Faith and the Life of Reason

I. Faith-and Faith in Hypotheses.- I. Falsifiable Theism: Sketch of a Position.- II. Hypothetical Faith: Criteria of Rationality.- II. Two Sides to a Theist’s Coin.- I. The Two Sides Distinguished.- I.1. Sartre.- I.2. Norman Malcolm and Peter Geach.- II. The Two Sides and the PROSLOGION.- III. Miracles: Nowell-Smith’s Analysis and Tillich’s Phenomenology.- I. The Matter Briskly Introduced.- II. The Matter Reintroduced.- II.1. Hume’s Critique.- II.2. Nowell-Smith’s Critique.- II.3. Possible Criteria for Miracles.- II.4. Tillich’s Phenomenology of Miracles.- II.5. Comments on Tillich’s Account.- IL.6. Towards a Philosophically Respectable Belief in Miracles.- IV. From “God” to “Is” and from “Is” to “Ought”.- I. Convention and Wisdom About “Meaning” and “Necessity”.- II. Looking Back Without Anger: a Cry from the Fifties.- III. From “God” to “Is”: Good Reasons and Justifying Explanations.- IV. From “God” to “Is” -Some Fallacies about Being A Being.- V. From “God” to “Is”: The Muddled Fear of Calling God A Being.- VI. From “God” to “Is” -Current Confusions about Existence as Necessary and Existence as Predicate.- VII. Existence as Necessary and Existence as Predicate: the Confusions Probed.- VII.1. Existence and Tautologies.- VII.2. Existence CAN be a Property.- VIII. Does “X is a Necessary Being” Entail “X is Timeless”?.- VIII.1. Omniscience.- VIII.2. God as Supreme Purposer.- VIII.3. God as Omnipotent Purposer.- V. From “Is” to “Ought” and from “Ought” to “God”.- I. Some Steps Retraced: “God Exists” as a Necessary Truth.- II. The Necessary Truth Contested: Persons Without Bodies.- III. The Necessary Truth Contested: Appeals to Evil.- III.1. Must Gods Madden Madden?.- III.2. Evil and Other Worlds.- IV. The Necessary Truth Reaffirmed: “No ‘is’ Without ‘OUGHT’ in the Offing”.- V. The Necessary Truth Reaffirmed: “For an ‘OUGHT’ is as Hard as an ‘is’”.- VI. Probability and ‘The Will to Believe’ Introduction.- I. Metaphysics and Probability.- 1.1. Probability and Father Dwyer’s Blending of Aquinas with Wittgenstein.- 1.2. Some Possible Objections on Metaphysics and Probability.- II. ‘Probability’ and Semantic Theories.- II.1. “Probability”, “Meaning” and Semantic Theories.- II.2. Some Golden Eggs Among Toulmin’s Obiter Dicta.- II.3. Some Lexicographical and Etymological Factors.- II.4. Some Senses of “Probability” ?.- II.5. The Contexts of Many Subjective Theories of Probability.- III. Rational Commitment and ‘The Will to Believe’.- III.1. Some Assumptions About James Redivivus.- III.2. James’ Crucial Section I.- III.3. Beard’s Pessimism About ‘The Will to Believe’.- III.4. Some Neo-Jamesian Tools to Clarify Rational Commitment.- VII. Gambling on other Minds- Human and Divine.- I. “Evil”, “Ought” and “Can” as Springboards for the Will to Believe.- I.1. Madhare Back on the March.- I.2. Madhare’s Premises and Bare Presuppositions.- I.3. Possible Consequences from a ‘Normatively Logical Point of View’.- II. ‘Theodicy and Rational Commitment’ or ‘Über Formal ent-scheidbare Sätzenkonjunktionen der Principia Theologica und verwandter Systeme’.- III. Gambling on Deity and Fraternity.- IV. Gambling on Reference and Sense.- VIII. Rational Action, Aquinas and War.- I. An Introduction to Some Confused Modern Thinking About War.- II. ‘A Just War is One Declared by the Duly Constituted Authority’.- III. ‘A Just War Uses Means Proportional to the Ends’.- IV. Farewell to Anti-Martial Muddles?.