibility-statements, and then in their light to examine two problems philosophers have raised about certain statements of this kind which might be made in Christian theology where it touches on the doctrine of the Incarnation.

In an article in this issue, Kenneth Pearce suggests a novel solution to the ‘logical problem of evil’. That is, he defends the consistency of the obtaining of evil with the existence of an omnipotent and good creator. The basic idea of Pearce's solution to the logical problem of evil is that according to the teleological theory of intentionality, which is self-consistent and consistent with the claim that God exists, some evil is necessary for the existence of created minds, and this evil is outweighed by the good that is involved in the existence of created minds. The present article argues that this suggestion fails to solve the problem.

That natural evils are plentiful in our world is impossible (plausibly) to deny. Why would a benevolent and all-powerful God allow such an obviously imperfect world to be created? I argue that the problem of evil in this form only seems serious and intractable because our science and technology are currently at comparatively primitive levels. Civilizations whose technological capabilities are significantly more advanced than our own will be able to create artificial worlds of their own in a variety of different ways. Given the very real possibility of world-makers who are non-divine, the problem posed by natural evil is very much diminished.

In a recent issue of Religious Studies,1 Thomas Talbott argues against what he takes to be an Augustinian picture of God, pointing out what he believes to be its more important weaknesses and thereby trying to lend credibility to an alternative picture. Much of what he argues turns on questions of the nature and requirements of justice. I shall confine myself to his claims about the relation of justice and mercy, which are not only central to the essay but also probably the weakest and least well developed part of his larger project of defending a universalist view of salvation.2

Eleonore Stump develops and defends a theodicy of redemptive suffering. In particular, God's permission of suffering (at least some classes, if not instances, of serious undeserved, involuntary suffering due to natural or free causes) is justified just in case it benefits those who suffer, it is the best possible means in the circumstances for their benefit, and God knows this is the case. The main aim of this paper is to show that for Stump's theodicy to have a good chance of working, it is reasonable to think that it requires the Molinist claim that God has middle knowledge.

Why does the paradox (i.e. the incarnation) play such a crucial role in Kierkegaard's notion of truth as subjectivity? Richard Schacht explains it as follows:

Eternal happiness is possible for a man only if it is possible for him to relate himself to God. A man, however, is a being who exists in time; and it would not be possible for such a being to enter into a ‘God-relationship’ if God had not also at some point existed in time. Through the ‘leap of faith’ in which one affirms the proposition that God did exist in time, one is able to enter a ‘God-relationship’ and thereby attains ‘an eternal happiness’.

In a recent symposium on Descartes' ontological argument, Norman Malcolm has restated a rather ingenious version of St Anse1m's ontological argument.1 The purpose of the present paper is to assess the merits of this particular version of the ontological argument.

In contemporary theology the doctrine of divine impassibility is a hot issue. The doubts about this doctrine in the present century have their earliest roots in British theology, where we can trace the passibilist tendency back to the last ten years of the nineteenth century. It received a powerful impetus from the First World War, and by the time the Second World War broke out it was almost generally accepted in British theology that God suffered. Since then this tendency has spread to the rest of Europe, notably to France and Germany, to the United States and to Asia. Although it cannot be denied that most of the theologians who explicitly state their views on divine impassibility, hold that this doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree false, the debate over this issue is far from closed. Recently Richard Creel published a thorough study in defence of divine impassibility, which, I expect, will prove quite influential. Apart from him some other theologians defend the doctrine as well. Moreover, the fact that many authors consider it necessary at present to write books and articles in defence of divine passibility also indicates that the truth of the passibilist position is not yet taken for granted by everyone.

This article looks at the question of whether and how there can be a theistic expansive naturalism. In light of Fiona Ellis's work, I will identify a crucial issue for this research programme moving forward, namely, the question of ‘which God?’. Ellis seeks to develop a metaphysical framework that offers a rationale for incorporating theism into naturalism, and the acceptance of God comes through a reflection on our relation to value. Offering a sympathetic interpretation of her position, the article will suggest that Ellis's conception of God has been significantly modified in her more recent writings, moving from a rather ‘thick’ conception of God to more a modest account. I will suggest a move toward a ‘less thick’ position is preferable.

The ‘death of self’ appears to be an essential feature of the redemptive goal on which several religious quests converge. It would seem, therefore, that here lies a convenient pragmatic criterion to determine the efficacy of the various religions in achieving their desired ends, and one which would be valid in several religious traditions, thereby overcoming the impasse of particularity in inter-faith discussion.

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.