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22Augustine’s griefsFaith and Philosophy 20 (4): 448-459. 2003.The paper begins by describing two episodes of personal grief recounted by Augustine in the Confessions, that at the death of an unnamed friend and thatat the death of his mother, Monica. It is argued that Augustine intended to show that the earlier fried, and an early phase of his grief for his mother, were sinful. However, contrary to arecent account of Augustine's grief, it is argued that Augustine does not hold that it is wrong to grieve at the death of a loved one, provided that one grieves…Read more
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35John Calvin's IdeasOxford University Press. 2004.Paul Helm looks at how Calvin worked at the interface of theology and philosophy and in particular how he employed medieval ideas to do so. Connections are made between his ideas and contemporary philosophical theology, and there is a careful examination of the appeal that current `Reformed' epistemologists make to Calvin.
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12Ronald H. Nash. The Concept of God. Pp. 127. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.) Paper, no price givenReligious Studies 21 (4): 603-603. 1985.
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20Calvin and Bernard on freedom and necessity: A reply to Brümmer: Paul HelmReligious Studies 30 (4): 457-465. 1994.It is argued that Calvin does not veer between two incompatible accounts of grace, freedom and necessity in Institutes II . 2, but presents a consistent position. The consistency is evident once it is seen that Calvin carefully distinguished between necessity and compulsion . For him not all necessitated acts are compelled, but all human acts which are the outcome of efficacious divine grace are necessitated by that grace. Because Calvin is consistent, there is no need to suppose that he has mis…Read more
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51Speaking and revealingReligious Studies 37 (3): 249-258. 2001.I argue on three distinct grounds that the contrast between speaking and revealing is nothing like so sharp as Wolterstorff maintains in Divine Discourse. Speaking may be revealing: in speaking a person may reveal much about himself. Putative divine speaking can only be made intelligible given a background of what I refer to as INIS revelation, and in revealing, or more exactly, in having revealed, God may still speak.
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148God, compatibilism, and the authorship of sinReligious Studies 46 (1): 115-124. 2010.Peter Byrne has presented arguments against the effectiveness of two 'defensive strategies' deployed in my books Eternal God and The Providence of God respectively. These strategies were originally presented to support the cogency of 'theological compatibilism' by arguing against the claims that it is inconsistent with human responsibility, and that it entails that God is the author of sin. In this present article the author offers a number of clarifications to his original thesis and argues tha…Read more
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48Faith and understandingWm. B. Eerdmans. 1997.In Part One Paul Helm provides a general discussion of these themes, seeking both to contextualize the debate and to engage with contemporary philosophical discussion of the relation between faith, reason and understanding. Part Two contains five case studies that illustrate the work of seminal figures in the tradition. They include treatments of Augustine on time and creation, Anselm on the ontological argument and the necessity of the atonement, Jonathan Edwards on the nature of personal ident…Read more
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21Rationality and Theistic Belief: An Essay on Reformed Epistemology (review)International Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1): 98-100. 1995.
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33Vincent Brummer. What Are We Doing When We Pray? Pp. 138. (London: S.C.M., 1984.) £5.95 (review)Religious Studies 21 (3): 421-423. 1985.
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13Time and TrinityIn Robin Le Poidevin (ed.), Questions of Time and Tense, Clarendon Press. pp. 251. 1998.
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154John Calvin, the sensus divinitatis, and the noetic effects of sinInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (2): 87-107. 1998.
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14Revealed Propositions and Timeless TruthsReligious Studies 8 (2). 1972.‘The formulas of advanced English politicians are as stiff and arrogant as the formulas of theology. Truth itself becomes distasteful to me when it comes in the shape of a proposition. Half the life of it is struck out of it in the process.’
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54God and spacelessnessIn Steven M. Cahn & David Shatz (eds.), Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 211-. 1982.In recent years the doctrine that God exists in a timeless eternity has achieved something of the status of philosophical heterodoxy, if not of downright heresy. The arguments against the idea of God's timeless eternity come from two sources. The first of these is Professor Kneale's paper ‘Time and Eternity in Theology’ in which, alluding to the famous definition of eternity by Boethius as ‘the complete possession of eternal life at once’ Professor Kneale confesses ‘I can attach no meaning to th…Read more