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2240The Hiddenness Problem and the Problem of EvilFaith and Philosophy 27 (1): 45-60. 2010.The problem of Divine hiddenness, or the hiddenness problem, is more and more commonly being treated as independent of the problem of evil, and as rivalling the latter in significance. Are we in error if we acquiesce in these tendencies? Only a careful investigation into relations between the hiddenness problem and the problem of evil can help us see. Such an investigation is undertaken here. What we will find is that when certain knots threatening to hamper intellectual movement are unravelled,…Read more
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88The Hiddenness ArgumentRoczniki Filozoficzne 69 (3): 63-66. 2021.* This is a fragment of J. L. Schellenberg’s paper “Divine Hiddenness and Human Philosophy” originally published in Adam Green and Eleonore Stump, Hidden Divinity and Religious Belief, 23–25, 28. Reprinted by permission of the author
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198The Hiddenness Argument RevisitedReligious Studies 41 (3): 287-303. 2005.In this second of two essays responding to critical discussion of my " Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason," I show how an ' accommodationist ' strategy can be used to defuse objections that were not exposed as irrelevant by the first essay. This strategy involves showing that the dominant concern of reasons for divine withdrawal can be met or accommodated within the framework of divine - human relationship envisaged by the hiddenness argument. I conclude that critical discussion leaves the argum…Read more
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250The atheist’s free will offenceInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 56 (1): 1-15. 2004.This paper criticizes the assumption, omnipresent in contemporary philosophy of religion, that a perfectly good and loving God would wish to confer on finite persons free will. An alternative mode of Divine-human relationship is introduced and shown to be as conducive to the realization of value as one involving free will. Certain implications of this result are then revealed, to wit, that the theist's free will defence against the problem of evil is unsuccessful, and what is more, that free wil…Read more
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70Response to Tucker on hiddenness: J. L. SCHELLENBERGReligious Studies 44 (3): 289-293. 2008.Chris Tucker's paper on the hiddenness argument seeks to turn aside a way of defending the latter which he calls the value argument. But the value argument can withstand Tucker's criticisms. In any case, an alternative argument capable of doing the same job is suggested by his own emphasis on free will.
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57Reactions to MacIntoshPhilo 14 (1): 77-84. 2011.In his response to my trilogy, Jack MacIntosh suggests a variety of ways in which its conclusions may be challenged, drawing on considerations scientific, moral, and prudential. I argue that the challenges can be met, and, in the process, show how the trilogy’s reasoning can be extended and strengthened on a number of fronts.
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40Reply to Aijaz and Weidler on HiddennessInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 64 (3): 135-140. 2008.In this brief reply I argue that criticisms of the hiddenness argument recently published in this journal by Imran Aijaz and Markus Weidler are without force. As will be shown, their critique of my conceptual version of the argument misses the mark by missing crucial distinctions. Their critique of my analogical version of the argument misunderstands that argument and also misapplies the work of W. H. Vanstone. And their critique of my view that belief is necessary for a certain kind of relation…Read more
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61Religious Experience and Religious Diversity: A Reply to Alston: J. L. SCHELLENBERGReligious Studies 30 (2): 151-159. 1994.William Alston's Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience is a most significant contribution to the philosophy of religion. The product of 50 years' reflection on its topic , this work provides a very thorough explication and defence of what Alston calls the ‘mystical perceptual practice’ – the practice of forming beliefs about the Ultimate on the basis of putative ‘direct experiential awareness’ thereof . Alston argues, in particular, for the rationality of engaging in the Chris…Read more
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11Part V. Keeping Faith Skeptical Religion as Reason’s DemandIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 235-250. 2009.
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16Primordial RealismMidwest Studies in Philosophy 45 483-504. 2021.Here I show how thinking of inquiry as immature can illuminate problems about metaphysical and scientific realism. I begin with the question whether human beings at the very beginning of systematic inquiry who held themselves to be thus situated, temporally speaking, and came to recognize their inability to prove or probabilify the truth of metaphysical realism would have been justified in believing or accepting metaphysical realism even so. Drawing on broadly Wittgensteinian ideas I defend an a…Read more
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114Paul K. Moser, The elusive God: reorienting religious epistemology: Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008, xii and 292 pp., $90.00 (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (3): 227-232. 2011.Paul K. Moser, The elusive God: reorienting religious epistemology Content Type Journal Article Pages 227-232 DOI 10.1007/s11153-010-9278-x Authors J. L. Schellenberg, Mount Saint Vincent University, 166 Bedford Hwy., Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3M2J6 Canada Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047 Journal Volume Volume 69 Journal Issue Volume 69, Number 3
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13Part II. Testing Faith Is the Best Religion Good Enough ?In The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 67-96. 2009.
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5Part III. Renewing Faith How Skeptical Proof Subsumes Believing Argument – EvidentialismIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 97-156. 2009.
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3Part IV. Renewing Faith How Skeptical Proof Subsumes Believing Argument – NonevidentialismIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 157-234. 2009.
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7Part. I. Purifying Faith Why the Best Religion Is the Most SkepticalIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 11-66. 2009.
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102Pluralism and probabilityReligious Studies 33 (2): 143-159. 1997.In this paper I discuss a neglected form of argument against religious belief -- generically, 'the probabilistic argument from pluralism'. If the denial of a belief is equivalent to the disjunction of its alternatives, and if we may gain some idea as to the probabilities of such disjunctions by adding the separate probabilities of their mutually exclusive disjuncts, and if, moreover, the denials of many religious beliefs are disjunctions known to have two or more mutually exclusive members each …Read more
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PrefaceIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. 2009.
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78On reasonable nonbelief and perfect love: Replies to Henry and LeheFaith and Philosophy 22 (3): 330-342. 2005.Some Christian philosophers wonder whether a God really would oppose reasonable nonbelief. Others think the answer to the problem of reasonable nonbelief is that there isn’t any. Between them, Douglas V. Henry and Robert T. Lehe cover all of this ground in their recent responses to my work on Divine hiddenness. Here I give my answers to their arguments
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26On Religious SkepticismInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (3-4): 268-282. 2020.I seek to promote a fuller understanding of religious skepticism by defending five theses. These concern, respectively: its breadth, discussed in relation to theism on the one hand and naturalism on the other; why it should be distinguished from a general metaphysical skepticism; how it is supported by the consequences of recent cultural evolution, which at the same time enable new and stronger arguments for atheism; the relations it bears to non-doxastic religious faith; and, finally, its curio…Read more
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108On reasonable nonbelief and perfect love: Replies to Henry and LeheFaith and Philosophy 22 (3): 330-342. 2005.Some Christian philosophers wonder whether a God really would oppose reasonable nonbelief. Others think the answer to the problem of reasonable nonbelief is that there isn’t any. Between them, Douglas V. Henry and Robert T. Lehe cover all of this ground in their recent responses to my work on Divine hiddenness. Here I give my answers to their arguments
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50In Praise of Austerity: A Reply to ForrestSophia 52 (4): 695-700. 2013.This is an invited response to Peter Forrest’s review of my trilogy on the philosophy of religion, which appeared in a previous issue of this journal
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IndexIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 263-268. 2009.
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IntroductionIn The will to imagine: a justification of skeptical religion, Cornell University Press. pp. 1-10. 2009.
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126How to be an atheist and a sceptic too: Response to MccrearyReligious Studies 46 (2): 227-232. 2010.Mark McCreary has argued that I cannot consistently advance both the hiddenness argument and certain arguments for religious scepticism found in my book The Wisdom to Doubt (WD). This reaction was expected, and in WD I explained its shortsightedness in that context. First, I noted how in Part III of WD, where theism is addressed, my principal aim is not to prove atheism but to show theists that they are not immune from the scepticism defended in Parts I and II. To the success of this aim, McCrea…Read more
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59How to be an atheist and a sceptic too: response to McCreary: J. L. SCHELLENBERGReligious Studies 46 (2): 227-232. 2010.Mark McCreary has argued that I cannot consistently advance both the hiddenness argument and certain arguments for religious scepticism found in my book The Wisdom to Doubt . This reaction was expected, and in WD I explained its shortsightedness in that context. First, I noted how in Part III of WD , where theism is addressed, my principal aim is not to prove atheism but to show theists that they are not immune from the scepticism defended in Parts I and II. To the success of this aim, McCreary'…Read more
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57God, the Best, and Evil, by Bruce LangtryMind 118 (472): 1155-1160. 2009.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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1344God, free will, and time: the free will offense part II (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 73 (3): 1-10. 2013.God, free will, and time: the free will offense part II Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9328-z Authors J. L. Schellenberg, Mount Saint Vincent University, 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, NS B3M2J6, Canada Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047