Published in 1892, St. George Jackson Mivart’s remarkably original article ‘Happiness in Hell’ was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum almost immediately. In his article, Mivart proposed a solution to the problem of hell whose core contention is that hell is horrible only from a heavenly point of view. From a this-worldly point of view, by contrast, hell is a place of breathtaking felicity. In my opinion, this proposal has some striking merits, at least if it is updated and developed in certain respects. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct it, to reassess it, and to put it back on the table of eschatological ideas.

The editors of the special issue on panpsychism and pan(en)theism introduce the issue. This includes brief summaries of each of the articles.

Human beings are a highly social species, and there are neural systems that have a role in enabling human beings to function as the social animals they are. They connect people into smaller or larger social groups; and at least some of these groups have a unity that lets the united human beings function as one. That this is so has implications for an array of philosophical and theological issues, including the notion of a people, the concomitant notions of a people’s communal guilt and communal shame, the notion of the church as the body of Christ, the understanding of human perfection as a likeness to a triune God, and many other such issues. What is required to elucidate these issues is a metaphysics that can explain the nature of a united something-or-other that includes human persons as constituents. This article explores these issues and outlines the nature of the needed metaphysics.

Consider a simple argument that worshipping God is wrong. This world is not a nice place. Not only do humans persecute and inflict other evils on each other, but millions of people suffer and die every year from preventable poverty-related causes, and it seems that few, if any, deserve their plights. It is unclear that we should want to be associated with, never mind worship, a being with the capacity to make the world a much better place but whose beneficence (or knowledge) permits things to go on in the ways that they do. At first blush, contempt is a more fitting response to God than worship. But, assuming God exists, perhaps we have reason to accept, if not worship, him in any case. Humans are comparably limited. We do evil unto each other, and, insofar as millions of deaths are preventable, our failure to prevent them is a failure of humans as well as of God. If we could (and should) have saved many lives and have not, our moral failings present us with our own, human, problem of evil and suffering. So, if we should reject God because so many people suffer, then we should reject ourselves when we could avoid evil and help others too. However, this article argues that we have practical, moral, and epistemic reasons to accept rather than reject ourselves, and similarly we have reasons to accept God. And if we have reason to accept God, then we have some reason to worship God. Worship is a way of acknowledging our own limitations and can help us survive, flourish, and help others in the face of the problems of human evil and suffering.

With development understood as improving change, and working at the macroscale or species level, I sketch the conceptual background for a new, developmental form of scepticism. Then I use developmental scepticism to critique a proposition that functions as a presupposition of the popular contemporary rejection of unconventional metaphysical propositions (MUPs) and specifically of panpsychism: namely, that we have experienced enough relevant development as a species to make it reasonable for the community of enquiry to treat such ideas as obviously false. Finally, I briefly suggest a possible step beyond developmental scepticism toward a more general orientation in enquiry which might naturally follow such scepticism once its motivating ideas are absorbed.

Many traditional theists maintain that God is the ultimate explanation of the universe, for why anything exists at all. For the traditional theist, only a being who is fundamental and transcendent can provide an ultimate ground and explanation of the universe. This requirement that God transcend the universe in order to ultimately explain it poses a challenge for pantheism, the view that God is numerically identical with the universe. If God is identical with the universe, and God is supposed to be the ultimate explanation of the universe, the result is an instance of circular explanation. And circular explanations are allegedly illegitimate. In this article, I develop two explanatory models in an attempt to show that pantheism is consistent with non-circular explanations of the universe. All else being equal, I argue that pantheism is not explanatorily deficient in comparison to traditional theism.

This article explores the implications of non-ideal theorising for the problem of evil. The critique of ideal theory – which has gained increased attention in several philosophical sub-disciplines during recent years – states that analytic philosophers tend to rely on overly idealised conditions, to the point of being completely unrealistic, in their theorising. To investigate if this charge holds merit in the philosophy of religion, I apply a non-ideal methodology to one traditional area of philosophy of religion – the problem of evil. Here, Richard Swinburne’s theodicy constitutes a sample of how the problem of evil is typically approached in mainstream philosophy of religion. Additionally, Swinburne’s Principle of Credulity will, in relation to his theodicy, be interrogated as well. Applying non-ideal theorising, I find that Swinburne’s theorisation relies on idealised cases and presupposes ideal conditions, while overlooking non-ideal realities. Turning to epistemic injustice and epistemology of ignorance, I find that Swinburne assumes ideal epistemological conditions in both inter-agent communication (testimony), and in collective cognition. After examining the implications of such idealisations, I find that Swinburne’s idealisations abstract away non-ideal factors which are relevant for his theories, concluding that Swinburne displays tendencies typical of ideal theorising.

This articles reimagines Anselm’s claim that God is ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [Hereafter: ‘THAT’]. The article first explores a variety of Anselm-inspired of what THAT is like, and how THAT relates to whatever (if anything) is not-THAT (hereafter: ‘THIS’). THAT could be Anselm’s creator God, a polytheist pantheon, or a single undifferentiated One/Absolute/Brahman. THIS could be a single possible world or a pluriverse containing many different real possible worlds. The article defends a principle of cosmic humility. It argues that, to counter our natural tendency to over-estimate our own importance, we should pay particular attention to non-human-centred, non-anthropomorphic interpretations of THAT. Humility favours plenitude about worlds and plenitude about creatures. God (or THAT) will create many worlds that (together) contain all valuable creatures. Humility also suggests that, within this optimal pluriverse, we should not expect to find ourselves inhabiting either a world that is cosmically special or a world where we are special. The final part of the article argues that, within contemporary philosophy of mind, this commitment to cosmic humility supports panpsychism over its rivals – especially dualism and materialism. If THAT did create THIS, then we are (probably) insignificant creatures living in a panpsychist world. The article concludes with some speculations on how thinking about THAT and THIS might also influence the content of panpsychism as well as the case for panpsychism.

Being deeply embedded in the mythological framework of old-school Christian angelology, the theodicy presented in this article outlines a thoroughgoing and unexpectedly simple solution to the problem of evil. Unlike other Satan-oriented theodicies, whose central idea is that natural evil is reducible to moral evil by taking the malevolent actions of demons into consideration, it accounts for both natural and moral evil in perfectly familiar deal-making terms. Of particular interest is that it makes no appeal to the overriding importance of free will nor to the inscrutability of God’s ways. Instead it envisions a primordial agreement on which everything depends. If it stands up to scrutiny, it offers an intriguing explanation for why God permits such an awful lot of badness.

I begin with the intuition that there is something wrong with praying for the past, for example, praying for a basketball team to win after the game has ended. My aim is to find a philosophical explanation for why this is wrong. I explore three explanations for the wrongness in praying for the past, reject the first two, and offer a third. The first is based on the idea that prayer for the past is inefficacious. This assumption turns out to be mistaken. The second relies on religious considerations; I reject this explanation since it is too narrow and does not explain the initial intuition. I then argue that prayer for past events is wrong in virtue of being an unwarranted response, similar to how emotions can be unwarranted. I use concepts from the philosophy of fittingness to articulate my explanation.

The philosophical ‘problem of evil’ goes back at least as far as Epicurus and has remained a powerful argument against the existence of God in contemporary philosophy. The argument is rooted in apparent contradictions between God’s divine attributes and various conditions of human existence. But these contradictions arise only given certain assumptions of what we should expect both God and the world to be like given God’s existence. In this article, I argue that we can utilise the work of the twentieth-century French philosopher Simone Weil to craft a coherent metaphysical picture of God, creation, and suffering that rejects these common assumptions. Further, I contend that this picture very plausibly follows from commonly accepted tenets of traditional monotheism. Given this, I argue that this Weil-inspired framework provides serious reasons for reframing the problem of evil and its corresponding theodicies by presenting a radically different view of how God must relate to creation. Yet, this picture does not necessarily vindicate the theist. I argue that this picture may leave us with a new question about creation in the face of evil. Namely, is it possible to understand God’s initial creative act as Weil describes it – as an act of love?

Panpsychists commonly hang onto the ‘realist’ assumption that our world with its structures has an observer-independent, often spatial element to it, even while they claim that those structures are realized by the experiences of subjects. I argue that this assumption is the ‘worm in the apple’ that lurks behind two of panpsychism’s major problems: the subject (de)combination problem and what I call the ‘inner-outer gap problem’. Abandoning this assumption sidesteps those problems, but commits panpsychism to anti-realism.

This article discusses the prospects and pitfalls of science-engaged theology (SET) – a new and growing movement in the science and religion discourse. The guiding question of this enquiry is why, when, and how theology should engage with the sciences. After introducing what I call the ‘source account’ of SET that has emerged in recent discussion, I show that this basic account often comes with additional commitments: the ‘no methodology’ and ‘locality and specificity’ theses, both of which address the ‘how’ question, and the ‘entanglement’ thesis, which addresses the ‘when’ question. I argue that accepting any of them as an essential feature makes SET methodologically flawed. To provide alternative answers, I then propose to interpret the sources of theology in terms of the so-called loci theologici. Recognizing the sciences specifically among the loci theologici alieni also helps to counter the view that SET may spell the end of the discipline of science and religion. The aim is, therefore, to show that the source account of SET, if taken in a minimal sense, is a valuable contribution to the science and religion discourse, without replacing it, whereas SET, if coupled with these additional assumptions, would and has considerably muddied the waters.

If panpsychism is true then consciousness pervades the cosmos, and there exist many more conscious subjects than other worldviews contemplate. Panpsychism’s explanatory story about how human material composition and complexity grounds human consciousness seems to entail that there exist, notably, various conscious subjects within human organisms. Given the plausibility of the thesis that consciousness confers moral status – a thesis many panpsychists endorse – questions thus arise about the wellbeing of these inner subjects. In this article I raise the possibility that the lives of our inner subjects may not be morally suitable to a sophisticated centre of consciousness of the sort that likely exists, for example, inside various of our brain areas. Panpsychism, indeed, seems on the face of it to generate a good deal more suffering, in this way, than other worldviews. If that is correct, panpsychists who would embrace theism, and theists who would embrace panpsychism – for example pantheists – should be given serious pause. If panpsychism positively compounds the problem of evil, then one may have to choose between panpsychism and theism.

Mystical experiences are often regarded as potential sources of epistemic justification for religious beliefs. However, the ‘disanalogy objection’ maintains that, in contrast to sense perceptions, mystical experiences lack social verifiability and are thus merely subjective states that cannot substantiate objective truths. This article explores a novel externalist response that involves the concept of angels. As spiritual beings, angels can directly perceive God and verify these perceptions in their celestial community. Thus, the ‘direct perception of God’ is not inherently incapable of social verification. While invoking angels might appear contentious, it coheres with the externalist approach of conceptualising cognitive states under hypothetical settings. Despite the differences between humans and angels and their lack of interaction for verification purposes, our approach remains valid because mystics not only exemplify the same general type of ‘direct perception of God’ as angels but can also be preliminary members of a wider celestial community.

Recent decades have seen a renewal of interest in panpsychism as a solution to the hard problem of consciousness. This has, in part, also driven an increase in interest in classical Indian philosophical traditions among analytic philosophers of mind. Many of these cross-cultural studies pertaining to panpsychism (and cosmopsychism) have focused on one particularly influential school of Indian philosophy, Advaita (non-dual) Vedānta, the most famous proponent of which is Śaṅkara. In this work, we would like to consider the view of another influential philosopher and the school that developed based on his view – Rāmānuja (eleventh century CE) and Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism) Vedānta. We argue that a cosmopsychist-panentheistic metaphysics that is motivated by Rāmānuja’s views offers a solution to the hard problem that is preferable to other comparable views and could form the basis for a panentheistic conception of God that is compatible with the reality of the freedom of human selves.

From the thought of mid-twentieth-century Mexican philosopher Jorge Portilla (1919–1964), I develop a three-prong existentialist response to the problem of evil. One prong is granting that a version of the problem of evil is successful: no theodicy is credible while beholding innocent suffering. A second prong involves an affective engagement with evil that facilitates a loving human flourishing grounded in solidarity with sufferers, compassion, loving self-sacrifice, and taking responsibility for one’s own culpability. The final prong is the capacity of this affective engagement with evil to permit a belief in God as an existential commitment to a suffering God as a transcendental ideal of self-sacrificing love that guides one’s perpetual project of self-creation.

Rebel Angel Theodicy – often called Satan Theodicy – is the thesis that horrendous evils are directly or indirectly caused by angels who disobeyed God. In this article, I defend it, developing Gary Emberger’s suggestion that they influenced the course of evolution. After defending speculative theodicy, I expound Rebel Angel Theodicy and reply to seven objections that explicate the widespread judgement of implausibility:

1. 1. That the existence of angels is metaphysically problematic.

2. 2. That God has no good reason to create angels.

3. 3. That angels have no power to harm human beings.

4. 4. That God, foreknowing the possibility of rebellion, would not delegate to angels the power to guide evolution.

5. 5. That even if there was a good reason for God to delegate this power to angels it is metaphysically impossible for an omnipotent God to do so.

6. 6. That God, knowing of the angels’ rebellion, would subsequently intervene to put evolution back onto the preferred divine plan.

7. 7. That there is no plausible motive for angels to rebel.

In the philosophy of religion, ‘de jure objections’ is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of arguments for the conclusion that theistic belief is rationally impermissible, whether or not God exists. What we call ‘modal Calvinism’ counters these objections by proposing that ‘if God exists, God would ensure that theistic belief is rationally compelling on a global scale’, a modal conditional that is compatible with atheism. We respond to this modal Calvinist argument by examining it through the lenses of probability, modality, and logic – particularly, we apply analytical tools such as possible world semantics, Bayesian reasoning, and paraconsistent models. After examining various forms of the argument, we argue that none can compel atheists to believe that serious theistic possibilities worth considering would involve the purported divine measure.

According to modal panentheism, God encompasses all possible worlds, and a substantial number of concrete possible worlds exist. This article builds on previous work that has grounded modal panentheism in perfect-being theology, which holds that God possesses all great-making properties to the highest possible degree. These great-making properties are said to include power, knowledge, consciousness, goodness, and encompassment.

To date, scholarly discussion on modal panentheism has focused exclusively on divine goodness and encompassment. The aim of this article is to explore modal panentheism with respect to divine power, knowledge, and consciousness. By extending the existing discussion beyond goodness and encompassment, I hope to show how modal panentheism can offer coherent accounts of the divine attributes. In doing so, I develop and address numerous problems. These include the problem of distinct perspectives, the problem of contradictory perspectives, the problem of divine unity, the problem of contradictory indexicals, the problem of evil knowledge, and the problem of evil powers. I argue that none of these challenges are insurmountable.

The view that emerges is a coherent and highly promising concept of God that is not at a significant disadvantage relative to traditional theism.