Philosophy of Religion

This study investigates whether female Audit Committee Financial Experts (ACFEs) at Chinese listed companies reduce earnings management by examining their influence under different ownership structures and cross-listing scenarios. Our findings reveal that female ACFEs negatively affect earnings management, with their impact varying by ownership type. Specifically, female ACFEs in privately owned enterprises (non-SOEs) are more effective at reducing earnings management than those in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Furthermore, our analysis indicates that female ACFEs in cross-listed firms are better at mitigating earnings (...) management compared with their counterparts in domestically listed firms. These results have significant implications for regulators, market authorities, investors, and corporate managers, highlighting the crucial role of female ACFEs in improving corporate transparency across diverse ownership frameworks and cross-listing conditions. (shrink)

Avicenna holds that since God has existed from all eternity and is immutable and impassible, he cannot come to have an attribute or feature that he has not had from all eternity. He also claims for the simultaneous causation. A puzzle arises when we consider God’s creating this world. If God is immutable and impassible, then his attributes associated with his creating this world are unchanging. So, God must have been creating the world from all eternity. But then God’s creative (...) act, one might object, seems to be no different from a matter of natural necessity. This is a threat to divine freedom, for God would then have no choice concerning his creative action. Anthony Ruffus and Jon McGinnis argue that this puzzle can be solved in such a way that Avicenna can consistently affirm divine freedom along with divine simplicity. They suggest that Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s interpretation might help to show that it is false that Avicenna’s God cannot choose absolutely. For it is still open to him to choose either to create eternally or to refrain from creating anything at all. Ruffus and McGinnis argue that since creating or not creating anything at all do not correspond to two distinct concepts, Avicenna’s account of divine simplicity, which denies any multiplicity in divine mind, is safeguarded along with divine freedom. I claim that God’s omnirationality requiring that he always acts for reasons is a serious threat to such an interpretation. (shrink)

The Dominican theologian Durand of Saint-Pourçain (ca. 1275–1334), breaking from the wide consensus, made a two-pronged attack on concurrentism (i.e., the theory according to which God does more than conserving creatures in existence and co-causes all their actions). On the one hand, he shows that the concurrentist position leads to the unacceptable consequence that God is the direct cause of man’s evil actions. On the other hand, he attacks the metaphysical foundations of concurrentism, first in the version offered by Thomas (...) Aquinas and Giles of Rome, and then in a more general way. Against Thomas and Giles, he challenges Neoplatonic assumptions about causality and being. More generally, he establishes that God’s action and a creature’s action can be neither identical nor different, and thus cannot both be direct causes of the same effect. Without claiming that Durand’s series of objections are definitely unanswerable, we may at least observe that they have generally been underestimated (which earned him the lowly role of the mere foil of the concurrentist view in the history of philosophy) and are able to do considerable damage to concurrentism. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Wissenschaft ist geprägt durch Ausdifferenzierungs- und Pluralisierungsprozesse, wodurch konkrete Forschung in Ansatz und Reichweite immer fokussierter und partikularer wird. Eine solche Spezialisierung ist einerseits sehr wünschenswert, birgt aber gerade für den in Disziplinen agierenden Diskurs bzw. das System Wissenschaft gewisse Schwierigkeiten in sich. Mit dem Ruf nach mehr Interdisziplinarität versucht Wissenschaft und die auf sie angewiesene Gesellschaft zu reagieren. Interdisziplinarität braucht aber klare Disziplinarität. Vor diesem Hintergrund will dieser Beitrag ein Angebot machen, Disziplinen nicht über bestimmte Gegenstände, Methoden oder (...) Perspektiven zu definieren, sondern diskursstrukturell zu denken – als über ihre Fragestellung auf der Meta-Ebene identifizierbare Diskurse. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In der gegenwärtigen Diskussion um Leiblichkeit wird der Glaubensbegriff nur selten thematisiert. Dieser Beitrag reflektiert ausgehend von der Neuen Phänomenologie die leibliche Bedingung des christlichen Glaubens als Selbstaffektion Gottes. Mit Rekurs auf Michel Henry und Meister Eckhart wird die Gottesgeburt in den Seelengrund als eine Bewegung des Lebens verstanden, die den menschlichen Leib als Fleisch lebendig und affektiv erfüllt. Im Anschluss daran wird der Glaubensbegriff als ein Vermögen entwickelt, worin Gott sich als Gabe in einem Sich des Menschen selbstaffiziert (...) und erkennt. Korrelativ dazu wird ein Verständnis der Sünde skizziert, das im Vergessen dieser Gottesgeburt als Sohn wurzelt. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Wie kann Gottes Gegenwart trotz ihrer Verborgenheit wahrgenommen werden? In dem folgenden Beitrag möchte ich zeigen, wie Simone Weil die Erfahrungen der Verborgenheit und der Abwesenheit Gottes als Signatur des Unglücks und der Entwurzelung der Menschen in der Moderne analysiert. Des Weiteren wird dargestellt, wie Simone Weil vor diesem Hintergrund mit einer kreuzestheologischen Denkfigur reflektiert, wie die Gottesliebe in besonderer Weise im Unglück verborgen anwesend sein kann, trotz Erfahrung der Abwesenheit Gottes. Hier schließt sich die erkenntnistheoretische Frage nach der (...) Wahrnehmbarkeit der verborgenen Gegenwart Gottes an. So soll ausgeführt werden, wie Simone Weil aufzeigt, wie durch ästhetische Formen der Schönheit und Ordnung der Welt, durch ethische Formen von Nächstenliebe und Freundschaft und durch die religiöse Formen in Liturgie und Gebet als höchster Form der Aufmerksamkeit die verborgen gegenwärtige Gottesliebe indirekt wahrgenommen werden kann. Dies spricht schließlich für eine andere Deutung der Verborgenheit Gottes als im sog. Verborgenheitsargument von J. L. Schellenberg, mit dem von der Verborgenheit auf die Nichtexistenz Gottes geschlossen wird. (shrink)

The dialogue Bruno of 1802 is arguably the natural starting point for any investigation on the concepts of finitude, evil and human freedom in Schelling’s middle metaphysics. In this dialogue the author elaborates for the first time in his system a concept of freedom and independence of the finite, which extends via his reformulation in Philosophy and Religion of 1804 to the Freedom Essay of 1809 and beyond to the works of 1810 and 1811 – Stuttgart Private Lectures and The (...) Ages of the World. The central ontological problem of the dialogue relates to the possibility of a separation between the absolute and the world as space of finite beings, which, according to the system of identity first presented in 1801, cannot exist as such. The question we will then address concerns the status of the finite as such and how would it be possible to admit both its existence for consciousness and the positing of an absolute and infinite principle of philosophy. We will show how Schelling’s interest shifts, almost unintentionally, from the infinite principle to the finite as such, as a principle of freedom and self-initiation independent of the real. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag widmet sich der Entstehung des Faches Religionsgeschichte in Frankreich. Die Vorgeschichte zu diesem Prozess beginnt mit Benjamin Constants Religionsphilosophie der 1810–1820er Jahre, in der die lokalen und diachronen Veränderungen des allgemein menschlichen religiösen Gefühls als ein Schlüssel zur Religionsgeschichte verstanden wurden. Nach einer langen Pause wird das Thema des religiösen Gefühls in Albert Révilles liberaltheologischem Projekt wieder aktuell. Ausgehend von Schleiermachers Voraussetzungen hoffte Réville dadurch die Apologetik zu modernisieren wie auch den Weg zum theologischen Inklusivismus zu bahnen. (...) Sein Sohn Jean, ebenfalls Theologe, neutestamentlicher Forscher und Sentimentalist, arbeitete mit dem Vater zusammen an der Institutionalisierung des Faches Religionsgeschichte in Frankreich. Albert Réville leitete von 1886 bis zu seinem Tod 1906 die fünfte (religionswissenschaftliche) Sektion der École Pratique des Hautes Études, gleichzeitig war Jean Réville seit 1884 Herausgeber der Fachzeitschrift Revue de l’histoire des religions. Révilles theoretischer Standpunkt wurde von É. Durkheim und seinen Gleichgesinnten H. Hubert und M. Mauss, die die weitere weltanschauliche Säkularisierung förderten, nach 1898 stark kritisiert. Diese Serie von Erwiderungen zeigt die Kluft zwischen der Methodologie der (dem Ursprung nach) evangelischen Religionsgeschichte und der durkheimischen Religionssoziologie. (shrink)

The theological problems of the ethics of love for one’s neighbour are considered: the impossibility of literal fulfilment of the commandments and doubtfulness of their applicability in public and state life. One of the approaches to solving these problems is based on the principle of reverence for life, proposed by Albert Schweitzer and expressing, in his opinion, the essence of love for one’s neighbour. Subsequently, this principle was borrowed by Karl Barth, who gave it a theological justification. Although Barth’s texts (...) on reverence for life are well known, some fundamental issues are still insufficiently investigated. Why did Barth claim that reverence for life does not fully express the essence of Christian ethics? What is the fundamental difference between the Barth’s and Schweitzer’s approaches to Christian ethics? How was this difference of approaches manifested in the practical recommendations? The article provides a comparative analysis of Barth’s and Schweitzer’s ethics and answers the above questions. (shrink)

This article analyses the parallels between the pre-Qin Daoist notion of heng 恒 as a constancy that is nevertheless ceaselessly in motion, and Karl Barth’s concept of Beständigkeit as God’s constancy throughout infinite transformation. Underlying both concepts is an understanding of the ultimate origin (whether dao 道 or the Christian God) as irreducibly temporal in nature. Stemming from this conviction, both systems of thought ultimately identify the continuous change of the ultimate origin with the flow of time in the universe. (...) The commonalities found between these two traditions provide fresh resources to advance the study of both. On the one hand, Barth’s deliberate juxtaposition of contrary statements to illustrate the union of permanence and transience in Beständigkeit challenges the frequent assumption that similar juxtapositions in the pre-Qin texts comprise careless inconsistency or outright incoherence. By extension, Barth’s metaphysical underpinning of this juxtaposition offers a compelling framework to explicate the Daoist notion of heng. On the other hand, the pre-Qin texts’ confluence of permanence and freedom in the principle of ziran 自然 offers a new lens through which to read and hence redeem Barth’s oft-critiqued attempt to combine the irrevocability and ongoing freedom of God’s decision of election. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy has been influenced by Michel Foucault’s thoughts in various aspects. This influence can be seen especially in methodology and political philosophy to a certain extent. Agamben’s political project, Homo Sacer, culminates in the publication of The Use of Bodies, where he proposes ‘form-of-life’ as a way to overcome the contemporary biopolitics. While the concept of form-of-life has often been considered in connection with the issue of sovereignty and law, this article argues that it (and Agamben’s coming politics) (...) can also be understood as a response to Foucault’s biopower. This is possible by considering several conceptual oppositions raised by Agamben against Foucault’s ideas, concepts such as “intimacy”, “community”, and “zoe/bios”. And this is, finally, an effort to re-appropriate human freedom. (shrink)

Some philosophers of religion have argued that moral anti-theodicy begs the question. This paper evaluates the arguments from two such philosophers, writing a decade apart—Robert Mark Simpson, and Lauri Snellman. Simpson argues that any global argument against theodicy must allow for the possibility of there existing a plausible theodicy, and that anti-theodical arguments (the argument from insensitivity, the argument from detachment, and the argument from harmful consequences) all implicitly discount this possibility, thus ending up begging the question. Snellman argues that (...) moral anti-theodicies presuppose that some evils cannot be justified, which would presuppose that theodicy is false from the start, which in turn would beg the question against theodicy. The author of the paper argues that Simpson’s arguments rest on an erroneous assumption regarding the nature of anti-theodicy, and that one of Simpson’s arguments sets a problematic standard for argumentation that the author argues we should not accept. It is also argued that Snellman’s argument relies on an unsupported claim from Toby Betenson. Therefore, the author concludes that Simpson and Snellman have not managed to show that moral anti-theodicies beg the question. (shrink)

There are strong reasons for assuming that Thomas Aquinas conceived of God’s existence in terms of logical necessity in a broad sense. Yet this seems to stand in some tension with the fact that he excludes the possibility of a priori arguments for the existence of God. One apparently attractive way of handling this tension is to use a two-dimensional framework inspired by Saul Kripke. Against this, this article demonstrates that a Kripke-inspired framework is inapt in this context because it (...) allows for the conceivability of God’s non-existence, thereby rendering his non-existence possible in some important, and for Aquinas inacceptable, sense. Drawing on David Chalmers, the article submits that the existence of God can only be necessary if God’s non-existence is ideally inconceivable. On the basis of Aquinas’ own understanding of God, however, the article argues further that God’s non-existence in fact is inconceivable. The alleged conceivability of God’s non-existence is ultimately due to our (human) inability to grasp the nature of being, whereas creatures who grasp the nature of being are unable to conceive of God’s non-existence. This removes God’s non-existence from the realm of relevant conceivability and, therefore, from the range of possible worlds. (shrink)

A report on Cornel West's Edinburgh Gifford Lectures 2024: "A Jazz-soaked Philosophy for our Catastrophic Times: From Socrates to Coltrane".

En el presente trabajo se hace una aproximación a los parámetros morales enseñados por la Iglesia en sus obras pastorales (manuales de confesión y tratados de teología moral) en lo que se refiere a la relación entre gobernantes y gobernados. Para ello, se ha seleccionado un grupo de obras que se escribieron o leyeron asiduamente en la Corona de Castilla y León entre los siglos XIV y XVII. En primer lugar, se trata la casuística sobre la legitimidad de la autoridad, (...) del poder y del dominio sobre bienes y recursos por parte de los gobernantes (reyes, príncipes, nobles...). En segundo lugar, se aborda la cuestión de la responsabilidad del gobernante de la comunidad sobre la conducta de sus súbditos. En la tercera parte se exponer la problemática de los tributos e impuestos (cuáles son lícitos y cuáles no, los fines para los que se debe emplear...). Por último, se tratan los deberes que deben cumplir los súbditos respecto a sus señores y cuándo están obligados a obedecerlos y cuándo no. (shrink)

In Turkey, where the philosophy of religion is still a relatively new academic field, there are different approaches regarding the fundamental principles that should guide its development. It has been claimed that to conduct a Muslim philosophy of religion, it is necessary to stay away from the concepts that are the product of the intellectual pursuit of Western thought. This claim, which is put forward by Hasan Er, is justified by the thought that some of the basic concepts that emerged (...) in the philosophy of religion in the West are a product of the West’s confrontation with the Christian medieval thought, and therefore, they do not comply with the basic Islamic principles. The judgment that the philosophy of religion in the West arose based on Christianity seems acceptable. From this point of view, since the belief system of Christianity is very different from Islam, it has been argued that the concepts used in the philosophy of religion in the West should not be associated with Islam. Three concepts are especially claimed to be avoided here. These are deism, atheism, and theism. This claim triggers an important debate in philosophy of religion. This is whether there can be a philosophy of religion specific to a particular religion. In this study, the claims briefly described above will be discussed. While doing this, the claims put forward will be subjected to an analytical evaluation. As a result, it will be discussed that the concepts should be considered not only with the meanings they first appeared but also with the meanings they acquired in the process. On the other hand, if it is not possible to make a Muslim philosophy of religion with Western concepts, then it will be taken into consideration that it is necessary to ask “How Muslim is the philosophy of religion?”. (shrink)

In this paper, I will critique Paul Draper’s recent model of God’s motivational structure, according to which God can make hard choices. I will argue that this model illegitimately treats value in a purely teleological way, as something to be promoted. Following T.M. Scanlon’s work on value theory, when we consider the fact that value is to be respected rather than merely promoted, this realization will significantly foreclose on the possible cases in which hard choices can conceivably be made by (...) God. Most importantly, I challenge the idea that God can face hard choices between aesthetic and moral value in the way Draper suggests. (shrink)

Stress that the exchange of social legacy to what's in store is the main capability of schooling; social qualities should be shown for social turn of events, socialization of the individual and participation of a general public. With esteem schooling, it is feasible to introduce the information on many long periods of philanthropic qualities, which are situated external the mainstream society, to the understudies and pursue choices in the illumination of these aggregations. The conviction that social legacy is a significant (...) Behind the dreams are the resources that will be preserved and supplied to people in the future. This idea emphasizes the "leading side" of folk dance, and scientific and linguistic research has become the focus of interdisciplinary research influenced by the "state-of-the-art similarity hypothesis" presented in 1980. I am. The word illustration comes from "metaforin". It is a combination of the Greek words "meta" (develop) and "ferein" (send). "Metaforein" means "tell" or "send", but today two are used as equivalent / comparable links between events or connections. (Draaisma, 2007). (shrink)

The belief system of academicians has an impact on how religious education (RE) is carried out in public universities. The ideology of RE lecturers - whether it is moderate, radical, or liberal - is greatly influenced by their own religious beliefs. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between religious paradigm of religious education lecturers on interreligious tolerance and pluralism in public universities in Indonesia. The study sample comprised 142 lecturers drawn from ten public universities in Indonesia. (...) A mixed method research design guided this study, where qualitative data was used to reinforce or clarify the findings from the quantitative data. The data was statistically assessed using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test to reveal whether the demographic profiles of RE lecturers was related to their religious paradigm regarding the relationship between religion-state, inter-religious relations and intra-religious relations. The study's findings indicate that the lecturer's personal beliefs about religion affect their opinions on the relationship between the state and religion, as well as the relationships within religious groups. Moreover, religious educators have a middling level of comprehension of their religious paradigm. To promote understanding and harmony among the academic community, it is suggested that a platform for religious moderation be established at public colleges where educators and students of various religions can converse and resolve fundamentalism. (shrink)

3D digitization of social legacy has been utilized to safeguard data about colonial legacy items like design, craftsmanship, and trinkets. The 3-d unfolding of gadgets via improvements including elevated reality, augmented reality, and 3-d printing have affected the fields of expertise records and social legacy and features grow to be extra normal. However, concentrates on that go past the specialized parts of 3D innovation and treat such points as their importance for reclamation, protection, commitment, schooling, exploration, and morals scarcely exist. (...) The point of this paper is twofold: from one perspective, it expects to get a superior comprehension of the materialness of every innovation for various purposes gallery show, and, then again, it centers on the discernment of these innovations. This exploration was completed by joining a writing survey with quantitative and subjective investigations of the information procured through a study of SIX inquiries a. Given the analysis of this quantitative and personal information, we give a few measures to utilizing 3D digitized and printed multiplications to upgrade social encounters. The outcomes show the significance of cautiously planning 3D collaborations in the individual and social settings of end-clients and colonial establishments in a request to make genuine social encounters_._. (shrink)

This book provides a detailed account of Julián Marías’s metaphysical anthropology with the ultimate aim of offering a coherent and systematic analysis of Marías’s argumentation for claiming that the conscious hope for Christian salvation through resurrection — and with it the hope that Jesus Christ did actually resurrect, and more generally the hope that Christian revelation is true — is justified not because the certainty or the likelihood that this salvation will, as a matter of fact, actually occur, but because (...) this hope amounts to a self-affirming exercise, a conscious endorsement of human reality, and as such a sign of authenticity. -/- . (shrink)

The following article will examine three argumentative strategies to address a recent topic of debate in the philosophy of religion known as the “Gap Problem.” It aims to study the “Stage II” of cosmological arguments, where the goal is to establish the theistic properties or attributes that identify the first cause or necessary being with the concept of God. The unique contribution of this study lies in the formalized and systematic presentation of the various solutions proposed by authors in the (...) philosophical field, synthesizing their central ideas and presenting them in the form of arguments. (shrink)

Bullying behaviour among adolescents is a prevalent concern all over the world as it holds significant implications for their mental health and social life. Similarly, bullying has emerged as a grave concern in high schools in Pakistan. However, very limited literature has covered the dynamics of religious education and bullying behaviour among high school students in Pakistan. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the impact of religious beliefs and practices on the prevalence of abuse and bullying among high school students (...) in Pakistan. The study has adopted a qualitative research design to fulfil this objective. The primary qualitative data for the study was collected by interviewing high school students from three prominent high schools in Pakistan. The data was analysed with the help of thematic analysis. The findings of this study indicate that religious education can help promote compassion, empathy, and respect among students. Thus, the study holds significant implications regarding the role of the community and teachers in taking a stand against bullying. (shrink)

This entry provides a brief summary of the works of William Paley (1743–1805) that are of most interest and relevance to contemporary philosophy of religion.

Bu [makalede], nihai olarak kesin bir sonucu olduğunu iddia etmemekle birlikte, ateizm için geliştirebileceğim en iyi argümanı öne sürmeye çalışacağım ve ortaya koyacağım şeyin, Tanrı’nın varlığına dair yürütülen tartışmaların herhangi bir kısmındaki, en iyi argüman olduğunu iddia edeceğim.