Rutgers Philosophy of Religion Conference
Schedule Of Events:
Friday, January 12th:
All talks on Friday will take place in the Rutgers Philosophy Department Seminar room
In Davison Hall at 26 Nichol Ave., on the Rutgers Cook/Douglass Campus.
3:00pm - 4:15pm – "Hell, Vagueness and Justice: A Reply to Sider"
Author: Trent Dougherty (University of Rochester)
Commentator: Michael Schweiger (New York University)
Ted Sider’s paper “Hell and Vagueness” challenges a certain conception of Hell by arguing that it is inconsistent with God’s justice. Sider’s inconsistency argument works only when supplemented by additional premises. Key to Sider’s case is a premise that the properties upon which eternal destinies supervene are “a smear,” i.e. they are distributed continuously among individuals in the world. We question this premise and provide reasons to doubt it including, but not limited to, evidential considerations borrowed from skeptical theism. A related but separate consideration is that supposing it would be an insurmountable problem for God to make just (and therefore non-arbitrary) distinctions in morally smeared world, God thereby has sufficient motivation not to actualize such worlds. Yet God also clearly has motivation only to actualize some member of the subset of non-smeared worlds which don’t appear nonsmeared. For if it was obvious who was morally fit for Heaven and who wasn’t, a new arena of great injustice is opened up. This is not a deceptive act by God, rather it is due to the very nature of the properties upon which soteriological judgements are based. The result is that if there is a God, then he has the motivation and the ability to actualize from just that set of worlds which are not smeared but which are indiscernible from smeared worlds.
4:30pm - 5:45pm – "Conceptual Relativity, Subvaluation and the Problem of the Trinity"
Author: Sergio Gallegos (City University of New York)
Commentator: Rob Gressis (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
In order to solve the Problem of the Trinity, which consists in explaining consistently how each one of the three Divine Persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is the one and only God while being nonetheless all distinct from each other, Christian Trinitarians have developed several proposals. However, these proposals face some serious difficulties that cast doubt on their aptitude to solve satisfactorily the problem. In this paper, I consider two new approaches to the problem that a Trinitarian might be tempted to use –the first one based on Putnam’s notion of conceptual relativity and the second one based on the use of subvaluations. After analyzing them, I conclude that neither proposal offers a satisfactory solution to the problem of the Trinity.
Saturday, January 13th:
10:00am - 11:15am – "Classical Theism and Supervenience"
Author: Andrew Bailey (Notre Dame)
Commentator: Sydney Penner (Cornell)
The supervenience of the mental on the physical is widely accepted and taken to be one central tenet of physicalism. Unsurprisingly, the supervenience of the physical on the mental is not. But in this paper, I shall argue that classical theists are committed to the strong global supervenience of the physical on the mental, and perhaps even to the strong individual supervenience of the physical on the mental.
11:30pm - 12:45pm – "The "Weakness of God": A New Theodicy"
Author: Neal DeRoo (Boston College)
Commentator: Paul Ruth (Rice University)
In this paper, I will introduce a new theodicy, which I will call the “weakness of God.” It is my contention that the problem of evil possesses great power as a proof of the non-existence of God, a power that neither the Augustinian nor Irenaean theodicies are able to adequately combat. As such, a new theodicy is needed, one that will eliminate the problem of evil as a counter-proof to God’s existence. After first explaining the power of the problem of evil, and then explaining both the Augustinian and Irenaean theodicies and why they are inadequate responses to this problem, I will end by showing that the “weakness of God” does indeed offer a convincing counter-argument to the problem of evil. As such, it deserves to be considered the most effective of the theodicies considered here.
12:45pm - 2:45pm – Lunch
2:45pm - 4:00pm – "A Scotistic Cosmological Argument Remixed"
Author: Josh Rasmus (Notre Dame)
Commentator: Jeff Russell (Rutgers University)
I sketch a novel Scotistic-styled argument while utilizing a contemporary metaphysical framework. I draw up a map, identifying a novel trail from premises to conclusion. The journey has two stages. In the first stage, I indicate how to reach the conclusion that a necessarily existing thing exists. In the second, I indicate novel avenues to the conclusion that the necessarily existing thing is an infinitely powerful and knowledgeable personal agent. Many theorists have identified obstacles for routes between cosmological premises and theistic conclusions. I mark out a new route to avoid the obstacles. I believe the map will be useful for future work on cosmological arguments of this sort.
4:15pm - 5:30pm – "Causal Chains and Reference to God"
Author: Samuel Henry (University of Chicago)
Commentator: Joshua Spencer (University of Rochester)
I present an overview and critical analysis of recent work that has been done to apply Kripke’s causal theory of reference to the case of talk about God. After briefly outlining the form in which such accounts proceed, I raise the problem of continuity of reference. This problem presents a problem for such theories. However, while this problem presents a difficulty in according us certainty with respect to reference to God, both the fact that it does so and the existence of its other virtues leave us with a workable and useful framework within which to situate talk about God within and across religious traditions.
Sunday, January 14th:
12:00pm - 1:15pm – "'Open Theism, Moral Evil, and a God Who Protests"
Author: Luke Gelinas (University of Toronto)
Commentator: Justin Sharber (Rutgers University)
In this paper I suggest that the open model of God is capable of articulating a better divine response to moral evil than the Molinist account. Starting from the assumption that how individuals respond to evil is morally relevant, I argue that the open God is able to protest moral evil whereas the Molinist God is not; that protesting moral evil is a morally superior response than failure to protest; and that therefore the open model is, in this respect, preferable to Molinism. I consider and reject two objections: (1) that a God who protests moral evil would be obligated to prevent moral evil before or as soon as it commenced; and (2) that the open God’s being able justifiably to conclude that the world would contain some moral evils or others precludes God from protesting actual evils. I end with some thoughts on the relevance of the notion of a God who protests.
1:30pm - 2:45pm – "Maximal Existence and the Existence of God: The Ontological Argument Reconsidered"
Author: Vincent Vitale (Princeton University)
Commentator: John Pittard (Yale)
I develop a new form of argument for the existence of God. I first consider a version of the best ontological argument to date, identifying both the strongest atheological response to and two disputable assumptions of that argument. I then formulate the argument from maximal contingent existence and show that by avoiding commitment to the doctrine of divine necessity, it avoids all three of the previously considered concerns. It concludes that if theism is a merely coherent way of understanding the actual world, God exists. Finally, I anticipate some objections to the argument from maximal contingent existence and suggest that the argument from maximal existence – by virtue of remaining non-committal regarding the modal status of divine existence – is superior to both the standard ontological argument and the argument from maximal contingent existence.
Directions to the sessions:
The Rutgers Philosophy Department Seminar Room
The Rutgers Philosophy Department is located in Davison Hall, at 26 Nichol Avenue in New Brunswick, NJ
Rutgers has several campuses in the area; the Philosophy department is on the Cook/Douglass Campus
There are free campus busses that can take you to the department.