Marek A. Pepliński

Does God suffer? Some critical remarks on Dariusz Łukasiewicz’s paper ‘The suffering of God and the evil’ (Czy Bóg cierpi? Uwagi polemiczne do artykułu Dariusza Łukasiewicza 'Cierpienie Boga za zło') Author of article argues that Dariusz Łukasiewicz's criticism of Thomas G. Weinandy's book Czy Bóg cierpi?, directed towards three arguments for impassibility of God doesn't defeat Weinandy's theses. There are three reasons of that. First, Łukasiewicz criticism doesn't take into account metaphysical nature of Weinandy's arguments concerning nature of suffering and God. Second, some of assumptions are attributed by Łukasiewicz to author of Does God suffer? mistakenly. Third, Łukasiewicz criticism that Weinandy's thought is too optimistic doesn't realize that philosophy cannot justify or disprove all theological theses, because many of them are beyond the reach of human reason. Article ends with some suggestions about proper use of analogy in attribution of properties to God.

My aim in this paper is to show that some parts of J. M. Bocheński’s account of the logic of religion are useful for epistemological investigation of a religious belief, particularly for the questions of realistic and cognitive interpretations of a religious discourse, the problems of justification and warrant of a religious belief and for the problem of the place of criticism in a religious discourse. Referring to Bocheński's understanding of the structure of religious/theological thinking, I present the criteria for the gradual rationality of religion and claim that religions may differ in rationality and that there may be a rational and critical religion that uses the achievements of science and philosophy - contrary to what the New Atheists claim.

Alvin Plantinga claims that Christian believer can rationally disbelieve in some elements of the theory of evolution: the Common Ancestry Thesis; Darwinism, taken as explanation of origin of life by the mechanism of natural selection operating on random genetic mutation, and Naturalistic Origins Thesis - the view that present life itself developed from nonliving matter without special activity of God. After the justification of the possibility of conflicts between faith and science, Plantinga's arguments are examined and assessed as successful, with a few exceptions. The main thesis of this paper is that Plantinga is right claiming that rational disbelieving in evolution is possible, but his arguments are not enough to justify special creationism as theistic knowledge, supposing that knowledge warrants the truth