Papers in the philosophy of religion, written during postgraduate study and published here in full.
MA Philosophy of Religion and EthicsUniversity of Birmingham
UnpublishedAssessed coursework
Does analytic scrutiny of liturgy over-intellectualise practices that are meant to stay mysterious? Argues the reverse: if God’s ordinances are purposeful rather than arbitrary, reflecting on them is an act of faith rather than a threat to it. Reads Ibn Taymiyya’s fitrah and Ibrahim’s reasoning in Q6:74–79 to locate the real danger not in pondering a rite but in altering it, refusing it, or dismissing it as meaningless.
Read the PDFIs there a real distinction between mental illness and problems in living? Argues the two labels name one phenomenon but are not identical, since conditions with neural markers, such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s before it, belong to the body rather than to living. Defends “problems in living” as the more coherent label and proposes a mind-body test to fix the scope psychiatry can honestly claim.
Read the PDFHow useful are Michael Rea’s stylistic prescriptions for analytic theology? Argues that the fifth, which discards a concept once analysis finds a contradiction in it, would discard infinity, and with it the classical God of infinite attributes. Distinguishes concepts that are flatly impossible, like a square circle, from those that may simply exceed human cognition.
Read the PDFArgues that science cannot speak to the existence of the supernatural, because appealing to methodological naturalism to establish ontological naturalism assumes its own conclusion. Treats the “why” question as a category apart from the “how”, and reads Dewey’s call to unify the two enterprises as incoherent: science would have to abandon its method to answer metaphysical questions, and would then cease to be science.
Read the PDFWhat is the concept of infinity doing in arguments about God, and has anyone justified it? Proposes that philosophical theology assumes divine infinity without defining it, and that borrowing mathematics’ account fails twice over: once across enterprises, once across the quantitative and qualitative divide. Leaves three exhaustive options: define qualitative infinity, accept ineffability and lose deduction with it, or ground claims about God in revelation.
Read the PDFDoes Stephen Law’s evil-god challenge survive scrutiny of what it leaves unsaid? Argues the symmetry thesis rests on a theory of evil Law never states, and that every candidate defeats him: privation makes evil parasitic on good and collapses the symmetry, dualism yields absurdities when applied consistently, and Kant’s and Arendt’s accounts are not metaphysical. Closes by holding Law to the standard he applies to McGrath.
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