Joshua C. Thurow

In his recent book Albert Casullo rejects the claim that if a belief is defeasible by non-experiential evidence then it is defeasible by experiential evidence. This claim is a crucial premise in a simple argument for the experiential defeasibility of a priori justification. I defend the premise against Casullo's objection, the main problem with which is that he does not take into account the evidential role of multiple corroborating sources of testimony. I conclude that the crucial premise is true and that the simple argument is sound; thus many of our a priori justified beliefs are experientially defeasible

In this paper I develop and defend a new theory of the Atonement - the Communal Substitution Theory. According to the Communal Substitution Theory, by dying on the cross Jesus either takes on the punishment for, or offers satisfaction for, the sins of the human community. Individual humans have sinned, but human communities have sinned as well. Jesus dies for the communal sins. As a result, human communities are forgiven and reconciled to God, and through the event of communal forgiveness, individual human sins can be forgiven as well. Moving the focal point of atonement to communal sins has various advantages: well-known objections to satisfaction and penal theories are avoided, and many of the advantages of other theories of the atonement are organically integrated into the communal substitution theory.