One plausible implication of a thoroughly physicalist understanding of human beings is that humans do not have the sort of robust freedom that libertarians about free will suggest is needed for moral responsibility.

A person who spends some significant amount of time studying philosophy and theology very quickly learns that language can be tricky. It is quite difficult to speak clearly and precisely about the things with which these domains are concerned. For that reason, clarity and precision of expression are two centrally important virtues of any work of analytic philosophy or theology.

In our first blog, we summarized Helen De Cruz’s recent presentation of a Transmission Model of original sin. We also looked at a possible problem with her attempt to reappropriate Joseph Henrich’s use of the Price Equation.

2018 marks the third year of the Analytic Theology project at Fuller. This year’s theme is theological anthropology. It would have been unfortunate if the year had passed without anyone addressing the question of humanity’s struggle with sin. Happily, this topic was boldly engaged by Dr. Helen De Cruz in a presentation titled, “Transmission of Original Sin: A Cultural Evolutionary Model.”

Death raises many questions for the living. Will the dead get their same body back in the resurrection? Can we communicate with the dead? Are the dead in pain? Where are the dead? Are the dead in some sense “alive” in some way? Do the dead exist among us? In his presentation given to a room full of analytic theologians, psychology students, and pastoral trainees Dr. Tommy Givens provided some answers to these questions.

One of the recurring questions that occupies philosophers of religion has to do with the perception of God. The question might be put like this: if God is immaterial, infinite, beyond all being, and utterly unlike anything we ever experience, how could we human beings who are so not like God, be able to perceive this God? It is to this question that Zimmermann turns in the title to his talk, “Perceiving God? It’s easy!”

What kind of contribution can analytic theology make to the very complicated discussions surrounding end-of-life care in bioethics? Dr. Patrick Smith, Associate Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, provides an answer to this question in his very engaging lecture entitled “On Dying Well Enough: Analytic Theological Bioethics and End-Of-Life Palliative Care.”

When thinking about theological anthropology, myriad questions arise. What sort of things are humans? What is a human’s relation to its creator? What is a human’s relation to another human? Do humans have a vocation? If so, what is it? Did God make a human being one substance? Two substances? Three substances?

Can accountability be a virtue? If so, how? C. Stephen Evans answered the first question with a resounding “yes” in a recent AT lecture entitled, “Accountability (to God and to Partner Humans) Understood as a Virtue.”

It is often the case that disagreement over theological positions which people hold near to their hearts can get quite ugly. So what should we do in light of theological or religious disagreements? How should we respond? Ian Church, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hillsdale College, is interested in this very question so he joined us at our Analytic Theology Seminar to share his work on the topic.