Roczniki Filozoficzne, 2021, Tom 69, nr 3: Divine Hiddenness from the Perspective of Christian Philosophy

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/4535

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    Ultimism: A Philosophy That Wants to Be a Religion
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021) Biłgorajski, Piotr
    Ultimism is the view that there is a metaphysically and axiologically ultimate reality in relation to which it is possible to achieve the ultimate good. John Schellenberg believes that ultimism is the backbone of every religion, while the differences between religions arise from different views of what the nature of the ultimate is. Schellenberg tries to show that if there is progress in religion, then it is most reasonable to assume that we are only at the beginning of the inquiry into the ultimate. The aim of the paper is to show that epistemological and methodological objections can be raised against ultimism. It will present an epistemological argument, pointing to the cognitive limitations of imagination, and a methodological argument, questioning the feasibility of Schellenberg’s project.
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    The Hiddenness Argument and the Ground of Its Soundness
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021) Pepliński, Marek
    The paper refers to the argument from hiddenness as presented in John Schellenberg’s book The Hiddenness Argument and the philosophical views expressed there, making this argument understandable. It is argued that conditionals (1) and (2) are not adequately grounded. Schellenberg has not shown that we have the knowledge necessary to accept the premises as true. His justifications referring to relations between people raise doubts. The paper includes an argument that Schellenberg should substantiate its key claim that God has the resources to accommodate the possible consequences of openness to a relationship with finite persons, making them compatible with the flourishing of all concerned and of any relationship that may come to exist between them. At the end of the text, I propose to treat the argument as a rejection of an anthropomorphic God.
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    Comments for My Colleagues
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021) Schellenberg, J. L.
    In the paper, the originator of the hiddenness argument, J. L. Schellenberg, responds to papers that challenge his reasoning. In his remarks he puts an emphasis on the concept of divine love and he explains why it is not only connected to the idea of the Christian God. He also clarifies his position on ultimism.
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    How to Be a Christian Ultimist? On Three Lessons J. L. Schellenberg and the Christian Theist Can Learn from Each Other
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021) Wojtysiak, Jacek
    In this text, in discussion with J. L. Schellenberg, I develop a position that I call Christian ultimism. This position lies between Schellenberg’s simple ultimism and traditional Christian theism. Christian ultimism is more apophatic than personalistic, though it more clearly emphasizes the presence of a supra-personal and communicative element in the Ultimate Reality. The proposed position is resistant to a philosophical version of the hiddenness argument, but it must answer to the challenge of the theological problem of the lack of universal access to Christian revelation. Schellenberg’s idea of deep time both magnifies this problem and provides the tools for solving it: the awareness of deep time does not allow us to judge the future, but it does allow us to hope for a revelation accessible to all at the eschatological end of time.
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    “You Would Not Seek Me If You Had Not Found Me”—Another Pascalian Response to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness
    (Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, 2021) Guillon, Jean-Baptiste
    One version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness is about people who are looking for God and are distressed about not finding him. Having in mind such distressed God-seekers, Blaise Pascal imagined Jesus telling them the following: “Take comfort; you would not seek me if you had not found me.” This is what I call the Pascalian Conditional of Hiddenness (PCH). In the first part of this paper, I argue that the PCH leads to a new interpretation of Pascal’s own response to the problem, significantly different from Hick’s or Schellenberg’s interpretations of Pascal. In short: for any person who is distressed about not finding God, and who (for this reason) seriously considers the Argument from Hiddenness, the PCH would show that their own distress constitutes evidence that God is in fact not hidden to them (because this desire for God has been instigated in them by God himself). In the second part of the paper, I set aside the exegetical question and try to develop this original strategy as a contemporary response to one version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness, which I call the “first-person problem.” I argue that the PCH strategy offers a plausibly actual story to respond to the first-person problem. As a result, even if we need to complement the PCH strategy with other more traditional strategies (in order to respond to other versions of the problem), the PCH strategy should plausibly be part of the complete true story about Divine Hiddenness.