Analytic Theology and Analytic Philosophy of Religion: What’s the difference?

Analytic theology is often seen as an outgrowth of analytic philosophy of religion. It isn’t fully clear, however, whether it differs from analytic philosophy of religion in some important way. Is analytic theology really just a sub-field of analytic philosophy of religion, or can it be distinguished from the latter in virtue of fundamental differences at the level of subject matter or metholodology? These are pressing questions for the burgeoning field of analytic theology. The aim of this article, then, will be to map out several forms that analytic theology might (and in some cases actually does) take before examining the extent to which each can be thought to be distinct from analytic philosophy of religion

Meeting the evil god challenge

The evil god challenge is an argumentative strategy that has been pursued by a number of philosophers in recent years. It is apt to be understood as a parody argument: a wholly evil, omnipotent, and omniscient God is absurd, as both theists and atheists will agree. But according to the challenge, belief in evil God is about as reasonable as belief in a wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient God; the two hypotheses are roughly epistemically symmetrical. Given this symmetry thesis belief in an evil god and belief in a good god are taken to be similarly preposterous. In this paper we argue that the challenge can be met, suggesting why the three symmetries that need to hold between evil God and good God – intrinsic, natural theology and theodicy symmetries – can all be broken. As such, we take it that the evil God challenge can be met

Defeatism Defeated

Many epistemologists are enamored with a defeat condition on knowledge. In this paper we present some implementation problems for defeatism, understood along either internalist or externalist lines. We then propose that one who accepts a knowledge norm of belief, according to which one ought to believe only what one knows, can explain away much of the motivation for defeatism. This is an important result, because on the one hand it respects the plausibility of the intuitions about defeat shared by many in epistemology; but on the other hand, it obviates the need to provide a unified account of defeat which plays well with the most plausible views of how knowledge fits with evidential probability

Testimony Amidst Diversity

This chapter takes up the question of what (if anything) might be wrong with religious beliefs that are held primarily on the basis of testimony, in light of the facts of religious diversity. The chapter first considers whether religious diversity entails that a religious believer’s testimony-based beliefs are not formed in a suitably epistemically reliable manner even conditional upon the truth of her religion. After casting doubt on this thought the chapter turns to look at the idea that testimony-based beliefs are subject to defeaters in light of awareness of religious diversity, and suggests that many such beliefs are not obviously so. According to the author’s diagnosis the problem, rather, is that believers who base their religious beliefs just on testimony will be very unlikely to have reflective (that is, second-order) knowledge even if they possess first-order knowledge, and the author explains why this is a notable shortcoming

A combined FEG-SEM and TEM study of silicon nanodot assembly

Nanodots forming dense assembly on a substrate are difficult to characterize in terms of size, density, morphology and cristallinity. The present study shows how valuable information can be obtained by a combination of electron microscopy techniques. A silicon nanodots deposit has been studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to estimate essentially the dot size and density, quantities emphasized because of their high interest for application. High resolution SEM indicates a density of 1.6 × 1012 dots/cm2 for a 5 nm to 10 nm dot size. TEM imaging using a phase retrieval treatment of a focus series gives a higher dot density (2 × 1012 dots/cm2) for a 5 nm dot size. High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) indicates that the dots are crystalline which is confirmed by electron diffraction. According to HRTEM and electron diffraction, the dot size is about 3 nm which is significantly smaller than the SEM and TEM results. These differences are not contradictory but attributed to the fact that each technique is probing a different phenomenon. A core-shell structure for the dot is proposed which reconcile all the results. All along the study, Fourier transforms have been widely used under many aspects

Mutual epistemic dependence and the demographic divine hiddenness problem

In his article ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’ (Religious Studies, 42 (2006), 177–191) Stephen Maitzen develops a novel version of the atheistic argument from divine hiddenness according to which the lopsided distribution of theistic belief throughout the world's populations is much more to be expected given naturalism than given theism. I try to meet Maitzen's challenge by developing a theistic explanation for this lopsidedness. The explanation I offer appeals to various goods that are intimately connected with the human cognitive constitution, and in particular, with the way in which we depend upon social belief-forming practices for our acquisition of much of our knowledge about the world – features about us that God would value but that also make probable a lopsided distribution of theistic belief, or so I argue

Testimony amidst Diversity

That testimony is one of the principle bases on which many people hold their religious beliefs is hard to dispute. Equally hard to dispute is that our world contains an array of mutually incompatible religious traditions each of which has been transmitted down the centuries chiefly by way of testimony. In light of this latter it is quite natural to think that there is something defective about holding religious beliefs primarily or solely on the basis of testimony from a particular tradition. The present chapter takes up the question of what that defect consists in. I first consider whether religious diversity entails that a religious believer’s testimony-based beliefs are not formed in a suitably epistemically reliable manner even conditional upon the truth of her religion. After casting doubt on this thought I turn to look at the idea that testimony-based beliefs are subject to defeaters in light of awareness of religious diversity, and I suggest that many such beliefs are not obviously so. According to my diagnosis the problem, rather, is that believers who base their religious beliefs just on testimony will be very unlikely to have reflective (that is, second-order) knowledge even if they possess first-order knowledge, and I explain why this is a notable shortcoming

Debunking Arguments in Parallel: The Cases of Moral Belief and Theistic Belief

There is now a burgeoning literature on evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) against moral beliefs, but perhaps surprisingly, a relatively small literature on EDAs against religious beliefs. There is an even smaller literature comparing the two. This essay aims to further the investigation of how the two sorts of arguments compare with each other. To begin with, I shall offer some remarks on how to best formulate these arguments, focusing on four different formulations that one can discern in the literature and that can be applied to both sorts of beliefs. I shall then go on to make a series of comparisons regarding the relative vulnerabilities of moral beliefs and theistic religious beliefs to these four arguments, suggesting that there are a number of respects in which theistic religious beliefs are somewhat less liable than moral beliefs to be undercut by EDAs

Natural Theology and Religious Belief

It is no exaggeration to say that there has been an explosion of activity in the field of philosophical enquiry that is known as natural theology. Having been smothered in the early part of the twentieth century due to the dominance of the anti-metaphysical doctrine of logical positivism, natural theology began to make a comeback in the late 1950s as logical positivism collapsed and analytic philosophers took a newfound interest in metaphysical topics such as possibility and necessity, causation, time, the mind-body problem, and God. This chapter begins by considering how we might characterise natural theology as a field of enquiry. It then proceeds to survey the landscape of contemporary natural theology, which has spawned a large and at times highly technical body of literature. Finally, consideration is given to two epistemological issues confronting the theist who wishes to appeal to natural theology, which could be termed the problem of the gap(s) and the problem of accessibility