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9The prospects for ‘mediate’ natural theology in John Calvin: Michael L. czapkay SudduthReligious Studies 31 (1): 53-67. 1995.In the present paper I consider the plausibility of a mediate natural theology in John Calvin. First, utilizing Robert Audi's distinction between ‘episodically’ and ’structurally’ inferential beliefs, I show that a plausible case can be made for the compatibility of a mediate theology corresponding to both these forms of inferential belief with salient features of Calvin's theology. Second, I apply Calvin's view on arguments for Scripture to theistic belief and suggest a way of construing natura…Read more
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76Calvin, Plantinga, and the Natural Knowledge of GodFaith and Philosophy 15 (1): 92-103. 1998.In this paper I present a critical response to several claims made by John Beversluis on the closely allied topics of natural knowledge of God and the noetic effects of sin in relation to the work of John Calvin and Alvin Plantinga. I challenge Beversluis’ claim that Plantinga has misconstrued Calvin’s position on the sensus divinitatis and that he has weakened Calvin’s doctrine of the noetic effects of sin. Moreover, I develop a coherent case for the sense in which Calvin maintains that fallen …Read more
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42The Prospects for 'Mediate' Natural Theology in John CalvinReligious Studies 31 (1): 53-68. 1995.In the present paper I consider the plausibility of a mediate natural theology in John Calvin. First, utilizing Robert Audi's distinction between 'episodically' and 'structurally' inferential beliefs, I show that a plausible case can be made for the compatibility of a mediate theology corresponding to both these forms of inferential belief with salient features of Calvin's theology. Second, I apply Calvin's view on arguments for Scripture to theistic belief and suggest a way of construing natura…Read more
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23Response to Jim TuckerJournal of Scientific Exploration 36 (1). 2022.Let me begin by thanking Jim Tucker for offering his thoughts on my JSE paper on the James Leininger case (Sudduth 2021). I appreciate his clarifying his interpretation of several of the facts in the case, as well as his providing further context to some of them. I also appreciate his acknowledgement of Bruce Leininger’s authorship of the 2003 chronology which I uncovered in my investigation and made use of in my paper. That’s all helpful. For the rest, I wish I could say what St. Augustine said…Read more
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7The Reformed Objection to Natural TheologyRoutledge. 2009.Michael Sudduth examines three prominent objections to natural theology that have emerged in the Reformed streams of the Protestant theological tradition: objections from the immediacy of our knowledge of God, the noetic effects of sin, and the logic of theistic arguments. Distinguishing between the project of natural theology and particular models of natural theology, Sudduth argues that none of the main Reformed objections is successful as an objection to the project of natural theology itself…Read more
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134The James Leininger Case Re-ExaminedJournal of Scientific Exploration 35 (4). 2021.In this article, I examine an ostensible case of the reincarnation type previously investigated and analyzed by Jim Tucker, M.D. of the University of Virginia. The case concerns James Leininger, a young boy who beginning around age two in 2000 and for several years thereafter began exhibiting behaviors and making claims that were later believed to resemble the life and death of World War II fighter pilot James Huston, Jr. The James Leininger story is widely regarded as a superior American case o…Read more
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34Signs of Reincarnation: Exploring Beliefs, Cases, and Theory by James MatlockJournal of Scientific Exploration 35 (1). 2021.James Matlock’s Signs of Reincarnation discusses important issues related to the belief in reincarnation. These include the historical and social prominence of this belief in various cultures around the world, especially its place in spiritual and religious communities. Matlock also explores data seemly suggestive of reincarnation and attempts to develop a theory of reincarnation that can account for the data collected by parapsychological investigators and researchers. In this way, Matlock aims…Read more
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14Book Reviews (review)Journal of Scientific Exploration 23 (3). 2010.359 The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing, by Richard Kradin - Robert Epstein 363 Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic, by Russell T. Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel - Etzel Cardeña 365 Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, by Christopher Lane - Tana Dineen 369 Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, by Alva Noë - Greg Ealick 371 Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understa…Read more
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39Super-Psi and the Survivalist Interpretation of MediumshipJournal of Scientific Exploration 23 (2). 2009.According to the survivalist interpretation of mediumship, the existence of discarnate persons provides the best explanation for the data associated with physical and mental mediumship. Others—advocates of what is often called the “super-psi hypothesis”—maintain that the data of mediumship may be at least equally explained in terms of living agent psi (ESP and psychokinesis). Many defenders of the survivalist interpretation of mediumship attempt to defl ate the alleged explanatory virtues of the…Read more
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15A Critical Response to David Lund's Argument for Postmortem SurvivalJournal of Scientific Exploration 27 (2). 2013.In Persons, Souls and Death, David Lund (2009) presents a cumulative case argument for postmortem survival based on the ostensible explanatory power of survival in relation to data drawn from psychical research. In this paper I argue that the survival hypothesis does not satisfy at least two necessary explanatory criteria accepted and deployed by Lund. First, the data that the survival hypothesis ostensibly explains are not otherwise improbable, as much if not all of the data may be adequately a…Read more
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1Pico della Mirandola's philosophy of religionIn M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico Della Mirandola: New Essays, Cambridge University Press. 2007.
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78Alstonian foundationalism and higher-level theistic evidentialismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 37 (1): 25-44. 1995.
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152Can Religious Unbelief Be Proper Function Rational?Faith and Philosophy 16 (3): 297-314. 1999.This paper presents a critical analysis of Alvin Plantinga’s recent contention, developed in Warranted Christian Belief (forthcoming), that if theism is true, then it is unlikely that religious unbelief is the product of properly functioning, truth-aimed cognitive faculties. More specifically, Plantinga argues that, given his own model of properly basic theistic belief, religious unbelief would always depend on cognitive malfunction somewhere in a person’s noetic establishment. I argue that this…Read more
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68The internalist character and evidentialist implications of plantingian defeatersInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 45 (3): 167-187. 1999.
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187Reformed epistemology and Christian apologeticsReligious Studies 39 (3): 299-321. 2003.It is a widely held viewpoint in Christian apologetics that in addition to defending Christian theism against objections (negative apologetics), apologists should also present arguments in support of the truth of theism and Christianity (positive apologetics). In contemporary philosophy of religion, the Reformed epistemology movement has often been criticized on the grounds that it falls considerably short of satisfying the positive side of this two-tiered approach to Christian apologetics. Refo…Read more
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1510Revisiting the ‘Reformed Objection’ to Natural TheologyEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (2): 37-62. 2009.In the present paper I address two significant and prevalent errors concerning to natural theology within the Reformed theological tradition. First, contrary to Alvin Plantinga, I argue that the idea of properly basic theistic belief has not motivated or otherwise grounded opposition to natural theology within the Reformed tradition. There is, in fact, a Reformed endorsement of natural theology grounded in the notion that theistic belief can be properly basic. Secondly, I argue that late ni…Read more
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John CalvinIn Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), Medieval Philosophy of Religion: The History of Western Philosophy of Religion, Volume 2, Routledge. pp. 3--47. 2009.
San Francisco, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |