Dr. Ryan Fowler, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, Thursday, November 4 at 7:00 p.m. at Hendrix College, Mills A “How can we understand the relationship between philosophy and religion? Theoretically, classical philosophers start with no preconditions for the conclusions they must reach in their investigations. Theology, one might say, takes as its starting point the divine revelations contained in the Bible, and these data can be accepted on the basis of divine authority. In this way of seeing the two disciplines, is has been noted, if at least one of the premises of an argument is derived from revelation, the argument falls in the domain of theology; otherwise it falls into philosophy’s domain. Since this way of thinking about philosophy and theology sharply demarcates the disciplines, it is possible in principle that the conclusions reached by one might–always or sometimes–be contradicted by the other. This tension was wholly felt by the early Christian writers. In the history of early Christian theology, philosophy was sometimes seen as a natural complement to theological reflection, while at other times the advocates for the two disciplines regarded each other as mortal enemies. Prof. Fowler’s talk will take us through some of religion’s earliest confrontations with (and employments of) philosophy in some of the early Christian thinkers.”

Speakers and Titles:

• Edward Wierenga,  The University of Rochester, “Tilting At Molinism”
• Jonathan Kvanvig, Baylor University, “An Epistemic Theory of Creation”
• Neal Judisch, The University of Oklahoma, “Open Theism, Gratuitous Evil, and Divine Providence”
• John Sanders, Hendrix College, “To Whom Will You Liken Me? God, Being, and Language”
• Trent Dougherty, Baylor University, “The Common Sense Problem of Evil”

 Sessions will begin at 1 pm on Friday; there will be three talks on Friday afternoon and two on Saturday morning.  The workshop will end with lunch on Saturday.

 The workshop is open to anyone who is interested; there is no conference fee.  If you do plan to attend, please send an email to Sherry Sparks <ssparks@uark.edu> to let us know that you are coming (and how many might be coming with you).

 If you have further questions, send an email to Tom Senor <senor@uark.edu>.

Are we really any more clear about physical causation?  When the cue ball hits the 8 ball and it rolls into the corner pocket, it seems obvious that the cue ball is the physical cause and the 8 ball rolling into the pocket.  But it’s not.  Imagine a cue ball made of Styrofoam and an 8 ball made of lead.  What would happen then?  Not much.  (And if we take this to the extremes, nothing at all happens.)  Not any old ball will move another.  It must be a sufficiently weighty ball.  But even that is not enough.  There is nothing logically odd about a normal cue ball hitting a normal 8 ball and stopping cold.  The only reason this is nomologically odd is that there is this thing called inertia.  So what is really moving the 8 ball is not another physical object, but rather an object with enough inertia.  And what, exactly, is inertia?  Well it is the tendency or disposition of an object to remain in motion if it is moving and to stay still if it is not moving unless acted upon by some external force.  This is where things get sticky.  Is inertia physical?  Are things like tendencies and dispositions—terms usually applied to mental states—legitimate members of a physical explanation?  And if not, then why are we so ready to say that a physical/physical causal relation is obvious and unproblematic compared to a mental/physical causal relation?  Truth is, there’s ghosts everywhere driving all sorts of machines.