Analogously, we might say that an apple is both colored and not colored, since it is red colored with respect to its skin, but white not colored with respect to its flesh. There is a sense in which the apple as a whole is both colored and not colored because it borrows properties from its parts. Perhaps something similar can be said about Christ, understood as a mereological composite of God the Son, a human body, and a human soul.

Leading advocates of this sort of view include Brian Leftow , and Eleonore Stump In fact, according to Pawl, once we correctly understand their truth conditions, we can see that they can both be true of the same subject after all.

Because Christ, and only Christ so far as we know has two natures, only Christ can be both omniscient and limited in knowledge. But it is importantly different: Pawl is content to affirm the very entailments e. Beall goes a step further and argues that some predicates really are both true and false of Christ, because Christ really is a contradictory being , Beall defends a contradictory Christology because he accepts a non-standard model of logic, one on which some predicates can be neither true nor false of a subject, and other predicates can be both true and false of a subject.

According to Beall, logic as such—that is, his favored account of logic—is neutral about whether any given substantive theory contains true contradictions. When we examine the axioms of orthodox Christology, according to Beall, we find that they include authoritative conciliar statements that are most naturally read as contradictory—e. Rather than revise or reinterpret such statements so that they are not contradictory, we should accept that they are. Arguably, the deepest and most fundamental Christian affirmation is that Christ saves.

Unlike the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, however, the early Church never formally defined a single orthodox account of exactly how Christ saves or what it is about his life, death, and resurrection that accomplishes that saving work. As a result, a variety of theories or models of atonement have proliferated throughout the centuries.

Contemporary work in analytic philosophical theology typically builds on these models, reformulates them in contemporary language, and seeks to defend them from criticism. Satisfaction models argue that as a result of their sinfulness, human beings have a debt or obligation to God that they cannot possibly repay. By becoming incarnate, living a sinless life, and voluntarily dying for the sake of humanity, Christ successfully discharges the debts and obligations that human beings owe to God.

Closely related to satisfaction models, penal substitution models claim that human beings deserve punishment from God as a result of their sinfulness. Christ saves by freely agreeing to be punished in their place. Satisfaction and penal substitution theorists must explain why a perfectly merciful God would require satisfaction or punishment from human beings at all, and why a perfectly just God would allow an innocent person to play the required role Porter Accordingly, satisfaction and penal substitution views have been heavily criticized by modern and contemporary theologians for depicting God as a petty, wrathful tyrant.

More recently, feminist theologians and philosophers have criticized satisfaction and penal substitution views for valorizing suffering Brown and Parker Christ on the cross mind-reads—that is, psychically experiences—the mental states of every human sinner.

Sinful human beings are thereby united to Christ, and so to God. When the indwelling Holy Spirit leads sinners to respond to Christ with love, they also will what God wills. Several other models, also prominent in the Patristic and medieval tradition, have so far received little attention from analytic philosophers of religion.

Jacobs and Mosser are important exceptions. Quinn offers a highly qualified defense, but holds that Christ is more than just a moral exemplar. The doctrine of sin and the doctrine of atonement are correlative in the same way that a disease and its remedy are correlative. If sin is that from which Christ saves us, then the strength of the remedy atonement must vary according the severity of the disease sin.

As a first approximation, a sinful act can be thought of as a morally bad act for which the sinner is responsible. Like other Christian doctrines, the doctrine of sin poses tricky philosophical problems. To see those problems more clearly, it is useful to disambiguate the doctrine of sin into several distinct components: the first sin, the Fall, original sin, and personal sin.

For extended discussion, see the entry sin in Christian thought. The problem of the first sin is the problem of how the very first sinful act is even possible, given various Christian axioms about the goodness and creative power of God, and various philosophical assumptions about the nature of freedom and moral responsibility. The problem of the first sin is sometimes treated as a question about the fall of Satan.

It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to explain how Satan—by hypothesis, an angel created by God with a rational intellect, an upright will, and wholly good desires and dispositions—could ever make the sinful choice to reject God. Contemporary philosophers who try to improve on their efforts include Barnwell , , MacDonald , Rogers , and Timpe The biblical story of Adam and Eve Genesis 3 recounts the story of the first human sin and its consequences.

The traditional story of the fall of Adam and Eve does not seem consistent with either an evolutionary account of human origins or what we know about human history more generally. On some understandings, questions about the historicity of the Fall are not properly philosophical questions at all. Yet it does seem like a properly philosophical task to articulate a doctrine of the fall that is both internally consistent and consistent with other things we know to be true.

Moreover, the doctrine of the Fall is conceptually connected to other aspects of the doctrine of sin as well as to the doctrine of salvation. Peter van Inwagen presents an account of the Fall that maintains many of its most important elements and, he claims, is consistent with evolutionary theory. Despite initial impressions, neither van Inwagen nor Hudson are really concerned with defending quasi-literal readings of Genesis. Instead, they want to show that objections to those readings presuppose highly contestable philosophical—rather than empirical or scientific—assumptions.

On some stronger interpretations, all subsequent human beings are also justly regarded as guilty by God from birth, even before they have sinned themselves. Even apart from worries about the historicity of the fall, the philosophical challenges posed by this doctrine are obvious.

How can people living now be morally responsible for the sins of the first human beings? If it is inevitable that all human beings will sin, can God justly punish them? Some Christian philosophers have simply rejected the stronger versions of the doctrine of original sin as incoherent.

Swinburne, for instance, denies that all human beings are born guilty as a result of the sin of their first parents and argues that the condition of original sin only makes it very likely, rather than inevitable, that they will sin themselves — Other philosophers have attempted to show that even a strong doctrine of original sin can be philosophically coherent, given the right metaphysical framework.

Michael Rea, for instance, draws on fission theory and the metaphysics of temporal parts to suggest a way that contemporary humans might bear responsibility for the sin of Adam by virtue of being counterparts or stages of Adam himself John Mullen also constructs a Molinist account of original sin and inherited guilt.

On Molinism, God knows all the true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, which means that God knows every free choice that every human being would make in every possible situation.

According to Mullen, if it were true that every free creature would sin in an ideal, garden of Eden situation, then God could justly punish them in the actual world for what they would have done in that counterfactual world. Because the philosophical problems associated with personal sin initially seem very similar to the problems associated with moral wrongdoing, there has been comparatively little philosophical work on personal sin.

Still, important definitional questions remain about exactly how, if at all, sin should be distinguished from moral wrongdoing, whether there are sinful actions that are not immoral actions, and, conversely, whether there are immoral actions that are not sinful Mitchell ; Dalferth ; Adams ; Couenhoven There are philosophical questions raised by nearly all Christian doctrines and practices, and so there are many fertile areas of inquiry that still remain comparatively underexplored.

This brief survey has focused on the most widely treated areas of analytic philosophical theology. As the discussion above indicates, analytic philosophical theology has been produced largely by Christian philosophers working in philosophy departments, rather than by theologians in departments of theology or divinity schools. They emphasize that Christian analytic theology is an internal project of faith seeking understanding that, as theology, holds itself accountable to scripture and Church tradition.

Yet whether Christian analytic theology is properly regarded as a kind of philosophy or a kind of theology depends on how we draw the underlying distinction between philosophy and theology—if indeed we draw such a distinction at all.

It might seem odd that analytic philosophy of religion APR includes explicitly Christian philosophical theology of the sort discussed in Section 2. There are philosophers of religion whose work is analytic but not Christian e. These debates can be grouped around two different—and opposing—lines of criticism. According to the first line, much APR is too Christian and too theological: not really philosophy at all, but a thinly-disguised form of Christian theology—perhaps even a form of apologetics Levine ; Knepper 9; Draper 2.

Conversely, according to the second line, advanced by prominent theologians, APR is neither fully Christian nor fully theological. Although mutually opposing, both lines of criticism raise an important methodological question: how—if at all—should we distinguish philosophy about Christian topics from Christian theology?

Section 1 above surveyed important responses to this question in the history of Christian thought. This section addresses the question in the context of contemporary challenges to analytic philosophy of religion. The first worry concerns the scope of APR when considered as a whole: APR is too narrow, because it focuses excessively on Christian theological topics, to the exclusion of other equally important matters.

The second worry concerns the sources and methods of Christian APR specifically: the sources and methods of Christian APR belong more properly to theology than to philosophy. Although the narrowness worry has wide currency, it is not always clear how to understand it as a properly philosophical criticism.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the narrowness worry is more often aimed at the field of APR as a whole, rather than at individual instances of APR. Still, some versions of the narrowness worry are more philosophical than others. According to more philosophical versions, Christian APR frequently fails as philosophy: as a result of their Christian-theological biases, analytic philosophers of religion inadvertently make bad arguments.

On this line, Christian analytic philosophers are especially likely to engage in motivated reasoning and ignore counter-arguments or alternative points of view drawn from other religious traditions.

Because APR is so narrow, Christian philosophers unwittingly work in an echo-chamber or an epistemic bubble Schilbrack 14; Draper 5; De Cruz As a result, according to critics, the conclusions of their putatively philosophical arguments are often unwarranted for anyone outside the Christian community, even when they purport to be generally probative.

Less philosophical versions of the narrowness worry assert the general principle that APR should be more capacious, and should include more non-Christian voices, without explicitly challenging the soundness of specific analytic arguments Knepper ; Carroll ; Mizrahi Here the worry is simply that APR does not—but should—reflect the diversity of religious and non-religious viewpoints that actually obtain in the world.

Phrased differently, APR as a field wrongly excludes too much good philosophical work that just happens not to fit into the dominant Christian, monotheistic paradigm. Yet one can hold this view without also agreeing that existing APR fails on its own terms or that any specific philosophers should alter their practices.

The charge that APR is too theological could also be understood as a question about philosophical methodology. On this version of the charge, Christian APR does not begin from generally accessible assumptions and argue toward generally acceptable conclusions, as good philosophy should.

Instead, it typically begins from Christian assumptions and argues toward Christian conclusions, like theology. Because much Christian APR assumes the truth of Christianity, its solutions cannot satisfy this condition, and should properly count as theology rather than philosophy Schellenberg Analytic philosophers of religion have a variety of ways to respond to the charge that APR is too theological.

First, with respect to the narrowness charge, they can accuse critics of mistaking the part for the whole, by denying that the charge applies to APR as such, and by pointing to those analytic philosophers of religion who neither assume nor defend the truth of Christianity. Yet this response is undercut by the fact that non-Christian practitioners of APR often make the narrowness themselves Schellenberg ; Oppy ; Draper Second, its defenders also emphasize that much Christian APR does not actually assume the truth of Christianity at all, but instead argues for that truth.

Hasker a: 90; citing Swinburne is a paradigmatic example. Others argue that even explicit appeals to Christian revelation could in principle still count as philosophical appeals, albeit indirectly. We still must distinguish between direct, first-order appeals to revelation, and indirect, second-order arguments that it is sometimes permissible to appeal to revelation Wood — The second-order arguments could still be generally accessible philosophical arguments, even though the first-order appeals are not.

But a philosopher might offer a general epistemological argument, accessible to anyone in the philosophical community, to defend the rationality of that same first-order appeal. For example, she might offer a general argument that it is rational to form beliefs based on testimony, and the same general argument might establish that it is rational to treat the New Testament as testimonial evidence. Finally, because there is no single uncontested way to understand the boundaries between philosophy and theology, it is open to Christian philosophers of religion simply to deny the sharp distinction presupposed by critics like Schellenberg and Simmons see, for example, Plantinga , Wolterstorff While one set of critics accuse APR of becoming too theological, another set takes the opposite line.

According to several prominent theologians and philosophers, something about the analytic style of philosophizing makes APR particularly unsuitable for investigating Christian doctrines. On this line of criticism, far from becoming a species of Christian theology, APR is constitutively opposed to Christian theology, and the problem with analytic philosophical theology is not that it is too theological but that it is too analytic. This criticism takes several forms. Sometimes, theological objections to APR simply reiterate Barthian objections to natural theology, presumably on the assumption that most APR is really a form of natural theology Moore Other critics charge analytic philosophers of religion with historical anachronism and ignorance of the Christian tradition.

Other critics press the related worry that APR ignores the real Christian tradition altogether in favor of theorizing its own abstract, self-constructed version of the Christian god. Here APR. Oliver —; see also Hyman This line reflects the general worry that APR does not take divine mystery or transcendence seriously enough.

Yet a God like this so runs the worry is not really God at all, but something else—an idol. The worry about ontotheology and idolatry is also a worry about univocity—the view that our terms bear the same meaning when applied to God and creatures Trakakis So, e.

Worries about theological predication and univocity date back to the Patristic period, but in contemporary philosophy of religion, they are best understood as continuations of the late medieval disputes between followers of Duns Scotus, who defends univocal predication, and his Thomist opponents T. Williams ; Burrell ; Cross As a generalization, most contemporary analytic philosophers of religion endorse a univocal account of theological language, whereas contemporary Christian theologians are more likely to deny univocity in favor of analogical or metaphorical predication, or even non-predicative forms of theological language Pickstock ; Marion Notwithstanding the sharp rhetoric, there has been very little direct engagement between analytic philosophers of religion and their theological opponents on these questions.

Williams , Cross defend univocal predication, and Adams tries to rehabilitate ontotheology. Other analytic thinkers offer their own positive accounts of divine transcendence Crisp and Rea [eds.

More generally, analytic philosophers and theologians have a variety of strategies for avoiding the deleterious consequences of univocity and ontotheology Wood — Recent Work in Analytic Philosophical Theology 2. The Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology in the Christian Tradition Although modern thought tends to assume a sharp disjunction between philosophy and theology, it is not at all obvious how to distinguish them in a principled way.

Theology, from the fulness of its wisdom, defines man as whole and perfect… made in the beginning after the image of God… subject to the power of the devil, sin and death…freed and given eternal life only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

According to Nicholas Wolterstorff, the demise of Enlightenment-style foundationalism has thoroughly blurred the distinction between philosophy and theology: What difference does [this distinction] make, now that analytic philosophers no longer believe that for some piece of discourse to be a specimen of philosophy, the writer must base all his arguments on public philosophical reason? Wolterstorff ; see also Stump 48—49; Timpe 13 Yet this prominent Integrationist line has been strongly criticized by other philosophers of religion, who implicitly endorse some version of the Contrast view, on which philosophy cannot legitimately appeal to theological sources of evidence like revelation and Church authority Simmons ; Schellenberg ; Oppy ; Draper 2—4.

Recent Work in Analytic Philosophical Theology Recent work in analytic philosophical theology has engaged with nearly every major Christian doctrine.

For an extended discussion, see the entry, Trinity. As Richard Cross puts it: how is it that one and the same thing could be both divine and thus, on the face of it, necessary, and necessarily omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, immutable, impassible, and impeccable and human and thus, on the face of it, have the complements of all these properties?

Cross In other words, the fundamental philosophical problem of Christology is the problem that arises when a single subject bears incompatible properties.

Theological Critiques of Analytic Philosophy of Religion While one set of critics accuse APR of becoming too theological, another set takes the opposite line.

Translated in Anselm 75— Translated in Anselm — Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae. Translated in Brian J. Edward T. The spiritual man is no less certainly a man of reason than the natural, but his reason, like that of every man, functions within the perspective of his faith. Christians also appeal to science, history, and personal experience, but they know such avenues for discovering truth are not infallible. Christians know that scientists make mistakes and scientific journals can practice discrimination against views considered dangerous.

Christians know that history can be perverted, distorted, or twisted and that personal experience is not a good source of fact or knowledge. On the other hand, Christians believe that Biblical revelation is true and that God would not mislead His children.

Christianity says the New Testament is true because its truths can be tested. Christian epistemology is based on special revelation, which in turn is based on history, the law of evidence, and the science of archaeology.

Philosophical naturalists also make assumptions that they, by definition, accept on faith. All naturalists agree that there is no supernatural. When developing a philosophy, we must be extremely careful to base our case on the most truthful assumptions—otherwise, should one of the assumptions prove to be untrue as it appears the assumptions of the theory of evolution will be , the whole philosophy will crumble.

If evolution crumbles which is quite possible—Dr. So far, we have established two things regarding Christian philosophy: many hold it to be the most rational of all worldviews, and it requires no more faith than any other philosophy.

Indeed, we could argue that it takes a great deal more faith to believe in the spontaneous generation of Darwinian evolution or the randomness of all nature i. Christian Philosophy - Conclusion Christian philosophy represents an entire worldview, a view that is consistent with the Bible throughout.

The Christian philosophy embraces the meaningful, purposeful life, a life in which you shape your beliefs according to a coherent, reasonable, truthful worldview. As a Christian with such a worldview, you will not be tossed to and fro by every secularist doctrine.

Philosophy after all is a way of life, and the Christian believes that he has the true way—the true pattern for living. It is the task of the Christian leader to understand the ideologies of his day so that he may be able to meet their challenges. Thus the task of showing the relevance of the Christian realistic philosophy to a world in process is one which requires eternal vigilance. Given the interpenetration of philosophy and religion, the question of how a philosopher who has adopted a particular religious creed should comport himself or herself to philosophical inquiry is an interesting one.

The issue I wish to open here is whether or not there can be a philosophy that is specifically religious in the required sense, that is, can there be a Christian, Jewish, or Islamic philosophy?

In the Thomistic tradition in which I specialise, this question was a pressing one. In the early days of the Neo-Thomistic movement of the early twentieth century, Thomists had to consider how a follower of the thought of Thomas Aquinas should address the relationship of Christianity to philosophy.

Two particular camps emerged. One group, principally inspired by Etienne Gilson and his followers, held that a Christian philosopher can find room for Christianity in his or her philosophy insofar as Christianity functions as a kind of Bildung or world picture within which the philosophical discussion takes place. By conducting the philosophical inquiry within such a world picture, it is argued that interesting discussions begin emerge, and historically speaking many interesting philosophical discussions on the nature of the person, substance, accidents, relations, etc were developed within theological contexts.

On this account then, there could definitely be a Christian philosophy insofar as it is a philosophy that takes its central issues and concerns from within a Christian paradigm. On the other hand, there were those who held that the Christian philosopher ought not to try to find a place for his or her Christianity within philosophy, but that philosophy ought to find its place in Christianity.

Thinkers in this camp usually held that there can be Christian philosophers but no Christian philosophy; their main representative, and opponent of Gilson, was Fernand Van Steenberghen. Recently a third opinion has emerged, led by John Wippel, that attempts to accommodate both groups. On this view, when a philosopher comes to deal with a problem there must be distinguished two elements: i the moment of discovery of a solution and ii the formal statement of the solution.