## 1. The Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology in the Christian Tradition



Although modern thought tends to assume a sharp disjunction between
philosophy and theology, it is not at all obvious how to distinguish
them in a principled way. Suppose that we take philosophy in the
broadest sense to be the systematic use of human reason in an effort
to understand the most fundamental features of reality, and suppose
that we take theology in the broadest sense to be the study of God and
all things in relation to God. Then we should expect to see
considerable overlap between the two: after all, God, if there is a
God, is surely one of the fundamental features of reality, and one to
which all the other features presumably relate.



In practice, when we survey the history of Christian thought, we do
see considerable overlap between philosophy and theology. With respect
to their *topics* of inquiry, philosophers and theologians
alike ask questions about epistemology, axiology, and political
theory, as well as about metaphysics and fundamental ontology.
Similarly, with respect to their *methods* of inquiry,
philosophers and theologians alike interpret authoritative texts,
deploy arguments, and marshal evidence to support their conclusions.
Here one might insist that Christian theological claims are grounded
by appeals to "faith" or "authority", whereas
philosophical claims are grounded by appeals to "reason".
This contrast is promising when suitably developed, but it is not as
sharp as one might initially suppose. Theology also makes appeals to
common sense and ordinary human reason, and philosophy also has its
versions of faith and authority.



Of the making of typologies there is no end, but it is still worth
examining some of the most common ways that Christian thinkers
throughout the centuries have understood the relationship between
philosophy and theology. Without this historical background, it
becomes all-too-easy to draw the relationship in naive,
anachronistic, and overly simplistic ways. In fact, no single
interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology can
claim overwhelming support from the Christian tradition. From outside
the Christian tradition, while many non-Christian thinkers see
philosophy and theology as quite distinct, others deliberately blur
the distinction between them--because they think that theology is
actually just misguided philosophy.



At the top-level of the proposed typology, we can distinguish between
"Integration" and "Contrast" views.
Integration views do not distinguish philosophy and theology at all,
whereas Contrast views do. We can disambiguate the
"Contrast" category into "Cooperation" views,
"Disjunction" views, and "Conflict" views. The
most prominent Cooperation views treat philosophy as a valuable,
perhaps even necessary, tool for theological inquiry, and still allow
some degree of overlap between the two. Disjunction views, by
contrast, regard philosophy and theology as non-overlapping forms of
inquiry, which feature distinct and ultimately unrelated goals and
methods. "Conflict" views treat philosophy and theology as
not only distinct but mutually antagonistic. In fact, however, few
Christian thinkers have endorsed outright conflict between philosophy
and theology. But it is still worth discussing the Conflict view
explicitly, because some prominent Christian theologians throughout
history--for example, Tertullian, Martin Luther, or Karl
Barth--initially seem to advocate Conflict. Upon closer
inspection, however, their views are closer to those in the
Disjunction category.



These categories are crude. They could each be further divided, and
subdivided again. They focus mainly on different *Christian*
attitudes toward the interaction of philosophy and theology, rather
than on the attitudes of non-Christian philosophers. Some non-empty
categories are omitted altogether. But these categories do capture
much of the landscape, and at least show that there are more options
available than a naive conflict between faith and reason.


### 1.1 Integration



The Integration model treats philosophy and Christian theology as
continuous, integrated activities. On this model, rational inquiry
about God does not sharply divide into discrete activities called
"philosophy" and "theology". Instead, there is
simply the single, continuous intellectual task of trying to
understand God, and all things in relation to God, using all of
one's intellectual resources. This account does not deny the
importance of faith or revelation to the Christian intellectual life;
rather, it denies that faith and revelation properly belong to a
separate activity called "theology" in distinction from
another activity called "philosophy". According to this
view, when we engage in rational inquiry of any sort, we should draw
on every available source of knowledge that is relevant to that
inquiry. So when we engage in rational inquiry about Christian topics,
we should draw on scripture, Church tradition, and other such sources
of knowledge, whether we call the resulting inquiry
"theology", "philosophy", or something else.
To do anything else would be to hobble our inquiry from the outset,
according to the Integration view.



This account of the relationship between philosophy and theology has
deep roots in the Christian tradition. Before the rise of the medieval
university, it was the dominant view, and it still has contemporary
defenders (discussed below). Patristic thinkers did not typically
describe their own intellectual work as "theology". The
term "theology" already had a fixed meaning in late
antiquity. It meant "poetic speech about the gods", and
was in general associated with pagan story-telling and myth-making:
the great "theologians", were Homer and Hesiod. Even
though Christian thinkers like Gregory of Nazianzus sometimes acquired
the honorific title "Theologian", they did so because of
the lyrical and poetic quality of their writing, not because they
wrote about Christian doctrinal topics (Zachhuber 2020; McGinn
2008).



The general term that early Christian thinkers used to describe their
intellectual work was, more often than not, simply
"philosophy" or "Christian philosophy".
Christianity was regarded as the "true philosophy" over
against the false philosophical schools associated with pagan thought.
(See Justin Martyr, *Dialogue with Trypho* 8.1; Clement of
Alexandria, *Stromata* 1.28.3, 1.28.4 1.80.5,6; Augustine of
Hippo, *Against Julian*, 4.14.72.) This usage is consistent
with Pierre Hadot's (1995) claim that in Greco-Roman antiquity
philosophy was understood as a comprehensive way of life.
Christianity, on this model, is analogous to a philosophical school,
in Hadot's sense (see also Zachhuber 2020).



The Integration account continued to be the default account of the
relationship between philosophy and theology into the early Medieval
period. Before the rise of scholasticism in the great Western
universities, there was no sharp distinction between philosophy and
theology. Anselm of Canterbury, for example, certainly has the concept
of a line of inquiry that proceeds using reason alone, without
appealing to revelation, but he does not label that inquiry
"philosophy" in distinction from "theology".
Moreover, in his own writings, he frequently blurs any such
distinction, as he seamlessly moves between rational reflection and
argument, on the one hand, to prayers, meditations, and exclamations
of thanksgiving, on the other (e.g., *Proslogion* 1-4).
Like many premodern Christian thinkers, Anselm also held that
intellectual inquiry and personal holiness are linked, so that the
more one grows in Christian virtue, the more rationally one is able to
think about God (Adams 2004; Sweeney, 2011). This understanding of
inquiry and virtue is also a hallmark of the Integration account.


### 1.2 Contrast



Unlike the Integration model, the Contrast model insists that
philosophy and theology are fundamentally different forms of inquiry.
Strictly speaking, there can be many different Contrast models,
because the relevant sense of "contrast" comes in degrees.
I focus on three: Cooperation, Disjunction, and Conflict. On the
Cooperation account, philosophy and theology remain close cousins.
When rightly pursued, they cannot really conflict, and they can even
overlap in their respective topics of inquiry, sources, and methods.
Nevertheless, the Cooperation account holds that the overlap between
philosophy and theology is only partial, because they each begin from
different intellectual starting points and appeal to different sources
of evidence (Baker-Hytch 2016; Chignell 2009: 117; Simmons 2019). On
another version of the Contrast model, Disjunction, philosophy and
theology are even further apart: although they still do not conflict,
and may even consider the same topics in an attenuated sense, their
starting assumptions and methods of investigation are different enough
that they share no significant conclusions. Finally, Conflict accounts
assert that the conclusions of Christian theology are positively
irrational from the point of view of philosophy. Although some
historically important Christian thinkers might seem to endorse
Conflict, closer inspection shows that they do not. Nevertheless, in
the popular imagination, a persistent assumption holds that
Christianity requires a sharp conflict between theology and
philosophy--or at least faith and reason--and so it is worth
briefly discussing why Conflict has had few traditional defenders.


#### 1.2.1 Cooperation



On the Cooperation account, philosophy and theology are understood to
be different, but mutually supporting, intellectual activities. For
Christian thinkers who advocate Cooperation, philosophy and theology
form a coherent, mutually supportive whole. They are not in conflict
with respect to their conclusions, since truth cannot contradict
truth, but they differ with respect to their foundational axioms,
goals, and sources of evidence. Philosophy is understood as a preamble
to theology, while theology completes and fulfills philosophy. Thomas
Aquinas is a foundational advocate of the Cooperation account
(*Summa Theologiae* 1.1.1-8, *Summa Contra
Gentiles* 1.1.1-9, Hankey 2001). Often the relationship
between philosophy and theology is described in hierarchical and
instrumental terms: theology draws on philosophy as needed, because
philosophy is instrumentally useful to theology. According to a
traditional metaphor, philosophy is the servant of theology
(*ancilla theologiae*, literally "handmaid" of
theology; see Thomas Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae*, 1.1.5). In a
more contemporary idiom, theology uses conceptual tools provided by
philosophy in the pursuit of its own distinctive intellectual task:
elucidating the meaning and truth of revealed Christian doctrines.



On the Cooperation account, theology differs from philosophy chiefly
because theology assumes the truth of divine revelation, whereas
philosophy does not. Philosophy takes its foundational axioms and
assumptions from generally available truths of human reason and
sensory experience. Philosophy and theology also differ in the way
they argue and in the kinds of intellectual appeals that are proper to
each. Theologians can appeal to revelation--scripture and
authoritative Church tradition--in order to generate new lines of
inquiry, and can treat revealed truths as evidence in their
investigations. For their part, philosophers must appeal only to
premises and evidence that are in principle available to any rational
inquirer.



This distinction between "revealed truths" and
"truths of reason" implies that at least some revealed
truths are not also truths of reason. By hypothesis, such truths would
have remained unknown and unknowable had they not been revealed by
God. (It therefore follows that without revelation, Christian theology
could not exist, on the Cooperation account.) Paradigmatic instances
of revealed truths are the doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine
of the Incarnation. Throughout the centuries, most, though not all,
broadly orthodox Christian thinkers have held that human beings could
not reason their way to the truth of these doctrines without the aid
of divine revelation.



According to Aquinas, theologians use the conceptual tools furnished
by philosophy to elucidate the contents of revelation. Just like
philosophers, theologians make arguments, and their arguments appeal
to common standards of logic and rigor, even though they also draw on
theology's own unique (revealed) axioms and sources of evidence
(*Summa Theologiae* 1.1.1). Philosophical arguments cannot
prove the foundational truths of revelation, according to Aquinas, but
at the same time, revelation and reason cannot conflict. (That God
exists is a truth of reason, not revelation, for Aquinas--see
*Summa Theologiae* 1.2.2, reply to obj. 1.) Theologians can
therefore use common standards of philosophical reasoning to answer
any putative objections to their theological claims, by showing that
any alleged conflict is only apparent. So, for example, even though it
is not possible to establish that God is triune by means of
philosophical arguments, it is possible to use philosophical arguments
in a defensive mode, to answer objections alleging that the doctrine
of the trinity is logically incoherent. When arguing with other
Christians, theologians can appeal to revelation to support their
claims. When arguing with opponents who do not accept revelation, they
cannot (*Summa Theologiae* 1.1.8). Yet this restriction is not
really a disciplinary maxim designed to oppose philosophy to theology,
but a pragmatic admission that one cannot successfully persuade
opponents by appealing to premises they deny.


#### 1.2.2 Disjunction



Like Cooperation, the Disjunction view holds that philosophy and
theology are different forms of inquiry. Similarly, like Cooperation,
the Disjunction view also that agrees that there can be no real
conflict between the conclusions of philosophy (when true) and those
of theology. But the Disjunction view goes further: Disjunction
advocates deny that there is any significant overlap between
philosophy and theology at all.



Disjunction does not subordinate philosophy to theology or treat
philosophy as an essential tool for theology. Instead, to borrow a
term from contemporary science and religion debates, philosophy and
theology are "non-overlapping magisteria" (Gould 1997). In
particular, Cooperation's appeal to the distinction between
truths of reason and truths of revelation does not suffice to
distinguish philosophy from theology, according to Disjunction
advocates, who instead appeal to various more fundamental distinctions
of method or approach (see discussion below). Of course, even those
who explicitly advocate Disjunction will occasionally deploy
*some* methods associated with philosophy: carefully defining
terms, making formally valid arguments, uncovering contradictions in
opposing views, etc. Yet these methods are found in any form of
rational inquiry, and so (presumably) they do not belong to philosophy
alone.



Any given thinker's view of Disjunction will of course depend on
their underlying construal of philosophy and theology. Some
thinkers--even some Christian thinkers--endorse the
Disjunction view because they deny that theology is really a
propositional, truth-apt discourse that proceeds by way of arguments
and evidence. Instead, theology is something else
entirely--poetry, perhaps; or a form of worship, praise, or
prayer (Caputo 2015). This view of theology implies a sharp contrast
with Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy, modern philosophy, and
contemporary Anglo-American Analytic philosophy, though perhaps not
with philosophy *tout court*. Philosophers might associate this
view with the "expressivist" or "emotivist"
critiques of theology that were common in the heyday of logical
positivism. But in fact, versions of the "theology as
poetry" view are found throughout the history of Christian
thought (Beggiani 2014).



Other versions of the Disjunction view figure even more prominently in
the Christian tradition. The foundational Protestant reformers, Martin
Luther and John Calvin, both advocate Disjunction, in part because
they both reject the synthesis of philosophy and theology that
characterized late medieval scholasticism. According to Luther,
philosophy and theology proceed from entirely different perspectives,
with different starting points and different goals (1539 [1966: 244];
Grosshans 2017). Philosophy considers its objects of inquiry from the
perspective of common human reason and sense experience, with the goal
of trying to understand things as they actually are in the real world.
Theology considers its objects of inquiry from a creational and
eschatological perspective, with the goal of trying to understand them
in relation to God as their creator and final end. Furthermore, for
Luther, "creation" and its cognates are properly
*theological* terms whose meaning derives from scripture and
revelation, and which should not be identified with any philosophical
notion of a first cause or prime mover; *mutatis mutandis*, the
same point hold for creation's final end in God (1539 [1966:
245, 248]).



Even when philosophy and theology do consider the same object of
inquiry--for example, the human being--this difference in
perspective ensures that the lines of inquiry remain completely
separate. Luther's 1536 "Disputation Concerning
Man", for example opens with the thesis that "Philosophy
or human wisdom defines man as an animal having reason, sensation, and
body" and then goes on to explore this definition. But his
exploration only serves to contrast this philosophical view of the
human being with the perspective of theology. Theology,



> 
> 
> from the fulness of its wisdom, defines man as whole and
> perfect... made in the beginning after the image of God...
> subject to the power of the devil, sin and death...freed and
> given eternal life only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ. (1536
> [1966: 137-138])
> 
> 
> 



Luther's theological account of the human being does not
*contradict* the philosophical account, but it also does not
complete or augment that account, because (according to Luther)
properly theological claims are simply unintelligible to philosophy
(1536 [1966: 137-140]; 1539 [1966: 240-241, 242]). They do
not belong to the same universe of discourse.



Calvin shares Luther's basic understanding of the disjunction
between philosophy and theology. Like Luther, Calvin holds that the
Fall has corrupted the power of human reason, but has not destroyed it
altogether (*Institutes* 2.2.12-17). When restricted to
its proper sphere--matters pertaining to the natural
world--philosophy remains valuable. But as a result of the Fall,
"heavenly things" are inaccessible to unaided human reason
(*Institutes* 2.2.13). By "heavenly things", Calvin
means the saving truths of the Gospel.



So far, Calvin's understanding might seem quite similar to the
Cooperation view, which also denies that revealed truths are
accessible to human reason. But Calvin further distinguishes
philosophy from theology at the level of method, by denying that true
theology engages in abstract, speculative reasoning, which he
associates with philosophy, and insisting that any legitimate
knowledge of God must be practical and affective (*Institutes*
1.12.1, 1.5.10). For example, according to Calvin, it would be impious
and dangerous to speculate on all the actions that God could possibly
do--God's absolute power. Instead, we should focus our
loving attention on what God has actually done, paradigmatically in
the person and work of Christ (*Institutes* 3.24.2; Helm 2004:
24-26). Theology presupposes Christian faith, which is an
affective response to Christ, and which requires "confidence and
assurance of heart" (*Institutes* 3.2.33). Yet scholastic
philosophy, with its "endless labyrinths" and
"obscure definitions", has "drawn a veil over Christ
to hide him" (*Institutes* 3.2.2).



For Luther and Calvin, then, there can be no genuinely
*philosophical* theology. Even though both agree that
philosophical speculation can arrive at some limited truths about,
e.g., a first cause, or about the nature of human beings, those truths
are of no theological interest; even as bare propositional claims,
they are already better and more fully known in theological inquiry.
From the other direction, the properly Christian notions of God as
creator and of the human being as *imago dei*, e.g., resist all
philosophical speculation. Of course, Luther and Calvin can only hold
these views because of the way they understand philosophy and
theology. They both identify philosophy with late medieval
scholasticism, and they both understand theology as a kind of
existential encounter with God and Christ, as revealed in the
scriptures. Different accounts of philosophy and theology would yield
different construals of the underlying disjunction, or no disjunction
at all.


#### 1.2.3 Conflict



None of the three views considered so far--Integration,
Cooperation, and Disjunction--assume any real, essential conflict
between philosophy and theology. All three views allow for
*apparent* conflict, due to errors of reasoning or
interpretation, or when either discipline departs from its own proper
sphere, but they do not assert that Christian theology or Christian
faith is irrational from the point of view of philosophy, nor do they
hold that any significant Christian doctrinal claims can be falsified
by sound philosophical reasoning. Throughout the history of Christian
thought, many prominent Christian philosophers and theologians have
criticized philosophy, or fulminated against what they regard as
philosophical overreach, but few if any have regarded philosophy and
theology as essentially incompatible, in the sense just outlined.
Popular understandings of "faith" and "reason"
often posit a deep and abiding conflict between the two, and so it is
important to emphasize just how rare that position has actually been
among major Christian philosophers and theologians. Key figures who
are often regarded as Conflict advocates, turn out, upon closer
inspection, to hold a different view.



For example, the Patristic theologian Tertullian famously asks
"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" but he never
actually asserted the irrationalist credo "I believe because it
is absurd" (*De praescriptione haereticorum* 7; *De
carne Christi* 5.4; see also Harrison 2017). Instead, like all the
Patristic fathers, Tertullian regarded human reason as one of
God's greatest gifts; *ratio* (reason) is one of his most
frequently used nouns, and his own writing draws heavily on the stoic
philosophy of his day (Osborn 1997).



Turning to a putative modern irrationalist, Soren Kierkegaard
presents the incarnation as a paradox that offends human reason in his
(pseudonymous) 1844 *Philosophical Fragments*, but close
reading shows that "paradox" and "offence" do
not equate to "formal contradiction" (1844 [1985: 53,
101]; Evans 1989). Rather, the incarnation seems paradoxical only to
*fallen, sinful* human reason (1844, [1985: 46-47]). So
the "offence" of the incarnation resolves into the claim
that the doctrine of the incarnation had to be revealed, because its
truth exceeds the limits of fallen reason. But, as discussed above,
accepting this claim about the incarnation has been the norm
throughout the Christian tradition. Moreover, according to
Kierkegaard, even though the truth of the incarnation exceeds the
limits of human reason, the claim that reason has limits is itself one
that can be assessed by human reason (1846 [1992: 580]; Evans 1989:
355).



Finally, the twentieth century theologian Karl Barth's famous
"No!" to philosophical reasoning about God is also best
understood as a rejection of philosophical overreach rather than a
rejection of philosophy per se (Brunner & Barth 1946). According
to Barth, we cannot establish the truth of theological claims using
generally persuasive arguments available to any rational enquirer. But
Barth had no quarrel with using philosophy in an Anselmian mode, to
elucidate and clarify the implications of divine revelation, and in
principle he even allows that there could be a genuinely Christian
philosophy (1932 [1975: 6]; Diller 2010).



These prominent Christian thinkers all criticize what they see as
philosophical hubris, but they do not set philosophy and theology as
such in essential opposition, and they do not agree that any
belief-worthy Christian doctrines actually are irrational--still
less that they can be falsified by sound philosophical reasoning. In a
way, this conclusion should be unsurprising. It is a basic claim of
Christian orthodoxy that God is the very summit and source of
rationality, and that human reason is one of God's greatest
gifts (Turner 2004; A. N. Williams 2007; Crisp et al. 2012). Christian
thinkers have differed about the degree to which sin and the Fall have
caused human reason to malfunction, but the suggestion that
theological truths conflict with *properly functioning* human
reason is alien to the orthodox Christian tradition, and so it is
unsurprising that few major Christian thinkers have endorsed it. Far
more common is the claim that some theological truths are inaccessible
to philosophy because they somehow surpass human reason. On this line,
when there is an apparent conflict between a philosophical conclusion
and some Christian truth, the conflict is treated as a sign that
philosophy has overstepped its own proper boundaries, not a sign that
Christian truth actually conflicts with human reason. By and large,
even the sharpest Christian critics of philosophy have held this
view.


### 1.3 From Historical Models to Contemporary Philosophical Theology



This historical survey has focused on prominent models of the
relationship between philosophy and theology in the history of
Christian thought. The survey also illuminates some contemporary
philosophical and theological debates about how to understand this
relationship.



Notwithstanding its Patristic origins, the Integrationist view has
been especially prominent in recent philosophy of religion. For
example, Alvin Plantinga's (1984) programmatic essay
"Advice to Christian Philosophers" intentionally blurs the
distinction between philosophy and theology. Plantinga argues that
Christian philosophers qua philosophers are entitled to base their
arguments on revealed truths, and urges them to investigate
distinctively Christian questions that may be of no interest to the
wider philosophical community. More recent defenders of
"analytic theology" have also taken an integrationist
line. According to Nicholas Wolterstorff, the demise of
Enlightenment-style foundationalism has thoroughly blurred the
distinction between philosophy and theology:



> 
> 
> What difference does [this distinction] make, now that analytic
> philosophers no longer believe that for some piece of discourse to be
> a specimen of philosophy, the writer must base all his arguments on
> public philosophical reason? Call it what you will. (Wolterstorff
> 2009: 168; see also Stump 2013: 48-49; Timpe 2015: 13)
> 
> 
> 



Yet this prominent Integrationist line has been strongly criticized by
other philosophers of religion, who implicitly endorse some version of
the Contrast view, on which philosophy cannot legitimately appeal to
theological sources of evidence like revelation and Church authority
(Simmons 2019; Schellenberg 2018; Oppy 2018; Draper 2019: 2-4).
At the same time, according to many Christian theologians, analytic
philosophy as such is almost uniquely unsuitable for investigating
properly theological questions (Milbank 2009; Hart 2013:
123-134). On the view of these critics, analytic philosophical
theology does not revive the Patristic integration of philosophy and
theology at all; rather, it remains a distinctly anti-theological form
of modern philosophy.



Contemporary philosophers and theologians continue to debate the
proper relationship between philosophy and theology. Before
considering these debates in further detail (in
 Section 3),
 however, it is useful to briefly survey recent work in analytic
philosophical theology. The fact that the Integrationist view has been
so prominent among contemporary analytic philosophers of religion has
helped shape a philosophical climate in which self-identified
philosophers, working in departments of philosophy, find it completely
natural to investigate explicitly Christian theological questions,
from within the framework of normative Christian orthodoxy, in the
course of their academic work.


## 2. Recent Work in Analytic Philosophical Theology



Recent work in analytic philosophical theology has engaged with nearly
every major Christian doctrine. But work has focused on the most
central doctrines: Trinity, Incarnation and Christology, Salvation and
Atonement, and Sin and Original Sin. This section lays out the most
significant philosophical problems associated with each doctrine and
identifies some of the foundational philosophical responses from
contemporary thinkers.


### 2.1 Trinity



Analytic philosophical theology on the Trinity has focused primarily
on the "logical" problem of the Trinity, the problem of
how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--construed as three
really existing, really distinct divine entities--can also be
exactly one God (Cartwright 1987). The Church's first two
ecumenical councils defined the orthodox terminology now used to state
the doctrine, but the councils did not attempt a philosophical
solution to the logical problem. In the traditional terminology, the
Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct divine *persons*
(*personae* in Latin; *hypostases* in Greek) who share a
single divine *nature* (*substantia* in Latin;
*ousia* in Greek; see Tanner 1990: 5, 24, 28). The logical
problem then becomes the problem of how three divine persons (whatever
we mean by "persons") can instantiate a single divine
nature (whatever we mean by "nature") while remaining
numerically distinct.



Responses to the logical problem can be grouped into several families,
each with its own advantages and disadvantages. "Social"
trinitarians defend an account of the Trinity on which the Father,
Son, and Spirit are three distinct centers of consciousness, with
three distinct centers of knowledge, will, and action, who
nevertheless count as a single God. Social trinitarians attempt to
secure the divine unity by arguing that a single divine nature can
support three separate consciousnesses. They may also claim that the
three persons necessarily love each other so perfectly and act in such
harmony that they are properly regarded as a single God. Prominent
social trinitarians include Richard Swinburne (1994), William Lane
Craig (2006), Keith Yandell (2009), and William Hasker (2013).



By contrast, "Latin" trinitarians deny that the Father,
Son, and Spirit are distinct centers of consciousness. On Latin
trinitarianism, even though the Father, Son, and Spirit are
numerically distinct *persons*, they are not numerically
distinct divine *agents*. When they act, they do not merely act
in perfect harmony (as on social trinitarianism). Rather they are
(somehow) a single actor, with a single will, carrying out a single
action. The special challenge for Latin trinitarianism is to explain
how it can be the case that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so
construed, really do exist as concrete, distinct entities, and are not
just different names for the same entity, or different phases in the
life of a not-essentially triune God. Brian Leftow offers the most
well-developed Latin model, which appeals to an extended analogy to a
time-travelling chorus-line dancer (2004).



Unsurprisingly, the sharpest critics of Latin trinitarianism are those
who advocate a social trinity, and vice-versa: each side insists that
the theoretical costs of the opposing view are too great. So Latin
trinitarians charge that social trinitarians do not escape tri-theism
(Leftow 1999; see also Merricks 2006); social trinitarians argue that
their Latin counterparts cannot explain how the Father and Son could
have a genuine, "I-you", personal relationship, as
the Biblical account seems to suggest (e.g., Matt 3:17, Mark 14:36;
Hasker 2013: 114-118; McCall 2010: 87-88).



Philosophical responses to the logical problem of the Trinity do not
divide exhaustively into social models and Latin models.
"Relative identity" theorists argue that identity is
kind-relative, so the Father can be the same *God* as the Son
without being the same *person* as the son (van Inwagen 1995).
"Constitution" theorists make a similar claim by drawing
on the metaphysics of constitution. According to constitution
theorists, a lump of bronze can *constitute* a statue without
being identical to it, since we can destroy the statue (by melting it
down) without destroying the bronze. So too, they argue, the divine
nature can constitute the three divine persons without being identical
to them, or without entailing that they are identical to each other
(Brower & Rea 2005). The metaphysics of constitution requires a
coherent notion of "numerical sameness without identity".
The sharpest criticism of relative identity accounts of the Trinity
takes aim at the underlying notion that identity is kind-relative in
the relevant sense. Similarly, the sharpest criticism of constitution
views expresses doubts about the cogency and usefulness of the
metaphysics of constitution (Merricks 2006).



Scott Williams defends a hybrid "Latin social" model of
the Trinity on which the Father, Son, and Spirit are each constituted
by the single divine nature, without being numerically identical to
the divine nature or to any other person (2013, 2017). Unlike other
Latin models, on Williams's account each of the persons is a
distinct agent; unlike other social models, they share numerically one
set of powers, including one will (2017). Even so, according to
Williams, the persons can each token the indexical "I"
with different senses. Critics argue that Williams's model
falters at precisely this point (Hasker 2018b; see also S. Williams
2020).



For an extended discussion, see the entry,
 Trinity.


### 2.2 Incarnation and Christology



By the close of the fourth century, the early Church had agreed that
God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is no less divine than
God the Father. But this Trinitarian settlement led directly to
another, equally vexing question: how could Jesus of Nazareth, a human
man, also be identical to God the Son? After another period of intense
debate, the Church defined the doctrine of the Incarnation, which
asserts that Christ is one person (or one *hypostasis*) who
exists in two natures, one fully human, the other fully divine (Tanner
1990: 83; Kelly 1978: 338-343). Yet, as with the doctrine of the
Trinity, on its own, this conciliar terminology does not attempt to
solve the underlying philosophical problem.



In contemporary philosophy, this problem has been called the
"fundamental philosophical problem of Christology". As
Richard Cross puts it:



> 
> 
> how is it that one and the same thing could be both divine (and thus,
> on the face of it, necessary, and necessarily omniscient, omnipotent,
> eternal, immutable, impassible, and impeccable) and human (and thus,
> on the face of it, have the complements of all these properties)?
> (Cross 2009: 453)
> 
> 
> 



In other words, the fundamental philosophical problem of Christology
is the problem that arises when a single subject bears incompatible
properties. Christ seems to be both necessarily omniscient, as the
divine Son, the second person of the Trinity, and yet also limited in
knowledge, as the human man, Jesus of Nazareth--and so on for
other divine and human attributes. Yet Christ is one person, not two:
he *just is* the divine Son and he *just is* Jesus of
Nazareth. On standard interpretations of logical consistency, nothing
can have logically incompatible properties at the same time and in the
same respect--hence the problem.



A venerable attempted solution to the problem of incompatible
properties makes use of grammatical modifiers to index Christological
predications to their respective natures: Christ is limited in
knowledge *qua* his human nature, and omniscient *qua*
his divine nature, where "qua" means "with respect
to" or "in virtue of". More simply: Christ
*qua* human is limited in knowledge; Christ *qua* divine
is omniscient. The thought of Thomas Aquinas furnishes a foundational
source for this solution (*Summa Theologiae* 3.16.1-12;
for broader discussion of patristic and medieval uses, see Cross 2002:
192-205). Thomas Senor forcefully argues that this grammatical
solution does not work, for it cannot block the relevant entailment:
since the one Christ really is human and really is divine, it follows
that the one Christ is also limited in knowledge (*qua* human)
and omniscient (*qua* divine), and so the contradiction remains
(Senor 2002; see also Morris 1986).



Kenotic Christologies hold that at the point of incarnation, in order
to become a human being, God the Son relinquished the divine
attributes (Forrest 2000; Evans 2002, 2006). In a way, the kenotic
option neatly solves the problem of incompatible properties, since
Christ is not omnipotent and omniscient (etc.) at the same time as he
is limited in power and knowledge. Kenotic Christologies have a
venerable pedigree, as well as some clear Biblical warrant
(Philippians 2; for discussion see Evans 2006; McGuckin 1994 [2004:
189]. But if omnipotence and omniscience are *essential* divine
attributes, then it is not possible for God the Son to relinquish them
during the incarnation and regain them after the incarnation while
remaining self-identical.



Compositional Christologies try to solve the problem of incompatible
properties by appealing to the various "parts" that
together compose the whole Christ. According to Thomas V. Morris,
Christ is composed of the divine mind of God the Son, a human mind,
and a human body. On his telling, Christ counts as fully divine,
because he has a divine mind, which is the seat of his omnipotence and
omniscience; he also counts as fully human because he has a human mind
and a human body (Morris 1986). Morris seeks to dispel the
contradiction between divine and human attributes by revising our
understanding of Christ's human attributes. Morris denies that
human beings as such are essentially limited in power and knowledge
(etc.). This move clears the way for attributing omnipotence and
omniscience (etc.) even to the human, incarnate Christ, while also
denying that the human, incarnate Christ is limited in power and
knowledge. Richard Swinburne (1994) defends a similar Christology, but
according to Swinburne, Christ is composed only of God the Son and a
human body, which together constitute both a human way of thinking and
acting and also a divine way of thinking and acting.



Other compositional Christologies appeal to supposed mereological
facts about the incarnation to ground a more sophisticated version of
the "qua move" (discussed above). If God the Son has human
parts and divine parts, then perhaps the whole mereological composite
can borrow properties from its constituent parts without violating the
law of non-contradiction. Analogously, we might say that an apple is
both colored and not colored, since it is red (colored) with respect
to its skin, but white (not colored) with respect to its flesh. There
is a sense in which the apple as a whole is both colored and not
colored because it borrows properties from its parts. Perhaps
something similar can be said about Christ, understood as a
mereological composite of God the Son, a human body, and a human soul.
Leading advocates of this sort of view include Brian Leftow (1992,
2011) and Eleonore Stump (2002).



Timothy Pawl (2014, 2016) seeks to dispel the fundamental problem by
revising the truth conditions of Christological predications like
"Christ is omniscient" and "Christ is limited in
knowledge". According to Pawl, it is incorrect that "being
omniscient" and "being limited in knowledge" are
logically contradictory properties at all. In fact, according to Pawl,
once we correctly understand their truth conditions, we can see that
they can both be true of the same subject after all. On Pawl's
account, "Christ is omniscient" is true just in case
Christ has a nature that is omniscient and "Christ is limited in
knowledge" is true just in case Christ has a nature that is
limited in knowledge. Because Christ, and only Christ (so far as we
know) has two natures, only Christ can be both omniscient and limited
in knowledge. At first glance, Pawl's proposed solution might
seem to be the "qua move" once again, in different dress.
But it is importantly different: Pawl is content to affirm the very
entailments (e.g., "Christ is omniscient and limited in
knowledge") that the qua move seeks to block; he simply denies
that this entailment is logically contradictory.



Jc Beall goes a step further and argues that some predicates
really are both true and false of Christ, because Christ really is a
contradictory being (2019, 2021). Beall defends a contradictory
Christology because he accepts a non-standard model of logic, one on
which some predicates can be neither true nor false of a subject, and
other predicates can be both true and false of a subject. According to
Beall, logic as such--that is, his favored account of
logic--is neutral about whether any given substantive theory
contains true contradictions. To determine whether it does, we must
examine the theory's axiomatic statements. When we examine the
axioms of orthodox Christology, according to Beall, we find that they
include authoritative conciliar statements that are most naturally
read as contradictory--e.g., "Christ is passible and
impassible" (2019: 415). Rather than revise or reinterpret such
statements so that they are not contradictory, we should accept that
they are.


### 2.3 Atonement and Salvation



Arguably, the deepest and most fundamental Christian affirmation is
that Christ saves. In traditional terminology, another way to express
the same affirmation is that Christ "atones" for the sins
of human beings. Unlike the doctrines of the Trinity and the
Incarnation, however, the early Church never formally defined a single
orthodox account of exactly how Christ saves or what it is about his
life, death, and resurrection that accomplishes that saving work. As a
result, a variety of theories or models of atonement have proliferated
throughout the centuries. Contemporary work in analytic philosophical
theology typically builds on these models, reformulates them in
contemporary language, and seeks to defend them from criticism.



Satisfaction models argue that as a result of their sinfulness, human
beings have a debt or obligation to God that they cannot possibly
repay. By becoming incarnate, living a sinless life, and voluntarily
dying for the sake of humanity, Christ successfully discharges the
debts and obligations that human beings owe to God. Anselm's
"Why God Became Human" (*Cur deus homo*) is the
*locus classicus* for the satisfaction theory, which has more
recently been defended by Swinburne (1988). Closely related to
satisfaction models, penal substitution models claim that human beings
deserve punishment from God as a result of their sinfulness. Christ
saves by freely agreeing to be punished in their place. Mark Murphy
(2009) proposes a similar model of "vicarious punishment",
on which Christ's suffering actually counts as the required
punishment for guilty human beings, since knowing that a loved one
suffers in one's place is itself a form of punishment.



Satisfaction and penal substitution theorists must explain why a
perfectly merciful God would require satisfaction or punishment from
human beings at all, and why a perfectly just God would allow an
innocent person to play the required role (Porter 2004). Accordingly,
satisfaction and penal substitution views have been heavily criticized
by modern and contemporary theologians for depicting God as a petty,
wrathful tyrant. Adolph von Harnack's nineteenth-century
criticism of Anselm remains representative. According to Harnack,
Anselm's account depends on a



> 
> 
> mythological conception of God as the mighty private man, who is
> incensed at the injury done to His honor and does not forego His wrath
> till He has received an at least adequately great equivalent. (1899:
> 77)
> 
> 
> 



More recently, feminist theologians and philosophers have criticized
satisfaction and penal substitution views for valorizing suffering
(Brown and Parker 1989).



Eleonore Stump (2018) argues that typical satisfaction and penal
substitution accounts cannot address the sinner's persistent
dispositions toward wrongdoing and concomitant feelings of shame. She
dubs her positive proposal the "Marian" interpretation of
atonement, and argues that it can explain how sinners are freed from
shame and restored to fellowship with God. The proposal defies easy
summary but it advances an account of atonement as union with God that
is further explained using second-personal, psychological notions like
"mind-reading" and empathy (2018: 138-139). Christ
on the cross mind-reads--that is, psychically
experiences--the mental states of every human sinner. Sinful
human beings are thereby united to Christ, and so to God. When the
indwelling Holy Spirit leads sinners to respond to Christ with love,
they also will what God wills. The resulting state of union with God
also heals the stain on the soul that is the sinner's shame.



Several other models, also prominent in the Patristic and medieval
tradition, have so far received little attention from analytic
philosophers of religion. These include "ransom" theories
on which human beings are freed from Satan's grasp, and
especially "theosis" or "divinization"
accounts of atonement and salvation, on which Christ's saving
work consists in perfecting human beings so that they become as divine
as a creature can be. (Jacobs 2009 and Mosser 2021 are important
exceptions). Similarly, few contemporary philosophers defend the
modern "moral exemplar" model, on which Christ saves by
being a perfect moral example for other human beings to imitate.
(Quinn 1993 offers a highly qualified defense, but holds that Christ
is more than just a moral exemplar).


### 2.4 Sin, Original Sin, and the Fall



The doctrine of sin and the doctrine of atonement are correlative in
the same way that a disease and its remedy are correlative. If sin is
that from which Christ saves us, then the strength of the remedy
(atonement) must vary according the severity of the disease (sin). As
a first approximation, a sinful act can be thought of as a morally bad
act for which the sinner is responsible. But the language of
"sin" adds something to the language of moral wrongdoing:
a sin is a failure or fault with respect to God. Like other Christian
doctrines, the doctrine of sin poses tricky philosophical problems. To
see those problems more clearly, it is useful to disambiguate the
doctrine of sin into several distinct components: the first sin, the
Fall, original sin, and personal sin.



For extended discussion, see the entry
 sin in Christian thought.


#### 2.4.1 The First Sin



The problem of the first sin is the problem of how the very first
sinful act is even possible, given various Christian axioms about the
goodness and creative power of God, and various philosophical
assumptions about the nature of freedom and moral responsibility. The
problem of the first sin is sometimes treated as a question about the
fall of Satan. It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to explain
how Satan--by hypothesis, an angel created by God with a rational
intellect, an upright will, and wholly good desires and
dispositions--could ever make the sinful choice to reject God.
Augustine (*City of God*, Book 12), Anselm ("On the Fall
of the Devil" *De casu diaboli*), and Duns Scotus
(*Ordinatio* 2, dist. 6, q. 2 ) all wrestle with this problem.
Contemporary philosophers who try to improve on their efforts include
Barnwell (2009, 2017), MacDonald (1999), Rogers (2008), and Timpe
(2012). Their responses all seek to explain how Satan's choice
is metaphysically possible, by appealing to their own favored accounts
of human freedom and conscious attention. Wood (2016) further
distinguishes between the "hard problem" of how
Satan's sinful choice is metaphysically possible, and the
"harder problem" of how it can be subjectively
rational--rational from the point of view of Satan himself.


#### 2.4.2 The Fall of Adam and Eve



The biblical story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3) recounts the story of
the first human sin and its consequences. The traditional story of the
fall of Adam and Eve does not seem consistent with either an
evolutionary account of human origins or what we know about human
history more generally. On some understandings, questions about the
historicity of the Fall are not properly *philosophical*
questions at all. Yet it does seem like a properly philosophical task
to articulate a doctrine of the fall that is both internally
consistent and consistent with other things we know to be true.
Moreover, the doctrine of the Fall is conceptually connected to other
aspects of the doctrine of sin as well as to the doctrine of
salvation.



Peter van Inwagen presents an account of the Fall that maintains many
of its most important elements and, he claims, is consistent with
evolutionary theory. Importantly, van Inwagen does not assert that
this account is true, but only "true for all we know"
(2004). In a similar vein, Hud Hudson (2014) offers an ingenious
defense of a literal reading of the Genesis account that appeals to
contemporary "growing block" theories of time. Despite
initial impressions, neither van Inwagen nor Hudson are really
concerned with defending quasi-literal readings of Genesis. Instead,
they want to show that objections to those readings presuppose highly
contestable philosophical--rather than empirical or
scientific--assumptions.


#### 2.4.3 Original Sin



In Christian theology, "original sin" in the strictest
sense refers to the human condition after the Fall and not to the
first human sin itself. The fall is the cause of the condition of
original sin: because of Adam and Eve's sin, subsequent human
beings somehow "inherit" a disposition toward sin and an
attraction toward evil that makes it inevitable that they will sin. On
some stronger interpretations, all subsequent human beings are also
justly regarded as guilty by God from birth, even before they have
sinned themselves. Even apart from worries about the historicity of
the fall, the philosophical challenges posed by this doctrine are
obvious. How can people living now be morally responsible for the sins
of the first human beings? What is the mechanism by which sin and
guilt are "inherited" from past generations? If it is
inevitable that all human beings will sin, can God justly punish
them?



Some Christian philosophers have simply rejected the stronger versions
of the doctrine of original sin as incoherent. Swinburne, for
instance, denies that all human beings are born guilty as a result of
the sin of their first parents and argues that the condition of
original sin only makes it very likely, rather than inevitable, that
they will sin themselves (1989: 141-43). Other philosophers have
attempted to show that even a strong doctrine of original sin can be
philosophically coherent, given the right metaphysical framework.
Michael Rea, for instance, draws on fission theory and the metaphysics
of temporal parts to suggest a way that contemporary humans might bear
responsibility for the sin of Adam by virtue of being counterparts or
stages of Adam himself (2007). He also argues that a Molinist-inspired
doctrine of "transworld depravity" might accomplish much
of what Christians want from the traditional doctrine of original sin
(2007). John Mullen (2007) also constructs a Molinist account of
original sin and inherited guilt. On Molinism, God knows all the true
counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, which means that God knows
every free choice that every human being would make in every possible
situation. According to Mullen, if it were true that every free
creature would sin in an ideal, garden of Eden situation, then God
could justly punish them in the actual world for what they would have
done in that counterfactual world.


#### 2.4.4 Personal Sin



"Personal sin" refers to individual sinful acts. Because
the philosophical problems associated with personal sin initially seem
very similar to the problems associated with moral wrongdoing, there
has been comparatively little philosophical work on personal sin.
Still, important definitional questions remain about exactly how, if
at all, sin should be distinguished from moral wrongdoing, whether
there are sinful actions that are not immoral actions, and,
conversely, whether there are immoral actions that are not sinful
(Mitchell 1984; Dalferth 1984; Adams 1991; Couenhoven 2009).


### 2.5 Other Topics



There are philosophical questions raised by nearly all Christian
doctrines and practices, and so there are many fertile areas of
inquiry that still remain comparatively underexplored. This brief
survey has focused on the most widely treated areas of analytic
philosophical theology. But some of the most creative work has
branched out into other domains including the Eucharist (Arcadi 2018;
Pickup 2015); liturgy, ritual, and worship (Cuneo 2016); bodily
resurrection and personal identity (van Inwagen 1978; Merricks 1999;
Zimmerman 1999; Rudder Baker 2001); heaven (Walls 2002; Ribeiro 2011),
hell (Walls 1992; Adams 1993; Kvanvig 1993; Sider 2002; Buckareff
& Plug 2005) and purgatory (Walls 2011; Dumsday 2014).


### 2.6 The Rise of "Analytic Theology"



In 2009 Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea published their edited volume
*Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology*.
The volume's contributors collectively try to make the case that
analytic philosophy offers a valuable and neglected resource for
Christian theologians. A new research program developed in its wake,
and the ensuing years have seen the rise of a self-identified school
of "analytic theologians", who use the tools and methods
of analytic philosophy to address Christian theological topics.



At present, it is not clear whether there is any meaningful difference
between Christian "analytic theology" and Christian
"philosophical theology", which has been treated as a kind
of philosophy. As the discussion above indicates, analytic
philosophical theology has been produced largely by Christian
philosophers working in philosophy departments, rather than by
theologians in departments of theology or divinity schools. Classic
works of philosophical theology like Swinburne (1994) and Adams (2000)
seem like analytic theology *avant la lettre*, for example, and
much recent work called "analytic theology" seems quite
similar to previous work called "philosophical theology"
or even "philosophy of religion" (e.g., Mullins 2016). Yet
some self-described analytic theologians have also insisted that
Christian analytic theology is really a form of *theology*
(Torrance [Alan] 2013; Torrance [Andrew] 2019; Crisp, Arcadi, &
Wessling 2019). They emphasize that Christian analytic theology is an
internal project of faith seeking understanding that, as theology,
holds itself accountable to scripture and Church tradition. Yet
whether Christian analytic theology is properly regarded as a kind of
philosophy or a kind of theology depends on how we draw the underlying
distinction between philosophy and theology--if indeed we draw
such a distinction at all.


## 3. Philosophy of Religion, Philosophical Theology, Christian Theology: Is There A Difference and Does it Matter?



It might seem odd that analytic philosophy of religion (APR) includes
explicitly Christian philosophical theology of the sort discussed in
 Section 2.
 Yet most philosophers of religion working in the analytic tradition
are Christian theists (Bourget & Chalmers 2014; De Cruz 2017).
They avowedly want to explore their faith using analytic philosophical
tools, and see no problem in calling their work Christian philosophy,
philosophical *theology*, or more recently, "analytic
theology". Of course, philosophy of religion as such is broader
than APR, and APR is broader than Christian APR. There are
philosophers of religion whose work is analytic but not Christian
(e.g., Lebens 2020; Mizrahi 2020; Steinhart 2020; Oppy 2018;
Schellenberg 2018; Draper 2019), Christian but not analytic (e.g.,
Westphal 2001; Pattison 2011), and neither analytic nor Christian
(e.g., Hammerschlag 2016; Burley 2016). Even so, the predominance of
Christian philosophical theology--or "Plantinga-style
Christian philosophy" (Schellenberg 2018)--within APR has
recently reopened some contentious debates about the proper
relationship between philosophy and Christian theology.



These debates can be grouped around two different--and
opposing--lines of criticism. According to the first line, much
APR is too Christian and too theological: not really philosophy at
all, but a thinly-disguised form of Christian theology--perhaps
even a form of apologetics (Levine 2000; Knepper 2013: 9; Draper 2019:
2). Conversely, according to the second line, advanced by prominent
theologians, APR is neither fully Christian nor fully theological. On
this line of criticism, APR does not really wrestle with the
transcendent God of Christian faith, but tends to construct and
examine its own false "God of the philosophers" (Milbank
2009; Hart 2013; Oliver 2010; see also Harris & Insole 2005, 17).
Although mutually opposing, both lines of criticism raise an important
methodological question: how--if at all--should we
distinguish philosophy about Christian topics from Christian theology?
 Section 1
 (above) surveyed important responses to this question in the history
of Christian thought. This section addresses the question in the
context of contemporary challenges to analytic philosophy of
religion.


### 3.1 Analytic Philosophy of Religion: Too Theological?



The charge that APR is "too theological" can be
disambiguated into two distinct worries. The first worry concerns the
*scope* of APR when considered as a whole: APR is too narrow,
because it focuses excessively on Christian theological topics, to the
exclusion of other equally important matters. The second worry
concerns the *sources and methods* of Christian APR
specifically: the sources and methods of Christian APR belong more
properly to theology than to philosophy.


#### 3.1.1 Narrowness of Scope?



The charge that APR as a discipline is "too Christian" or
"too theological" could be understood as a worry about its
scope: perhaps APR focuses too much on Christian theological topics,
or at least on versions of monotheism that are compatible with
Christianity, and is therefore too narrow in scope. Critics who
advance the narrowness worry include Trakakis 2008, Wildman 2010,
Knepper 2013, Schilbrack 2014, Lewis 2015, Jones 2019, Draper 2019,
Timpe & Hereth 2019, Mizrahi 2020. Although the narrowness worry
has wide currency, it is not always clear how to understand it as a
properly philosophical criticism. This problem is exacerbated by the
fact that the narrowness worry is more often aimed at the field of APR
as a whole, rather than at individual instances of APR. After all, the
general claim that APR is "too Christian" does not entail
that any specific argument of any specific philosopher is unsound.
Similarly, even if it is true that APR as a whole should be
"less Christian", it is hard to see why that fact would
require any individual philosopher to change her research and teaching
focus (Schilbrack 2014: 12).



Still, some versions of the narrowness worry are more philosophical
than others. According to more philosophical versions, Christian APR
frequently fails as philosophy: as a result of their
Christian-theological biases, analytic philosophers of religion
inadvertently make bad arguments. On this line, Christian analytic
philosophers are especially likely to engage in motivated reasoning
and ignore counter-arguments or alternative points of view drawn from
other religious traditions. Because APR is so narrow, Christian
philosophers unwittingly work in an echo-chamber or an epistemic
bubble (Schilbrack 2014: 14; Draper 2019: 5; De Cruz 2020). As a
result, according to critics, the conclusions of their putatively
philosophical arguments are often unwarranted for anyone outside the
Christian community, even when they purport to be generally
probative.



Less philosophical versions of the narrowness worry assert the general
principle that APR should be more capacious, and should include more
non-Christian voices, without explicitly challenging the soundness of
specific analytic arguments (Knepper 2013; Carroll 2016; Mizrahi
2020). Here the worry is simply that APR does not--but
should--reflect the diversity of religious and non-religious
viewpoints that actually obtain in the world. Phrased differently, APR
as a field wrongly excludes too much good philosophical work that just
happens not to fit into the dominant Christian, monotheistic paradigm.
Yet one can hold this view without also agreeing that existing APR
fails on its own terms or that any specific philosophers should alter
their practices.


#### 3.1.2 Inappropriate Methods?



The charge that APR is too theological could also be understood as a
question about philosophical methodology. On this version of the
charge, Christian APR does not begin from generally accessible
assumptions and argue toward generally acceptable conclusions, as good
philosophy should. Instead, it typically begins from Christian
assumptions and argues toward Christian conclusions, like
theology.



J.L. Schellenberg, for example, argues that philosophy must seek
solutions to philosophical problems that are in principle
"shareable" by any member of the philosophical community.
Because much Christian APR assumes the truth of Christianity, its
solutions cannot satisfy this condition, and should properly count as
theology rather than philosophy (Schellenberg 2018). J. Aaron Simmons
agrees: even though theology "can and should" appeal to
evidence restricted to "determinate communities defined by
revelational authorities", philosophy should appeal to
"evidence that is, in principle, accessible by all members of
the philosophical community" (2019: 147). According to Simmons,
the dominant strand of APR has ignored this criterion, and threatens
to "become simply a subset of Christian theological
practice" (2019: 149; see also Oppy 2018; Draper 2019: 2).


#### 3.1.3 Responses to the Worry that APR is "Too Theological"



Analytic philosophers of religion have a variety of ways to respond to
the charge that APR is too theological. First, with respect to the
narrowness charge, they can accuse critics of mistaking the part for
the whole, by denying that the charge applies to APR as such, and by
pointing to those analytic philosophers of religion who neither assume
nor defend the truth of Christianity. Yet this response is undercut by
the fact that non-Christian practitioners of APR often make the
narrowness themselves (Schellenberg 2018; Oppy 2018; Draper 2019).
Second, its defenders also emphasize that much Christian APR does not
actually assume the truth of Christianity at all, but instead
*argues* for that truth. (Hasker 2018a: 90; citing Swinburne is
a paradigmatic example). This kind of philosophy would clear even
Schellenberg's "shareable in principle" bar.
Similarly, even those philosophical projects that eschew
Swinburne-style natural theology might still clear the "sharable
in principle" bar so long as they engage only in defensive
maneuvers--for example, by answering philosophical objections to
the plausibility of Christian claims (e.g., van Inwagen 1995; Pawl
2014).



Others argue that even explicit appeals to Christian revelation could
in principle still count as philosophical appeals, albeit indirectly.
Suppose we agree that theology can appeal to revelation, while
philosophy trades only in "generally accessible"
arguments. We still must distinguish between direct, first-order
appeals to revelation, and indirect, second-order arguments that it is
sometimes permissible to appeal to revelation (Wood 2021:
213-215). The second-order arguments could still be generally
accessible philosophical arguments, even though the first-order
appeals are not. For example, a first-order "theological"
appeal might be: "The New Testament asserts *p*;
therefore *p*". But a philosopher might offer a general
epistemological argument, accessible to anyone in the philosophical
community, to defend the rationality of that same first-order appeal.
(For example, she might offer a general argument that it is rational
to form beliefs based on testimony, and the same general argument
might establish that it is rational to treat the New Testament as
testimonial evidence.) In a similar vein, Plantinga's claim that
belief in God may be "properly basic" is not itself
presented as a Christian assumption or a revealed truth, but as a
specific application of his general philosophical theory of warrant,
which he has defended at length (1983, 1993a, 1993b).



Finally, because there is no single uncontested way to understand the
boundaries between philosophy and theology, it is open to Christian
philosophers of religion simply to deny the sharp distinction
presupposed by critics like Schellenberg and Simmons (see, for
example, Plantinga 1984, Wolterstorff 2009). In so doing, they would
implicitly endorse a more Patristic "Integration" model
instead of either the Medieval "Cooperation" model or the
modern "Disjunction" model (see
 Section 2
 above).


### 3.2 Or Not Theological Enough? Theological Critiques of Analytic Philosophy of Religion



While one set of critics accuse APR of becoming too theological,
another set takes the opposite line. According to several prominent
theologians and philosophers, something about the analytic style of
philosophizing makes APR particularly unsuitable for investigating
Christian doctrines. On this line of criticism, far from becoming a
species of Christian theology, APR is constitutively opposed to
Christian theology, and the problem with analytic philosophical
theology is not that it is too theological but that it is too
analytic. This criticism takes several forms.



Sometimes, theological objections to APR simply reiterate Barthian
objections to natural theology, presumably on the assumption that most
APR is really a form of natural theology (Moore 2007). Other critics
charge analytic philosophers of religion with historical anachronism
and ignorance of the Christian tradition. Perhaps
"a-historical" analytic philosophers of religion do not
understand pre-modern ways of thinking and reading (so runs the
charge), and so they wrongly believe that their own constructive work
is congruent with the historic Christian tradition, when it in fact
depends modern assumptions that are inimical to the Christian
tradition (Hart 2013: 123, 129; Milbank 2009: 320). Other critics
press the related worry that APR ignores the real Christian tradition
altogether in favor of theorizing its own abstract, self-constructed
version of the Christian god. Here APR



> 
> 
> does not deal with the God of any tradition or encounter, but with a
> conceptual construct, a simulacrum or 'the God of the
> philosophers'.... (Oliver 2010: 467-468; see also
> Hyman 2010)
> 
> 
> 



Another multi-faceted line of theological criticism criticizes APR for
"idolatry", "univocity", and
"ontotheology". This line reflects the general worry that
APR does not take divine mystery or transcendence seriously enough.
"Ontotheology" is a theological term of opprobrium that,
in its current usage, derives from Heidegger (1957; see also Marion
1982 [1995]). It means, roughly, treating God like "a
being" or "a thing in the world". According to its
theological critics, APR constitutively assumes that God is a possible
object of human knowledge, even apart from revelation, and therefore
treats God as fundamentally similar to any other object "out
there" passively waiting to be discovered. Yet a God like this
(so runs the worry) is not really God at all, but something
else--an idol.



The worry about ontotheology and idolatry is also a worry about
univocity--the view that our terms bear the same meaning when
applied to God and creatures (Trakakis 2010). According to opponents
of theological univocity, precisely because God is not "a
being" or a "thing in the world", God and creatures
differ absolutely; they share no properties and so cannot be described
by univocal predications. (So, e.g., the word "good"
cannot have the same meaning in the statements "God is
good", and "Socrates is good".) Worries about
theological predication and univocity date back to the Patristic
period, but in contemporary philosophy of religion, they are best
understood as continuations of the late medieval disputes between
followers of Duns Scotus, who defends univocal predication, and his
Thomist opponents (T. Williams 2005; Burrell 2008; Cross 2008). As a
generalization, most contemporary analytic philosophers of religion
endorse a univocal account of theological language, whereas
contemporary Christian theologians are more likely to deny univocity
in favor of analogical or metaphorical predication, or even
non-predicative forms of theological language (Pickstock 2005; Marion
1999).



Notwithstanding the sharp rhetoric, there has been very little direct
engagement between analytic philosophers of religion and their
theological opponents on these questions. T. Williams (2005), Cross
(2008) defend univocal predication, and Adams (2014) tries to
rehabilitate ontotheology. Other analytic thinkers offer their own
positive accounts of divine transcendence (Crisp and Rea [eds.] 2009:
9-11; Rea 2015, 2020; Jacobs 2015). More generally, analytic
philosophers and theologians have a variety of strategies for avoiding
the deleterious consequences of univocity and ontotheology (Wood 2021:
130-74).