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Answer:
Josh,
Thanks for your question. Since I’m not a Calvinist my answer will probably be a little different from what you were anticipating. First, I’ll respond to you question from within the Calvinist system (as best as I can). Then I’ll give you my response and thoughts on the issue as a Molinist.
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Eleonore Stump recently delivered lectures for BLPR on pain and suffering.
Eleonore Stump is The Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. In 2012, Dr. Stump was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among other honors, she is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division. She delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in 2003, the Wilde Lectures at Oxford University in 2006, the Thomas Merton Lecture at Columbia University in 2008, and the Stewart Lectures at Princeton University in 2009. She is the author of numerous articles and books, includingWandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford 2010).
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The Sententias Journal is now making a call for paper submissions for the Vol. 1 No. 2 Spring issue. This issue is schedule to be released in April so please submit papers as soon as possible (preferably before March 31). There isn’t a particular theme for this issue. We are continuing to focus on the broad intersection of philosophy, theology, and science.
All article submissions must be submitted to journal@sententias.org. Future editions will have a moderation board and referees. It is preferred for authors to have a minimum of an undergraduate degree in philosophy, theology/religion, or any of the sciences. It is also preferable for the author to be in a graduate or postgraduate program in the aforementioned fields. Papers should be in LaTeX or Word document, Turabian format, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 3,000-16,000 words, and ready for blind review (no name[s] or affiliations). Philosophical Notes may be submitted but will not be subject to blind review. Notes should not exceed 8,000 words. Book reviews and review essays are welcome but should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words respectively and do not need to be formatted for blind review.
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The premier issue of the Sententias Journal has been released and is now available.
The Sententias Journal, Sententias: Dialogues Concerning Philosophy, Theology, and Science, is a graduate/postgraduate peer-reviewed journal. The purpose of this journal is to invite dialogue concerning philosophy, theology, and science. The authors are not restricted to a religious affiliation; hence, Christians, theists, agnostics, and atheists are welcome to publish with Sententias.
It is currently scheduled for quarterly online release. An anonymous moderation board has been assembled, which is composed of graduate and postgraduate referees from universities in the United States and Europe. The referees come from various philosophical, theological, and scientific backgrounds and different areas of research/expertise.
The premier issue for the Sententias Journal will be released within the next week or two. All the preliminary information for the journal and its archive are located in the ‘Sententias Journal’ tab at the top of the screen. It is currently scheduled for quarterly online release. An anonymous moderation board has been assembled, which is composed of graduate and postgraduate referees from universities in the United States and Europe. The referees come from various philosophical, theological, and scientific backgrounds and different areas of research/expertise. I wanted to give a preview for this current issue so below you can find a list of the articles and their abstracts.
Cognitive Science of Religion & Theism
Paul Rezkalla
University of Birmingham, England
Abstract: In this paper I discuss what Cognitive Science of Religion is, as it is a relatively new field, and what its implications are for theism. Findings in the Cognitive Science of Religion seek to explain the origin of religious beliefs. Some critics of theistic belief have tried using the findings of CSR, specifically the ability of the hyperactive agency detection device (HADD) to explain why humans over-detect and over-attribute agency, to undermine theism. I am arguing that any attempt at using findings from CSR to debunk the veracity of theistic belief fails on account of committing the genetic fallacy.
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I understand very few, if anyone, would consider Dostoevsky to be a theologian; however, his philosophy has a tremendous impact on existential theology.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a story of four brothers in Russia is a grim description of the reality of what the world would look like if God were not to exist. One brother, Ivan, an atheist, tells another brother that there are no objective truths, specifically that there are no moral absolutes. Ivan’s brother then kills his father, an act that obtains no condemnation if God does not exist.
This can be understood as ☐(~Eg ⊃ ∀ϕ~Wϕ),[1] also known as Karamazov’s Theorem. It is necessarily true that if God does not exist then any action cannot be wrong. It may also be true if a conjunct of rightness is inserted into the theorem. This ultimately leads to moral nihilism—a nonexistence of value. Without God, everything is permitted. Nothing can be praised and nothing can be condemned. This world, as Dostoevsky understands it, is a world of nothingness.
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A friend of mine recently shared an old out-of-print book, Toward a Theology of [sic] Pipesmoking, by a seminarian from the 1970′s by the name of Arthur Yunker. The subtitle is:
In which it is argued that worthy pipesmoking is one of the ultimate gifts of the Holy Ghost and brings its practitioners very close to the nature of the Kingdom of God, which arguments are diligently supported by unassailable proof texts and incontestable logic.
This is obviously a humorous take on pipe smoking. The content is not just hilarious, but it is certainly educational for the avid pipe smoker, connoisseur, and lover of all things good and righteous. I’ve taken the time to type up the table of contents to give you a quick perspective for what awaits you.
Chapter One: Dogmatics
Heresies Refuted:
That smoking involves risk and should simply be avoided
That the pipe is merely a high-church way of doing to the body what cigarettes accomplish more efficiently
That pipesmoking is bourgeois and has no place in relevant theology
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Pantheism is the idea that God is immanent in all things. Modern pantheism rose from the transcendence vs. immanence debate in the 19th century. The closing of the age of Reason appeared to leave religion in a predicament. It seemed that the choices were to opt for the traditional Christian emphasis on human sin and divine salvation, maintained by appeal to the Bible and the church. Or one was forced to follow the modern skeptical rationalism that arose as the final product of the enlightened individual mind. Theologians of the pre-Enlightenment era agreed that one could not just return to pre-Enlightenment dogmatic orthodoxy, they refused to accept post-Enlightenment skeptical rationalism as the only alternative. Thus, they began to search for new ways to understand the Christian faith. Thus they sought to move beyond the Enlightenment while incorporating the advances it had made, which could definitely have been to the detriment of the Christian Faith. More specifically, they attempted to establish a new relationship between transcendence and immanence in the wake of shattering the medieval balance.
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