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Title: Skeptical Theism and Good Reasons to Believe
Name: Aaron Cobb
Position: graduate student
Institution: Saint Louis University
Abstract:
Proponents of evidential arguments from evil argue that it is more reasonable to
believe that God does not exist given the existence of particularly atrocious
kinds of evil. The skeptical theist’s response to this argument is to deny the
epistemic grounds for the claim that the existence of atrocious evil is
surprising given the existence of God. To assume that the existence of atrocious
evil is surprising given that God exists is to assume that one can know all of
the available and morally sufficient reasons for God to allow such evil. But
since one cannot possibly know all the reasons available to God, one cannot
assume that the existence of atrocious evil is surprising given that God exists.
Hence, one must remain skeptical about whether atrocious evil makes it more
likely that God does not exist. Thus, the existence of atrocious evils does not
make it more reasonable to believe that God does not exist. In this paper, I
draw a structural parallel between this skeptical response and externalist
theories of epistemic justification. I argue that skeptical theism is a response
available only to those who adopt a contentious theory of epistemic
justification. Furthermore, I contend that in order to claim that atrocious evil
does not constitute evidence against God’s existence, one must have good reasons
to think that there are morally sufficient reasons for allowing such atrocious
evil.
Title: Love as the Motive of Virtue: Augustine’s Use of Love in the Virtue of
Prudence
Name: Ed Matusek
Position: Teaching Associate
Institution: University of South Florida
Abstract:
The fifth-century thinker Augustine famously elevated the term “love” beyond
classical usage by describing all virtues as ultimately manifestations of love
for God. In particular, the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, temperance, courage,
and justice) are tightly defined in connection with love for God in specific
works of his. The starting point for all loving action is arguably the first
cardinal virtue, wisdom (prudence), which Augustine defines as “love [for God]
discerning correctly between those things which will aid it in reaching God and
those things which might hinder it.” I intend to expound more specifically on
how love for God is made manifest through prudence in Augustine’s writings by
exploring two specific ideas from his ethics that have bearing on this virtue.
The first element, the frui/uti distinction, involves Augustine’s insistence
that one must rightly enjoy God and use things--not vice versa. Augustine’s
emphasis that unduly loving temporal things and simply using God to gain them
indicates a skewed love, one based on a gross misunderstanding of the proper
ontological hierarchy (with God at the top). The second element that I explore
is Augustine’s unusual maxim “Love and do what you will.” Augustine tied the
correctness of all moral actions to the motive in the human will (i.e. a desire
to please God) instead of to the action itself. This disposition should underlie
all of one’s prudent decisions and subsequent service to God.
Title: Three Contemporary Positions within the Philosophy of Love: Catholic,
Lutheran, and Methodist
Name: Dr.Alan Vincelette
Position: Assistant Professor
Institution: St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, California
Abstract:
My presentation will discuss three contemporary positions within the philosophy
of love. First I will present the view of love found in the Lutheran and
Calvanist tradition as represented by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Samuel
Hopkins (1721-1803), and Anders Nygren (1890-1978). According to Edwards,
Hopkins, and Nygren love of God and neighbor must be extremely disinterested; it
has no element of self-interest in it. As such it is self-sacrificial and the
lover has no thought of gaining heaven, and prefers suffering to joy. Second, I
will discuss the view of love found in the Anglican and Catholic traditions as
exemplified in C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Martin D’Arcy (1888-1976), and Pierre
Rousselot (1878-1915). According to their view of love the love of God and
others involves both self-interest and love of others for themselves. One loves
God and other humans for their own sakes but yet one also finds one’s own good
in doing so.
Finally, I will examine the view of love of John Wesley (1703-1791) for whom
love is self-forgetful and yet fulfilling all the same and see to which of the
above traditions his views comes closest. We will also explore the roots of the
above theories in the views of love of the Church Fathers.
Title: Habermas, Kierkegaard, and the Political Duty to Love
Name: Rev. Mark Thames, Ph.D.
Position: Adjunct Professor
Institution: El Centro College , Dallas, Texas
Abstract:
Deontological political ethics in the Kantian tradition, such as those of Rawls
and Habermas, are “realistically utopian” by comparison with more “strategic,”
“utilitarian,” or “realist” political philosophies in the vein of Hobbes. Yet
feminist theorists such as Annette Baier and social philosophers have noted that
even the most optimistic of these theories are based on fairness and
reciprocity—that is, on maintaining appropriate distance between peer (male)
adults whose equality is construed as potential rivalry. These theories usually
say nothing about community-building, care of dependents, or trust, unless to
say that these are unproblematic and so uninteresting to theory, or are
“supererogatory” acts and attitudes which are laudable, but not mandatory for
participants in a pluralistic society who are strangers to one another and may
wish to remain so. I find that Kierkegaard, in Works of Love, defends a
conception of love as a duty. I wish to employ the Kierkegaardian duty to love
sociopolitically, considering for now love only as the welcome of strangers,
that is, ajgavph construed as gracious hospitality to aliens and enemies. I want
to use this concept of love as hospitality to critique Habermas’s grounding of
moral society in Between Facts and Norms. I argue that universal obligations to
extend welcome and trust, at least at the rudimentary level of extending
hospitality even to strangers, logically precede obligations to reciprocity and
fairness in establishing the initial conditions for social life of any sort, and
consequently for any moral, and perhaps any successful, political philosophy.
Title: Is Love an Affection or an Emotion?
Name: Greory S. Clapper
Position: Professor of Religion and Philosophy
Institution: The University of Indianapolis
Abstract:
The focus of this paper will be on the changing understanding of affectivity
that has taken place between Wesley's time and ours. While one part of my paper
will be a summary of Thomas Dixon's Cambridge University Press book <From
Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Category>, I will also compare
the philosophical analyses of
emotion offered by two recent philosophers--Martha Nussbaum of the University of
Chicago and Robert C. Roberts of Baylor University. In doing this, I will also
make reference to the work of theologian Paul Lauritzen to show how Wesley's
vision of Christianity (as being about the renewal of the heart) can stand up to
contemporary critical analysis. To conclude, I will briefly sketch Wesley's
understanding of the affections and show how the sophisticated views of
affectivity shown by Nussbaum and Roberts give a better understanding of what
Wesley meant by his "heart religion" than many contemporary physiological-based
views of "emotion." As a part of this final
section, I will look at the assertions made by Ken Collins and Randy Maddox that
the terms "tempers" and "affections" are used in importantly different ways by
Wesley.
Title: Process, Parturition and Perfect Love: Diotima’s Rather Non-Platonic
Metaphysic of Eros
Name: Donald Wayne Viney
Position: Professor of Philosophy
Institution: Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas
Abstract:
Charles Hartshorne was fond of indicating the themes in Plato’s later works that
anticipate dipolar theism. (A recent book by Daniel Dombrowski forcefully argues
for Hartshorne’s view.) Neither author notes the affinities between process
thought and the metaphysics of eros as expressed in the penultimate speech in
Plato’s Symposium. Plato has the figure of Socrates relate ideas on the nature
of love which he attributes to Diotima of Mantinea, a woman (whether fictional
or historical) who he calls his teacher. Not only are Diotima’s views
uncharacteristic of “Platonism,” they can be construed as a version of process
philosophy. It is true that she uses the language of the theory of Forms,
recollection, and divine immutability. On the other hand, she denies the
immortality of the soul and the strict identity of a person over time. The
elenchus implicit in Diotima’s theory is that a merely self-interest theory of
motivation is self-defeating. The mortal creature longs to possess the beautiful
forever; but its very mortality makes this impossible. The desire for
immortality is satisfied by giving “birth in beauty, whether of body or of soul”
for those who may remember us and enjoy it after we are gone. Diotima stops
short of the Hartshornean view that the creatures contribute to an all-inclusive
divine being-in-becoming. Nevertheless, the trajectory of her thinking brings
her to the threshold of the ideas that perfect love involves not only ideal
forms of loving activity, but also ideal forms of loving passivity.
Title: Whitehead and Jung on Love
Name: Young Woon Ko, Ph.D.
Position: Adjunct Professor of Theology
Institution: Southwestern Christian University
Abstract:
This presentation examines the aspect of love developed by A. N. Whitehead
(1861-1947) and C. G. Jung (1875-1961). I discuss the problem of love through
Whitehead’s notion of feeling or prehension1; I present how Whitehead’s notion
of prehension for the reconciliatory way of the opposite elements (e.g., the
subject and object, good and evil) can drive the theme of love. For Whitehead,
God and the world prehend each other by being affected by and affecting each
other. In this regard, I argue that this process of God and the world are
considered as creative on-going-ness based on love. According to Jung, the
balance between adversary factors is achieved in the attunement of
ego-consciousness with the depth of unconsciousness, where we can find the
meaning of love. From Jung’s perspective, I show how the divine love instigates
the comprehensive whole of the opposites between the conscious and the
unconscious. While Whitehead focuses on conceptual analyses, Jung concentrates
on various images given to human mind. Although different, their approaches are
complementary. From both visions I present the concept of love connecting the
subject with the object; the subject is constituted not only by the personal
experience but by the objective experience. Both perspectives of feeling and
mind are not limited to our sensory perception. Both emphasize the non-sensory
image, such as causal efficacy (Whitehead) and collective unconscious (Jung)2
behind the subjective sense-perception. From these perspectives, I insist that
love is based on the feeling rooted in the depth of mind, where you (other
beings) and I are united. In this view I argue that divine love comes from the
non-separable relation between God and the world in which all kinds of joys and
sufferings are immanent in divine reality.
Title: Love and Ethics in a Postmodern World
Name: Nancy Mardas, Ph.D.
Position: Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Institution: Saint Joseph College
Abstract:
The postmodern understanding of a fragmented self presents a new challenge for
ethical theory, but may also imply a solution. In a postmodern understanding, no
one rational self or meaning determines events; rather, events occur, in the
chiasm between us, the ‘between’ which happens, as the condition of our
existence. Thus, ethics is framed by the ineluctable context of our common
existence. In this context, I propose a redefinition of the starting point of
ethics. In the schema I propose, the origin of ethics lies neither in the other
nor in the subject, neither in desire nor in obligation, but rather in the
ethical event itself. Suppose we measure the ethical quality of an interaction
in terms of its intensity. Only one course of action, after all, will yield the
greatest amount of intensity that the moment contains, the greatest potential
for mutually interactive unfolding and fulfillment for the colliding fragments
of ‘self’ and ‘other’. From this perspective, the ethical significance of each
(self/other/event) could be understood as an act which establishes, enhances, or
fulfills itself in time (independent of any metanarrative), and then enhances or
facilitates fulfillment of some other. Determination (of self/event/other) would
then occur through the interpenetration of each with the other. Perhaps this is
one helpful way to understand that most difficult commandment, to love others as
we love ourselves. The paper I propose will lay out this revolutionary idea in
greater detail: bringing love and postmodernism into conversation.
Title: ‘Second Selves And Genuine Others: Kierkegaard And Aristotle On
Friendship And Self-Love’
Name: Dr. John Lippitt
Position: Reader in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy Group, School
of Humanities
Institution: University of Hertfordshire
Abstract:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31). Yet
inside and outside the Christian tradition, philosophers have worried about
self-love. Kierkegaard, for instance, is often presented as arguing that
friendship and erotic love, because ‘preferential’, are really selfishness in
disguise. In her recent interpretation of Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, Jamie
Ferreira has argued that Kierkegaard’s cautions about self-love do not rule out
erotic love, friendship or a healthy ‘care of the self’, but are rather intended
to warn against the ways in which we often turn the other into ‘another me’. It
is crucial, Ferreira argues, to understand Kierkegaard’s concerns in terms of a
distinction between legitimate and selfish forms of self-love. But what form
could such a distinction take? In particular, what form should it take in the
context of friendship? Several philosophers - most famously Aristotle, but also
Cicero, Aquinas and Montaigne - describe the friend as a second or other self.
Prima facie, this might sound as if it falls foul of the ‘reduction to me’
objection. In this context, I shall consider the charge (made recently by Sandra
Lynch, for example) that Aristotle’s account of friendship (amongst others)
places an excessive focus on similarities rather than differences between
friends. Not enough has been said about what this focus on differences would
bring to the table. I begin to fill this lacuna by arguing for the importance of
supplementing the so-called ‘mirror’ view of friendship derived from Aristotle
with a ‘drawing’ view. Placing such a dimension of friendship centre stage, I
argue, goes a long way towards addressing Kierkegaard’s worry that friendship
might ultimately be a form of illegitimate self-love.
Title: Love, Pattern Experience, and the Problem of Evil
Name: Adam Green
Position: graduate student
Institution: Saint Louis University
Abstract:
Though often a balm to those actually experiencing suffering, the experience of
God as loving is usually seen as that which is at stake in the philosophical
problem of evil and not as a significant contributor toward that debate’s
resolution. In “Love, Pattern Experience, and the Problem of Evil,” it is argued
that the experience of God as loving, as good, is actually that which turns the
tide in the debate over evil. Richard Swinburne’s account of the nature of the
challenge from evil is examined, and the centrality of the concept of “seeming”
to the problem is isolated. Swinburne contends that the only point at which
arguments from evil can be challenged is the claim that there exists some bad
state such that it is inconsistent with theism. This is difficult to challenge
for Swinburne because he thinks that any rational person will admit that certain
cases of evil are such that they seem to indicate that God does not exist. It is
in response to this seeming that Swinburne claims that the theist must construct
an adequate total theodicy or else fail to be subjectively justified in her
belief in God’s existence. In contrast, this paper argues that iterated
religious experiences that are taken to be unintelligible on any but a theistic
framework (pattern experiences), particularly experiences of God as loving,
dramatically lower the scope of the needed account of evils such that theistic
rationality given evil lies within the grasp of the average theist.
Title: Naturalism - A Crude Instrument in the Search for a Beloved?
Name: Teri Merrick
Position: Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Institution: Department of Theology and Philosophy, Azusa Pacific University
Abstract:
Christian philosophers are currently embroiled in a debate on the legitimacy of
methodological naturalism. Although deciding how best to characterize naturalism
is itself part of the controversy, it is sufficient for introducing the topic of
this paper to define methodological naturalism as the view that whatever can be
known about natural entities, including human beings, can be known by focusing
exclusively on objects and processes discovered using the methods of the
empirical sciences. Nowhere does this debate rage hotter than over attempts to
articulate a theory of human consciousness. For instance, critics of
methodological naturalism are quick to point out that the empirical sciences
have yet to account for the intentionality of mental states. And some have
argued that the very nature of the phenomena to be explained, e.g. the noetic
unity characteristic of human knowledge, can’t be captured within the parameters
of the naturalist’s ontology. An advocate of naturalism might easily perceive
these objections as nothing more than nay-saying concerning a project still in
its initial stages and a question-begging description of the phenomena. With
this paper, I intend to critique methodological naturalism from a slightly
different angle. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes of “appreciative pleasure”
as a kind of love towards the human and the sub-human: “We do not merely like
the things; we pronounce them, in a momentarily God-like sense, ‘very good.’”
The question addressed in this paper is whether the methods and explanations
prized in the empirical sciences are particularly well-suited to provide an
account of natural entities likely to induce appreciative pleasure. To begin
answering this question, I examine the shift in methodology of natural
philosophy that occurred in the early 1600’s.
Title: Metaphysics of the Person: Love as Foundation and Fulfillment
Name: Maria Fedoryka, PhD
Position: Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Institution: Ave Maria University
Abstract:
Contrary to the conviction of thinkers such as Nietzsche and Sartre, the early
Father of the church Iranaeus of Lyon interprets contingency not as the human
person’s lack of independence and self-sufficiency, but as the privilege of the
creature to exist in a loving embrace with God. In agreement with
philosopher-theologians such as Bonaventure, I would claim that through a
philosophical analysis of contingent being it is possible to conclude to the
metaphysical centrality of love in the being of the human person. In my talk, I
would like to explore the significance of the unique place which love occupies
in personal existence. In particular, I propose to examine the foundational
place of love in the metaphysical structure of the person, and then to draw out
the implications of this in reflecting on the relationship between love and
genuine human fulfillment. In the first place, the person does not come alive as
person without love – without both being loved and loving. Secondly, despite
their centrality, the fulfillment of the human person qua person consists at its
heart not in the realization of talents of intellect, of will, of artistic
capacities, and so on, but rather, in the development of the faculty of love,
classically referred to as the heart. Because of the person’s love-origin, it is
a “law” proper to personal existence that for the person to become fully person,
he must realize the essentially outward-directed and receptive movements of love
in relation to the world and especially to other persons.
Title: A Prolegomena to Love: Demotivating the Problem of Other Minds
Name: Brint Montgomery, PhD
Position: Associate Professor of Philosophy
Institution: Southern Nazarene University
Abstract:
On my view there is a powerful argument that can be brought against the ability
to love, which can be formulated as follows: (1) To love one another is, among
other things, to understand and empathize with some other person’s feelings. (2)
But the Problem of Other Minds states that we do not have access to another’s
mental states. (3) Hence, we are unable to understand and empathize with another
person’s feelings. (4) Thus, we are unable to love one another. In my paper, I
will argue against the position recounted in (2). Although I do not presume to
solve the problem of other minds, I think I can demotivate the problem, and thus
lay out a prolegomena for our ability to love others. Essentially, I will argue
that we do, in fact, have some pertinent access to another’s mental states (and
by this I mean not merely their brain states.) First, I will lay out the
traditional issues within the problem of other minds. Next, I survey cognitive
psychology studies both in visuo-mental rotation and in aural-mental processing,
and show how such studies give us at least limited access to the states of minds
of others. Finally, upon establishing that there is said access, I argue that
this demotivates many of the skeptical difficulties entailed by the problem of
other minds, and thus allows for our ability to love one another after all.
Title: Divine Love and Impassibility
Name: Kent Dunnington
Position: graduate student
Institution: Duke University
Abstract:
Contemporary theology has taken great interest in the traditional claim of God’s
impassibility. Led by diverse thinkers (Jurgen Moltmann has been influential
among Wesleyans) many have argued that only a God who is passible can be worthy
of Christian faith in this time after Aushwitz. Central to many of the arguments
against divine impassibility is the view that the perfect love of God requires
that God suffer with and alongside the suffering creation. A God who did not so
suffer would be “distant” and “cold,” to use metaphors frequently invoked in
arguments against impassibility. Even those who wish to defend the doctrine of
divine impassibility frequently shy away from giving any substantive account of
God’s love, apparently fearing this to be a weak point of the doctrine. In this
paper, I argue that precisely the opposite is the case. I argue that the
doctrine of divine impassibility is integral to any adequate account of the
triune Love that creates the world, moves the stars, and redeems humanity from
suffering. I argue that a passible God would be unable to do any of these
things, and therefore could not be a God of love. To set the stage for this
argument, I argue that the doctrine of impassibility is integral to any
compelling account of creation and also to any coherent account of the
incarnation. By locating the difference between creator and creation, and
between God and man, I show why God must be impassible if God is love.
Title: Relational Categories for Unlimited Love
Name: Thomas Jay Oord, PhD
Position: Professor
Institution: Northwest Nazarene University
Abstract:
Scientists and religious teachers have suggested that love for those near and
dear is often advantageous. In the scientific domain, kin selection theory,
reciprocal altruism theory, and group selection theory suggest that it may be to
an organism’s reproductive advantage to act self-sacrificially for those near
and dear. In the religious domain, believers are instructed to love brothers and
sisters in the faith. Christians are taught, however, that righteous individuals
must also love their enemies and outsiders. All persons – even all creation –
might be the proper recipients of the Christian’s love. I suggest that we best
understand expressions of love as intentional responses to promote overall
well-being, what some have called “unlimited love.” While it is sometimes proper
to act primarily for the well-being of the near and dear and even for oneself,
love sometimes demands acting primarily for the well-being of strangers and
adversaries.
Relational philosophy and theology’s convictions about the nature of God and of
existence provide a way to conceptualize how limited creatures might express
unlimited love. The relational categories that I offer suggest that God is
omnipresent, omni-relational, and desires increases in overall well-being. Deity
can assess what is best for any given creature in any given situation, while
also considering what is needed to promote overall well-being. Creatures who
respond appropriately to the specific calls of this omnipresent, omniscient God
will act in ways that promote the common good. Of course, creaturely limitations
remain. For instance, creatures are unable to be absolute certain what God calls
them to in any particular moment. But religious people can improve their
assessments of how God wants overall well-being promoted when they engage in
such activities as contemplation, living in loving communities, confession,
worship practices, education, etc. In sum, relational categories provide a
conceptual basis for affirming that limited creatures can express unlimited
love. They can do so because they relate with a loving, omnipresent, and
omni-relational God.
Title: The Light That Charity Knows: Tsong-ka-pa and Maximus the Confessor on
Love
Name: Horace Shelton Horton-Parker
Position: Instructor
Institution: Regent University School of Divinity
Abstract:
In the wake of growing expectation regarding pneumatology as in integrative
paradigm, many are engaged in envisioning the possibility of a pneumatologically
based theologia religionum. Following this rationale, my paper compares and
analyses tripartite models of spiritual transformation found in two root
meditation texts: St. Maximus the Confessor’s Four Centuries on Love (Eastern
Orthodoxy) and Tsong-ka-pa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path to
Enlightenment (Tibetan Buddhist). The central focus of the paper is to
demonstrate how “love” (maitri-karuna within Buddhism and eros-agape within
Christianity) is phenomenologically parallel in each tradition in that it serves
as the functional bridge between renunciation and realization; it is the natural
outflow of the former and the essential “trigger mechanism” or catalyst of the
latter. For Maximus, renunciation yields apatheia, the “flower of praktike,”
which then gives birth to love, love is the door of knowledge, which leads to
theologia and final bliss. For Tsong-ka-pa, the preparatory practices of
renunciation and equanimity allow the development of bodhicitta, the altruistic
aspiration for enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Only a mental
continuum “moistened” by a compassion that cherishes other sentient beings above
oneself can serve as the basis for the liberating wisdom consciousness cognizing
emptiness. In order to give the reader an existential feel for what bodhicitta
means, the extraordinary practices used to develop bodhicitta are presented.
Theologically, I suggest that love and compassion in both traditions may be
envisioned as a “recapitulation in the graced human spirit of the ecstatic
character of the Trinity.” I will also link my analysis with Wesley’s idea of
the spiritual senses, and contemporary orthopathic theology.
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