Challenging Religious Issues English 08 - St Mary's Centre · Libby Jones (The St Giles’ Centre,...

ChallengingReligious

Issues

ISSN 2053-5163Issue 8

Summer 2015

Supporting A-level Religious Studies. The St Mary’s and St Giles’ Centre

Mikel Burleyon Eternal Life as aPresent Possession

Christopher Insoleon Kant on God and the

Good: Hoping forHappiness

Ian James Kiddon Soul-making and

‘Horrors’

Emily Pollardon The Ethics of War:Just

War Theory

Challenging Religious IssuesSupporting Religious Studies at A-level and beyond

Issue 8 Summer 2015

ContentsEternal Life as a Present PossessionMikel Burley

Kant on God and the Good: Hoping for HappinessChristopher Insole

Soul-making and ‘Horrors’Ian James Kidd

The Ethics of War: Just War TheoryEmily Pollard

EditorProfessor Jeff Astley (Glyndŵr University)Managing EditorDr Tania ap Siôn (Glyndŵr University, The St Mary’s and St Giles’ Centre)Editorial AdvisorsProfessor Leslie J. Francis (University of Warwick)Libby Jones (The St Giles’ Centre, Wrexham)Professor David Lankshear (Glyndŵr University)Professor William K. Kay (Glyndŵr University)Phil Lord (System leader, GwE)Professor Peter Neil (Bishop Grosseteste University)Dr Stephen Parker (University of Worcester)Jenny Rolph (Glyndŵr University)Dr Paul Rolph (Glyndŵr University)Mary Stallard (The St Giles’ Centre, Wrexham)The Right Revd David Walker (Glyndŵr University)Professor Michael West (Glyndŵr University)Design: Phillip VernonChallenging Religious IssuesThe St Mary’s and St Giles’ CentreLlys OnnenAbergwyngregynGwyneddLL33 0LDTelephone: 01248 680131E-mail: [email protected]: www.st-marys-centre.org.uk

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St Mary’s and St Giles’ CentreISSN 2053-5163

Challenging Religious Issues, Issue 8, Summer 2015 2

What does ‘eternal life’ mean?It is often assumed that Christians whobelieve in eternal life believe that, afterdeath, everyone (or at least somepeople) will live again, and that thisrenewed life will be one that never ends;it is eternal in the sense that it goes onforever.

There are various ways in which onemight try to conceptualise such a life. Forexample, someone might suppose it tobe one that is lived in heaven, imaginedas a place of perfect happiness andgoodness separate from the earth.Someone else, meanwhile, mightsuppose that eternal life is what we takeon once we have undergone bodilyresurrection on this earth, albeit an earththat will have been dramaticallytransformed.

A third view is that heaven and earthare not different locations, but two

‘dimensions of God’s good creation’(Wright, 2007, p. 122); resurrection,eternal life, will involve an infusion of thewhole universe with heavenly, or divine,qualities (Polkinghorne, 2003, p. 22).

There are also ways of interpreting‘eternal life’ that do not equate it withliving forever. Some Christians, includingsome theologians, understand eternallife to be a present possession –something that characterises the life oneis living here and now. Believing ineternal life in this sense is notnecessarily incompatible with believingthat it goes on forever; it is possible tobelieve that, although one can indeedpossess eternal life here and now, thispresent possession is merely a ‘foretaste’of what is to come (Baillie, 1934, p. 246).However, some proponents of the ideathat eternal life is (or can be) a presentpossession deny that one’s current life

Challenging Religious IssuesIssue 8 Summer 2015© Mikel Burley

Eternal Life as a Present PossessionMikel Burley

This article examines the contention, made by some Christian theologians, that ‘eternallife’ is best understood to mean not a life that goes on forever, but a characteristic of,or perspective upon, the finite life that each of us is now living. It includes a tentativesuggestion that certain ideas in theoretical physics and the philosophy of time arecomparable to this contention.

Specification link: WJEC RS4 HE: Studies in Religion and Human Experience (A2).Life, death and life after death.

Challenging Religious Issues, Issue 8, Summer 2015

Eternal Life as a Present Possession

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provides merely a foretaste; theymaintain that eternal life, if it ispossessed at all, is wholly andexclusively a characteristic of the finitelife that one is now living.Understanding what the latter claimamounts to is a difficult task, and furtherexplanation will be offered below. Butfirst let us survey three of the manyreasons why someone who regardshimself or herself as a Christian mightfeel uncomfortable with the idea that‘eternal life’ means living forever.

Problems with the idea of livingforeverIncompatibility with modern scienceOne pervasive problem is that belief inlife after death of any sort is widelyassumed to be incompatible with the kindof scientifically-informed naturalisticworldview that prevails in manymainstream modern societies. AlthoughChristians might aspire to reject certainaspects of that worldview or to find waysof accommodating it within a broaderreligious perspective, pressure to foregobeliefs that seem to conflict with thetheories of natural science remainsstrong (Badham, 2013, p. 12).

Risk of complacencyA second problem consists in the ideathat a belief that ‘eternal life’ means livingforever could encourage complacency, inthe sense of diminishing the believer’scommitment to moral and politicalimprovement. If we regard our lives asfinite in duration, then our decisions andactions are imbued with ‘a significanceand urgency’ that they would otherwiselack (Jantzen, 1994, p. 268); it becomesimperative that we do all we can toeliminate injustice and enhance the well-being of everyone in this life. But if deathis not final, and we expect suffering to be

compensated for in the next life, then themotivation to act in these ways is liableto be weakened (Lash, 1979, p. 180).

Corrupting incentivesA further problem with a belief in livingforever is that it might not onlyencourage complacency, but alsodamage one’s moral character byoffering self-interested incentives forwhat would otherwise be benevolentactions.

Many people would agree, for example,that giving money to charity because onebelieves this to be the right thing to do ismorally better than giving it because oneexpects to receive praise from one’sfriends for doing so; in the latter case,the self-interested nature of themotivation detracts from the moral qualityof the action.

Similarly, behaving virtuously in thehope of being rewarded after death islikely to be seen by many as morallyworse than behaving virtuously withoutseeking to gain anything for oneself(Main, 2013, p. 89). Indeed, some wouldsay that the person who performs certainactions for the sake of a possible rewardis not really behaving morally at all;rather, he or she is behaving merelyprudentially.

Belief in a life subsequent to deathmay not necessarily entail such merelyprudential motives, but some might thinkthat it runs a strong risk of doing so.

Affirming eternal life as apresent possessionThe above problems could, no doubt, beresponded to in ways that seek, from aChristian perspective, to defend thecredibility of belief in living forever (see,e.g., Taliaferro, 1990). Here, however,my purpose is to elaborate the responsethat takes the form, not of trying to



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defend belief in living forever, but ratherof rejecting that particular interpretationof ‘eternal life’ in favour of the view thateternal life is an exclusively presentpossession.

Scriptural support for the latter view isoften held to be derivable from theJohannine writings, especially John’sGospel, in which Jesus declares that‘whoever hears my word and believeshim who sent me has eternal life’ (John5:24), and John’s First Letter, in whichthe author says, ‘I write these things toyou who believe in the name of the Sonof God so that you may know that youhave eternal life’ (1 John 5:13).Passages such as these are indicative ofa realised eschatology, the idea that‘Judgment has come in Christ’ and that‘those who are related to him by faith’ donot have to wait until after death toreceive eternal life; they have it already(Hill, 1967, p. 194). Although putting it inthese terms could be taken to mean thatthose whom Jesus and John wereaddressing will never die or that death isnot final, some interpreters havemaintained that it also opens up thepossibility of understanding eternal lifeas something that one can have eventhough death is final.

Several well-known moderntheologians have affirmed what appearto be versions of this idea, though oftenexpressed in ambiguous terms.Theologians and philosophers who havebeen less equivocal include NicholasLash and D. Z. Phillips.

Lash, for example, argues that phrasessuch as ‘life after death’ ought to beunderstood as metaphorical ways ofspeaking and that eternal life consistsnot in a temporally extended lifesubsequent to the present one, but in theentirety of the present life itself, with itsdistinct beginning and with death as its

end. The crucial point for Lash is that thislife, though finite in duration, is eternalfrom the perspective of God, by whom itis created and loved; one’s lifeparticipates in God’s eternity in thesense that ‘it is … eternally anexpression of God’ (Lash, 1979, p. 179).

But what, one might ask, does it meanfor one’s life to participate in, and hencebe an expression of, the life of God?Phillips addresses this question byemphasising the moral transformationthat Christian faith enjoins us to undergo.‘Eternity’, he asserts, ‘is not more life, butthis life seen under certain moral andreligious modes of thought’ (Phillips,1970, p. 49). Central among the modesof thought that Phillips has in mind is theprinciple of ‘dying to the self’ or ‘self-renunciation’, which involves replacingself-centred desires and motives withlove for others and with theacknowledgement that everything thatcomes to us – including the very capacityfor love and forgiveness – is a gift fromGod. To live a life characterised by thesequalities is, according to Phillips, toparticipate in the life of God, and that iswhat it means to have eternal life.

Some closing remarks oneternalism in the philosophyof timeThere are, unsurprisingly, criticisms thatcould be, and have been, made of thesort of conception of eternal lifeenvisaged by thinkers such as Lash andPhillips (see, e.g., Hebblethwaite, 1979;Haldane, 2010, pp. 160–175). Centralamong these criticisms is the contentionthat a merely ‘metaphorical’interpretation of key concepts such asthose of eternal life, resurrection and thelife to come, is insufficient to sustain avigorous Christian faith. In response,Lash would attempt to turn the tables,



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contending that it is precisely theassumption that such concepts must beunderstood ‘literally’ that leads todifficulties, for it is, Lash maintains, farfrom clear what could constitute acoherent ‘literal’ account (Lash, 1979,p. 167).

Before rounding off this article,however, it should be noted thatassistance for a (non-metaphorical)conception at least analogous to that ofLash can be found in the unlikelydomains of theoretical physics and thephilosophy of time. Within these latterdisciplines, one popular way ofconceiving of the universe is as a‘spacetime manifold’ comprising fourdimensions: the three dimensions ofspace fused with the single dimension oftime (Dieks, 2014).

Some philosophers have called thisconception of the universe eternalism(Miller, 2013). They argue that, although,from our limited position in time, we tendto regard the future as not yet existingand the past as no longer existing, this ismerely an appearance. When the

universe is considered in its entirety, itcannot be thought to exist in time,because time is one of its components;hence the universe has a timeless oreternal reality, and the objects andevents that constitute it partake of thatreality. Our lives, being among thoseconstituents, have a kind of eternalreality, too (Lockwood, 2005,pp. 53–54, 69).

This vision of a four-dimensionaluniverse is intriguingly consonant incertain respects with the commontheological idea that the universe asknown by God is indeed a unity, ‘whichlacks nothing of the future and has lostnothing of the past’ (Boethius, [c. 524AD] 1969, Book V, §6).

Surprisingly, then, a comparative studyof theology, theoretical physics and thephilosophy of time might yield resourcesfor elaborating the idea that our livespossess a kind of eternality inasmuch aseach of us occupies a determinate,though finite, position within the totalhistory of the universe.

Eschatology: a system of doctrinesconcerning ‘last things’, includingthe end or goal of human life.

Eternalism: (in theology) the view thatGod exists apart from time; (in thephilosophy of time) the view that‘past’ and ‘future’ things and eventsare no less real than present ones.

Johannine: of or relating to theapostle John or to the NewTestament books attributed to him.

Naturalistic worldview: a conceptionof reality that excludes anythingother than natural phenomena.

Prudential action: an action guided bypractical, and often by self-interested, concerns.

Spacetime manifold: the wholecomplex universe, including thedimension of time as well as thethree dimensions of space.

Glossary



Linkhttp://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr20

14/entries/eternity/ Helm, P. Eternity.Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (Spring 2014 edition).Ed. E.N. Zalta.

Discussion points1. Are there good reasons for rejecting

the idea that ‘eternal life’ means alife that goes on forever? If so, whatare they?

2. Can any sense be made of theclaim that eternal life is (or can be) apresent possession?

3. How may the idea of God’sperspective on the world help usto make sense of the contentionthat our lives, though finite, arenevertheless eternal?

ReferencesBadham, P. (2013). Making sense of

death and immortality. London:SPCK.

Baillie, J. (1934). And the lifeeverlasting. London: OxfordUniversity Press.

Boethius (1969). The consolation ofphilosophy. Trans. V.E. Watts.London: Penguin.

Dieks, D. (2014). Time in specialrelativity. In Springer handbook ofspacetime (pp. 91–113). Eds. A.Ashtekar & V. Petkov. Dordrecht:Springer.

Haldane, J. (2010). Reasonable faith.Abingdon: Routledge.

Hebblethwaite, B. (1979). Time andeternity and life ‘after’ death.Heythrop Journal, 20(1), 57–62.

Hill, D. (1967). Greek words andHebrew meanings: Studies in thesemantics of soteriological terms.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

The Holy Bible. New InternationalVersion (2011). London: Hodder& Stoughton.

Jantzen, G.M. (1994). Do we needimmortality? Reprinted inLanguage, metaphysics, anddeath, 2nd ed. (pp. 265–277). Ed.J. Donnelly. New York: FordhamUniversity Press.

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/eternity/

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/eternity/



Dr Mikel Burley is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University ofLeeds. For publications, see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/profile/20042/346/mikel_burley.He wrote the above article while in receipt of an award from the Immortality Project,supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Lash, N. (1979). Theology on Doverbeach. London: Darton, Longmanand Todd.

Lockwood, M. (2005). The labyrinth oftime: Introducing the universe.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Main, J. (2013). Fully alive: Thetransforming power of prayer.London: Canterbury Press.

Miller, K. (2013). Presentism,eternalism, and the growing block.In A companion to the philosophy oftime (pp. 345–364). Eds. A. Bardon& H. Dyke. Malden, Massachusetts:Wiley-Blackwell.

Phillips, D.Z. (1970). Death andimmortality. London: Macmillan.

Polkinghorne, J. (1998). Belief inGod in an age of science. NewHaven, Connecticut: YaleUniversity Press.

Taliaferro, C. (1990). Why we needimmortality. Modern Theology,6(4), 367–377.

Wright, N.T. (2007). Surprised byhope. London: SPCK.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/profile/20042/346/mikel_burley



Challenging Religious IssuesIssue 8 Summer 2015© Christopher Insole

Kant on God and the Good: Hopingfor Happiness

Christopher InsoleKant holds that we should be moral simply because it is the right thing to do, and notbecause it will bring us good consequences. At the same time, he argues that weshould believe in God, as only God can bring it about that being moral leads tohappiness. Is there a contradiction here? The article argues that there is not, and thatwhen we understand what ‘being good’ means for Kant, the hope for happinessproperly follows. Although Kant is thought not to value happiness much, the articleargues that happiness is important for Kant, but only the right sort of happiness.

Specification links: RS4 HE: Studies in Religion and Human Experience (A2),Religious authority [in religion and ethics, philosophy of religion]; also RS 3 ETH:Studies in Religion and Ethics (A2), 2. Kant’s moral theory.

IntroductionKant claims that in some sense it iscrucial to believe in God, in order tosecure the possibility of morality. Somescholars have found the relationshipbetween these aspects of Kant’s thought,goodness and God, to be disastrous andself-contradictory. One of the anxietiescan be this: the reason why Kantbelieves in God is that he wants to beable to hope that being moral leads tohappiness. But Kant should not reallywant this, because he also wants it to bethe case that we act morally not becauseof ‘external incentives’, but simplybecause it is the right thing to do. Kantcrystallizes this notion of the ‘purity’ ofmorality in his text, the Groundwork of

the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), wherehe sets out his notion of the ‘categoricalimperative’, where moral laws areunderstood as those commands(‘imperatives’) which can be regarded asapplicable to all moral agents. Thesuspicion can be that where Godremains in Kant’s thought, as theguarantor of happiness, this is an untidyloose-end, which Kant ought to havetrimmed. Where Kant failed, we, at least,can finish the job of removing such‘impure’ incentives from morality.

I want, first of all, to try to show thatthere is a way of reading Kant, wherebyhis account of what it is to ‘strive to begood’ obviously cries out for, and tipsover into, some sort of belief in God.

Kant on God and the Good: Hoping for Happiness


To facilitate this, we need to exploresome aspects of what Kant means by‘striving to be good’. To do that, I need toopen up some textures in ways in whichwe come to believe something. Kant isinterested in different ways in which wecan ‘hold for true’ a range of propositionsand commitments, in relation to variousaspects of rational human endeavour,not all of which can be reduced to thetask of ‘knowing facts’.

Reason: theoretical andpracticalI might say that ‘I believe that 2 + 2 = 4’,that ‘murder is wrong’, and that ‘I am nowin Wales’. We use the same word,‘believe’, but quite different routes aretaken in each case when assenting tothese propositions: mathematical theoryin the first case, a moral evaluation in thesecond, and a description in the third. Allof these are reasonable beliefs, but myreason is being employed in differentways. Thinking about the differenttextures of reason will help us to graspKant’s moral philosophy.

Fundamentally, for Kant, humanreason is involved in a single and unifiedencounter with reality. Nonetheless, thissingle encounter has different aspects,along the lines just explored. Kant isinterested in a distinction that he drawsfrom an Aristotelian tradition, betweenreason as it is involved with knowing,and reason as it has to do with makingand doing. When reason is concernedwith knowing, Kant calls this reason in itstheoretical (or ‘speculative’) capacity, ormore briefly, ‘theoretical reason’. Whenreason is concerned with what we shoulddo or make, he calls this reason in itspractical capacity, or more briefly,‘practical reason’.

I want to unpack here the use of theword ‘should’ in the statement above,

that practical reason informs us what weshould do or make. Practical reason is alarge silo of a concept, and includes allthinking towards an end. The structure ofpractical reasoning is simple: if you wantto achieve that end, do this. If you wantto make this, make it like so. If you wantto be an effective burglar, become goodat picking locks. If you want to be anexcellent tennis player, practiceevery day.

The distinction between practical andtheoretical reason responds to a fairlyintuitive notion accessible to most of us. Icould pile up lists of ‘facts’ in the processof describing a situation according totheoretical reason: from descriptions ofbrain synapses to accounts of molecularstructure, atmospheric conditions, andsocial and political history. But no matterhow high I build the fact mountain, Imight not reach an evaluative and moralconclusion, one that tells me what oughtto be done or avoided, for example, that‘torture is wrong’. For this, I need reasonoperating according to its practicalaspect (‘what we should do’); practicalreason will attend carefully to whattheoretical reason tells it about asituation, but it also has something to telltheoretical reason.

Goodness and happinessSo, now, imagine that the end I want toachieve is not being good at tennis, butsimply ‘being good’, to become what it isthat I ought to be. Kant has a notion ofthe ‘highest good’, which involves our fullflourishing in our properly orderedrational human nature. Such flourishingleads to harmony, community andhappiness. Kant is centrally concernedwith the strand of practical reasoningordered to the achievement of this end.Hence practical reason is oriented towhat we ought to do if we want to be

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good, and to express our fundamentalrational nature.

True and proper ‘happiness’, Kant tellsus, the sort of happiness we should hopefor, is:

The state of a rational being in theworld in the whole of whose existenceeverything goes according to his wishand will. (CPrR, 5: 124)

The key qualification here is thathappiness is the state where everythinggoes, not according to any old ‘wish andwill’, but according to the ‘wish and will’of a ‘rational being’ in relation to the‘whole’ of his existence. ‘He is worthy ofhappiness’, Kant writes, whose ‘actionsare directed to harmony’ with thoseactions which other rational beings woulddesire. When the whole is functioningproperly, with everyone willing what theyought in community with everyone else,then ‘from the whole’, ‘the happiness ofeach part’ is guaranteed (R 7058).Repeatedly, Kant talks of the purpose ofmorality as a harmonious willing ofuniversal happiness:

Morality consists in the laws of thegeneration of true happiness fromfreedom in general. (R 7199, 19: 272-273)

Morality is grounded on the idea ofuniversal happiness from free conduct.(R 6958, 19: 213-214; 1776-1778)

Insofar as human beings really judgein accordance with moral principles.(Happiness would be the naturalconsequence of that.) (R 1171, 1772-1775; 15: 518).

Universal happiness is the trueconsequence and end of morality, where‘happiness’ involves everyone alwayswilling the good, in harmony with all other

wills. Kant’s conception of the highestgood encompasses both morality, anduniversal and harmonious happiness asa consequence of morality.

In a universe where all human beingsdesire and will the good, there would bea wonderful harmony between all rationalbeings, all willing and moving towardsthe same ends. There would be acommunity of rational beings, everyonewilling ends that could be willed byeveryone else. In this glorious vision, allrational beings perfectly become whatthey ought to be, in a harmoniouscommunity with other rational beings,and with God: this would be, for Kant,happiness. Nothing else counts asproper happiness.

Hope and GodIs it the case that rational beings, in thispicture, are striving towards happiness,in that they seek the state of happinessas their goal? Well, no, not directly. Theyseek to be good, by willing that whichcan be universally willed by everyone(the ‘categorical imperative’). Happiness,though, is the sure and certainconsequence of this harmonious anduniversal willing. Here we have ananswer to the anxiety that we openedwith. We asked whether Kant’s hope forhappiness, for which he needs God, is inviolation of the ‘purity’ of the moral law,whereby we do the good just because itis the right thing to do. In response, Kant,on my reading, would be able to say: ‘No,the incentive to be good is always justthat it is the right thing to do; buthappiness should be the consequence ofour being good. Only God couldstructure the universe such that this is so,and, therefore we are right to believe inGod. We can hope in happiness, and inGod, therefore, without violating the



purity of the moral law. In a parallel way,Thomas Aquinas would say that whatshould ultimately move us and be our‘incentive’, is our desire to know and loveGod (this is Aquinas’ equivalent to Kant’s‘being moral’), but that enjoyinghappiness is the consequence of this.The central idea is that something canbe a proper consequence of an incentive,without itself becoming an incentive: theincentive is morality in itself, buthappiness is the consequence.

As things currently stand for us, thehighest good is by no means realised. Itis not the case that everybody strives ormanages to be good, and those who doare by no means rewarded with universaland harmonious happiness. The historyof the world, like the history of eachinstitution, country and individual is ahistory of pride, arrogance, cruelty, self-obsession, vanity, suffering and loss.Things are not how they ‘ought to be’.This tips us over into the question: ‘whatcan I hope?’

It is important that we understand thenatural and inevitable momentumtowards this question from Kant’s answerto the question ‘what should I do?’ Theanswer to the ‘what should I do?’question is: ‘I should do the good, whichmeans to will that which can beharmoniously and universally willed by allpeople, such that – were all people to dothis – happiness would be the inevitableconsequence’. A deep need forhappiness is built into Kant’s answer

here. The question ‘what can I hope?’arises naturally from this answer. Can Ihope for the happiness that would be theinevitable consequence of all peoplewilling only that which can beharmoniously and universally willed by allpeople?

Kant considers that we can and shouldhope for such happiness. We need thento ask ‘what sort of reality would we needto posit so as to guarantee thispossibility?’ Kant’s answer is that it mustbe a creative mind who is by its naturegood, and by its will the origin of all thatexists and the guarantor of all that will be.In other words, Kant thinks we need tobelieve in God.

Kant is often presented as a stern andduty-obsessed figure, who instructs usthat we must do the right thingregardless of the consequences, andregardless of whether it makes us orothers happy. He is presented innumerous ethics textbooks as in starkopposition to moral perspectives thatseek happiness, such as utilitarianismand, on some accounts, virtue ethics.But it would be wrong to say that Kanthas no interest in happiness. He isopposed to our striving for partial, selfishor incomplete forms of happiness. ButKant approves of happiness, holding outa deep hope for it, when happiness isconceived in sufficiently cosmic anduniversal terms, such that everyone ishappy for the right reasons.

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Categorical imperative: a moral lawthat should be applied to allrational agents.

Highest Good: where the moral law isobeyed, and where, as aconsequence but not an incentive,those who follow the moral law areproportionately happy.

Practical reason: reason concernedwith doing or making things (forexample, ‘how to play tennis’).

Theoretical reason: reason concernedwith knowing the truth (for example,‘1 + 1 = 2’).

Glossary

Linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkf

BoTQN4I. A YouTube interview onKant with the author of this article:

1. ‘Maybe the truth about theuniverse is, in the end, just sad. Itwould be desirable if things workedout differently, such that happinessarises from moral action; but itdoes not, or not always, andcertainly not for ever, and we haveno evidence for supposing that itever will. Part of our moral struggle,our heroism, consists in beinggood anyway, and in making thebest of a bad job.’ What sense, ifany, can be made of this claim?

2. Do you agree with Kant that weneed to have a hope in happinessin order to be moral? And couldbelief in God provide such hope?

3. What do you think of the claim that‘something can be a properconsequence of an incentive,without itself becoming anincentive’? One example is givenhere: the incentive is morality initself, but happiness is theconsequence. Can you think ofother examples? Consider, inparticular, friendships andrelationships between parents andchildren.

4. Does the idea that Kant isinterested in happiness contradictwhat you have previously learntabout him? If it does, do you likeKant less or more as a result?

Discussion points

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkfBoTQN4I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfkfBoTQN4I

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CPrR: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft(1788). Critique of PracticalReason in Immanuel Kant:Practical Philosophy (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008).Trans. and Ed. M.J. Gregor,5: 3-309.

R: Reflexionen (1753-1804).Reflections, in Notes andFragments. Ed. P. Guyer, Trans. C.Bowman, P. Guyer, & F. Rauscher(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005), 17: 229 – 19: 654.

References

Christopher Insole is Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics at DurhamUniversity. He is the author of Kant and the creation of freedom: A theological problem(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) and The intolerable God: Kant’s theologicaljourney (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2016).



All of the theistic religions are obliged tooffer responses to the ‘problem of evil’.Many religious people experience terribleevil and suffering – painful illness, thedeath of loved ones, persecution andoppression – and they naturally seeksome explanation of why the God whomthey love and trust in allows such thingsto occur. Many religious thinkers havetherefore offered reasons for why Godwould allow evil. Usually their strategy isto argue that suffering has to be a part ofour life and world, if we are to enjoy a‘higher-order good’ – something that is sovaluable that it is worth the price ofsuffering. The thought is that Godrecognises that certain goods are onlypossible in a world of suffering, so weought to trust God’s judgement. Torespond to the problem of evil, then, wehave to find the ‘higher-order goods’ thatevil brings with it.

This is the project of theodicy – tryingto justify God’s allowing us to experienceevil, by identifying His reasons for doingso. A good theodicy does three things.

First, it shows that evil has a purpose,that it contributes something, and so isn’tmeaningless. A good God would not letus suffer for no reason. Second, it showsthat the purpose that evil serves justifiesthat evil. It’s no good to say that thepurpose of evil is to entertain wickedpeople: that’s a purpose, for sure, but itdoesn’t justify people’s suffering. Thepurpose has to be good, either morally orspiritually. And third, a good theodicy hasto show that the good that evil servescan’t be achieved in any other way. If wesay that evil is justified because it servesa purpose, there really must be no otherway to achieve that purpose. Inflictingevil is a serious thing, and so needs verygood reasons.

One of the most popular theodicies iscalled the ‘soul-making theodicy’. It wasintroduced by the philosopher of religionJohn Hick in his 1966 book, Evil and theGod of Love. The term ‘soul-making’ wastaken from the poet John Keats, but thetheodicy itself is much older. As Hicksays, it was first developed by the

Challenging Religious IssuesIssue 8 Summer 2015© Ian James Kidd

Soul-making and ‘Horrors’Ian James Kidd

The article introduces the problem of evil before focusing on the theodicy of soul-making and the challenge of ‘dysteleological evil’ that it faces.

Specification link: WJEC RS1/2 PHIL: Introduction to Philosophy of Religion (AS), 3.Evil and sufferings.

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Soul-making and ‘Horrors’


second century ‘Church Father’, StIrenaeus, although it could be arguedthat it failed to take off until Hick revivedit. Today, however, it is one of the mostimportant and influential theodiciesavailable today (see Hick, 2009).

Soul-making and sufferingThe general thought is that humanbeings are imperfect: we are, says Hick,‘still in a process of creation’, and not yetin a ‘finished state’ (Hick, 1966, pp. 253-254). This is a good starting pointbecause it is realistic. No one couldseriously claim that they are anywherenear morally perfect, except perhaps thesaints, but few of us are saints! (Andeven the saints had to struggle – withtemptation, lust, and so on – to achievetheir saintly status.) But even if we arenot perfect, says Hick, we are stillperfectible. We can choose to begin aprocess of ethical and spiritual self-perfection, through careful discipline –long, hard and difficult, for sure, but stillwholly within our reach. God did notcreate us as perfect beings, because ifhe did, then we would be robbed of allsorts of important experiences andachievements.

What would we have missed out on ifwe were created perfect? Well, severalthings. For a start, we could not havefreely chosen to seek to perfectourselves. That first choice to follow thepath of goodness is crucial, and wepraise people for making it. Next, wecould not learn to exercise the courageand discipline to confront evil andsuffering, whether it is our own or otherpeoples. And finally, we could not knowwhat it is like gradually to achieve ethicalperfection and, in the process, enjoy theexperience of coming to be closer to God.In much religious literature, we see

people starting off as wicked, selfish andcruel, but gradually becoming, throughstruggle and sacrifice, good, even saintlypeople. Hick points it very nicely whenhe says that our characters, or ‘souls’,‘cannot be perfected by divine fiat, butonly through the uncompelled responsesand willing co-operation of humanindividuals in their actions’ (1966, p. 255).If we learn to be good by responding inthe right ways to evil – compassionately,patiently, caringly – then there must beevil for us to respond to.

Hick concludes that experiencing andengaging with evil and suffering isessential if we are to undergo thisprocess of moral perfecting. It is only in aworld of suffering that people can freelychoose to embark upon a path – and notjust any path, but one that intensifies themoral demands that a person feels. It iseasy not to care for or think about otherpeople – selfishness is the easy choice –so God introduces difficulties into theworld that make possible genuine moraldiscipline. Since God loves us, he wantswhat is best for us, and that is for us tobe morally and spiritually maturecreatures. And that, in turn, requires thatwe undergo a process of ‘soul-making’,experiencing and responding to evil andsuffering – as Jesus and so many otherChristians did.

The idea that suffering is ‘soul-making’became very popular thanks to Hick’sbook. It does the three things that – as Iargued earlier – a good theodicy shoulddo. It shows that evil has a purpose orgood that justifies suffering and thatcouldn’t be achieved in any other way. IfHick is right, then deep, genuine moraldiscipline is only possible if there arethreats and dangers and pains andsuffering out there for us to encounterand triumph over.

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Dysteleological evilsBut here is a worry about soul-making.It’s true that some people find that theirencounters with evil and suffering aresoul-making. Perhaps we learncompassion by caring for sick relatives,or learn courage by fighting injustice, orfind that when life knocks us down, weget back up again with a new sense ofpatience and fortitude. Many people whowrite about their experiences of illnessreport just this experience – that livingwith cancer made them stronger,transforming them into ‘better people’.Such people have undergone soul-making and, for them, the theodicy worksvery well.

But it is also true that many people are,in fact, crushed or demoralised or brokenby their experiences of suffering. Somepeople suffer and are made colder – lesscaring, less loving. Some people aredesensitised by their experiences of eviland, whether they like it or not, find thattheir virtues are eroded rather than builtup. And some people suffer such terrible,long, intense evils that their charactersare completely destroyed, as in horriblecases of illness, torture, or abuse. Inthese cases, evil is not soul-making, butsoul-breaking.

Hick recognises these sorts of cases,calling them dysteleological evils. Theseare evils that are so terrible that no goodcomes of them – they fulfil no purpose(the term for which, in Greek, is telos). Inrather poignant language, Hick writesthat ‘instead of gain there may be sheerloss’ and ‘affliction may crush thecharacter and wrest from it whatevervirtues it possessed’ (1996, pp. 330-331).Admitting the fact of thesedysteleological evils is both morallysensitive and intellectually honest. Itshows that Hick is aware that somepeople have horrible experiences that

should be acknowledged, and it showsthat he will admit big problems for histheodicy. Any philosopher who wants toargue that evil is or can be justified is,after all, treading a very dangerous path.It is easy to talk about the ‘purpose ofsuffering’ in a classroom or lecture hall,but harder when you are out there – inthe slums, hospitals or war zones wherehorrible suffering is all around you.

‘Horrors’One of the most important critics ofHick’s soul-making theodicy is theAmerican philosopher of religion, MarilynMcCord Adams, who calls these specialevils horrors. A ‘horror’ is an especiallypowerful and terrible sort of evil, for tworeasons. The first is that no good comesfrom these horrors – they do not improvethe person in any way, and in fact mightdamage or destroy any moral progressthat already occurred. Horrors breakdown what moral discipline had built up.The second reason that horrors arespecial is that they can, says Adams,‘damage the person so much’ that anyfuture moral progress - or ‘soul-making’ -becomes ‘virtually impossible’ (Adams,1999, p. 53). So a horror not only slowsdown or delays soul-making, but totallyprevents it ever occurring again. Both thesoul’s virtues, and its capacity for repair,are destroyed.

If Adams is right, then ‘horrors’ are aserious problem for the soul-makingtheodicy. The whole point of thattheodicy is that evil is, or can be,teleological – purposeful, serving somegood. But if certain evils aredysteleological, then the power of Hick’stheodicy is greatly weakened, for it onlyapplies to people who suffer lessfrequently or less intensely than others. Itmight even seem that the soul-makingtheodicy does not apply to the people

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Dysteleological evil is a type of evilthat is purposeless, in the sensethat no good comes from it.

Horror is Adam’s term fordysteleological evil.

Soul-making implies the claim that itis by experiencing and responding

to evil and suffering that we canachieve moral growth.

Theodicy is the project of defendingor justifying the existence andcharacter of God in the face of thefact of evil and suffering.

Glossary

Linkshttps://philreligion.nd.edu/assets/12667

3/logoi_spring.2014.pdf Anderson,P.S. (2014). Why feministphilosophy of religion? Logoi: APublication of the Center forPhilosophy of Religion 1, 12-13.

http://www.johnhick.org.uk/jsite/index.php/articles-by-john-hick/17-d-z-phillips-on-god-and-evil Hick, J.(2009). D.Z. Phillips on God and evil.

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/evil/ Tooley, M.(2012). The problem of evil. InEdward N. Zalta (Ed.), TheStanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy.

who suffer more frequently and intensely– precisely the people who most need atheodicy to comfort and console them(see Anderson, 2014 and Tooley,2012, §7.3).Adams offers her own reply to theexistence of horrendous evils thatfocuses upon how these change aperson’s relationship to God. How, sheasks, could He ‘defeat’ so terrible a thingas a horrendous evil? The answer shegives is inspired by a central claim inChristian theology: that the highest good

for a human being is to enjoy the ‘beatificvision’ – a direct, pure, overwhelmingencounter with God himself, of a sort thatmany Christians mystics reportedlyenjoyed. Adams, then, suggests thateven a horrendous evil is outweighed bya beatific vision – and, furthermore, thatGod will, as an act of love, guaranteethat every horrendously suffering personwill enjoy it. If we suffer terribly, as Christdid, then we emulate – and in that waymove closer to – God Himself.

https://philreligion.nd.edu/assets/126673/logoi_spring.2014.pdf

https://philreligion.nd.edu/assets/126673/logoi_spring.2014.pdf

http://www.johnhick.org.uk/jsite/index.php/articles-by-john-hick/17-d-z-phillips-on-god-and-evil



http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/evil/

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/evil/

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1. What is the purpose of a theodicy?2. Why does John Hick think that

genuine moral growth requires usto experience suffering?

3. What situations might be calledexamples of ‘dysteleological evil’,and why?

Discussion points

Dr Ian James Kidd is a research fellow at the Department of Philosophy at DurhamUniversity and was previously a lecturer in philosophy of religion at the University ofLeeds. He works on a range of topics in the philosophy of religion, including the natureof a religious life, mysticism and religious experience, and feminist philosophies ofreligion. His website is https://durham.academia.edu/IanJamesKidd.

Adams, M.M. (1999). Horrendousevils and the goodness of God.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Hick, J. (1966, second edition 1977).Evil and the god of love. London:Macmillan.

References



Challenging Religious IssuesIssue 8 Summer 2015© Emily Pollard

The Ethics of War: Just War TheoryEmily Pollard

The article offers a general overview of just war theory, and explains how a war maybe considered morally justified according to the ‘just war’ tradition.

Specification link: RS3 ETH: Studies in Religion and Ethics (A2), 3. The ethics of war.

IntroductionThe just war tradition has developed overa considerable amount of time as aresponse to the terrifying prospect ofunlimited war, as an attempt to placesome limits upon the nature and scopeof morally permissible or ‘just’ wars, byarguing that only a war which fulfilscertain criteria can be counted as just.

Without such limits, there is a dangerthat a theory of war might drift intorealism, a theory that argues there canbe no moral boundaries on war, indeedthat there is no such thing as a just orunjust war. On that view, ‘war liesbeyond (or beneath) moral judgement’because war is a sphere of action whollyseparate from ordinary actions; it is, inMichael Walzer’s words, ‘a world apart,where life itself is at stake … where self-interest and necessity prevail … andmorality and law have no place’ (Walzer1977, p. 3). It is argued that moral rulesdo not apply within that sphere, butrather ‘every man’s being and well-beingis the rule of his actions’ (Hobbes, 1994,p. 104). This, realists would claim, is nota moral stance, simply a statement of

fact, of how things are. The Englishphilosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) summed up this argument with thephrase ‘inter arma silent leges’, meaning‘in times of war the law is silent’.

However, realism about war is not aview that most people, for obviouspractical reasons, would wish to becomewidespread, however accurate a view ofreality it might claim to represent. For thevery dangers of war, the possibility oflarge-scale loss of life, which make it sodifficult to limit and to regulate, areprecisely what makes it so important totry. Without such limitations, the potentialloss of life would only increaseexponentially, especially if the realistassertion that ‘anything goes’, that ‘wecan neither praise nor blame’ someone’sactions in wartime (Walzer, 1977, p. 3),is accepted.¹¹ Hobbes did argue that people would naturally act‘honourably’ in wartime – but he did not present this as amoral rule, but rather as a ‘law of nature’, meaning thatsuch ‘cruelty’ would be impossible for any belligerent whodoes not have an unnatural ‘disposition of the mind to war’(Hobbes, 1994, p.104). To the modern mind (bearing inmind the ‘cruelties’ committed by many seemingly ordinarypeople during the wars of the twentieth and twenty-firstcenturies), this seems rather optimistic.

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The Ethics of War: Just War Theory


Given that total pacifism may notalways be an option in a world where theneed for defence is so often a reality, justwar theory has over the past twothousand years evolved to fill the gap.

The most commonly accepted view ofthe scope and purpose of just war theoryruns as follows. Traditionally, as Walzerputs it, a war is ‘always judged twice, firstwith reference to the reasons stateshave for fighting, secondly with referenceto the means they adopt’ (1977, p. 21).The first of these ‘judgements’ is thejudgement as to whether the decision togo to war is a just or justifiable one, andthis is decided according to how far thewar in question would correspond with aset of criteria ‘governing the decision togo to war’ (Bellamy, 2006, p. 121),known as jus ad bellum rules. Similarly,the second ‘judgement’ is madeaccording to a set of moral conditions‘governing its conduct’ (Bellamy, 2006,p.121), known as jus in bello. Even morerecently, a third kind of ‘judgement’ hasbeen developed, namely that a war maybe judged by ‘the ethics of the postconflict environment’ (Patterson, 2012, p.5), according to a third set of criteria: juspost bellum.

A war is thus considered to be just orunjust depending on whether or not itfulfils all of the ad bellum, in bello andpost bellum criteria.

Declaring a ‘just war’: Jus adbellumJus ad bellum is most usually thought toconsist of seven criteria, developed inorder to determine when and if it is just,or even morally permissible, for one stateto declare war on another.

1 The just cause criterionA war must have a just cause for beingdeclared – that is, there must be a

reason why war is justified in thisparticular case. The two reasons thatare most often cited as just causes to goto war, which are also the only reasonsfor which states are allowed to go to warunder international law, are (a) thedefence of one’s own country from anuncalled-for attack by another country,and (b) the defence of another countryfrom the same thing.

2 The right intention criterionThe requirement of a right intentioncriterion follows on from the presumedexistence of a just cause. It states thatthose who declare a war must declare itbecause, and only because, of the justcause they have for declaring it. Forexample, the government of a countrythat has been invaded, and thereforehas a just cause for declaring war on theinvader, must do so with the intention ofdefending their country, and not use theinvasion as a pretext to declare war inorder to fulfil their secret goal ofconquering the other country.

3 The legitimate authority criterionThis criterion specifies that a war mustbe declared publicly by the properauthorities, which in most cases wouldmean the government of the country thatwill be waging the war. This rule isdesigned to prevent private individualsfrom hiring private armies and declaringwar – the idea being that a governmenthas been elected by, or rules with, theapproval of the population of its country,and has therefore the right to make suchdecisions on their behalf; whereasprivate citizens do not have the right toinflict the inevitable consequences ofwar upon those around them, as theyhave not been given the right asrepresentatives of their people.

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4 The reasonable chance of successcriterionThis is the requirement that thosegovernments that declare war must doso knowing that they have a reasonableprobability of success in this war.‘Hopeless’ wars cannot be justifiedhowever moral their cause, as such awar would result in loss of life with nochance of making the situation any betterfor those on the losing side of theconflict.²

5 The proportionality criterionThis criterion requires that anygovernment considering war must weighthe expected universal benefits of waragainst the expected universal costs(Orend, 2006). The addition of the term‘universal’ shows that a state mustconsider the benefits and costs to thestates they are fighting against, as wellas to themselves. It must make aconsequentialist calculation as towhether the benefits of going to war willbe ‘proportionate’ – that is, ‘at least equalto and preferably greater than’ the costs,and only if it is proportionate in this waywill the state be justified in going to war.

6 The last resort criterionThe ‘last resort’ rule states, quite simply,that all other, non-violent methods ofresolving a conflict must have beenattempted before war is declared –methods such as negotiations andappeals to third-party peacekeepingforces. In other words, one should notstart a war unless one literally has noother option.

7 The proper declaration criterionFinally, this criterion requires that thedeclaration of war by the properauthorities be a public declaration, sothat the other belligerent party is awarethat they face war.

Fighting a just war: Jus in belloThe jus in bello criteria determine themethods by which it would be moral orjustifiable for a belligerent state (and itsarmed forces) to wage war. They numberonly two; but these two are weightycriteria, regulating most aspects ofpermissible conduct towards the enemyduring conflict.

1 The discrimination criterionThe discrimination rule states that thosefighting a war, both the soldiers and theirsuperiors who make the tacticaldecisions, must make every effort to‘discriminate’ between combatants andnon-combatants. Combatants are usuallyenemy soldiers, though the definition isoften widened to include those citizens ofthe enemy country who are assistingtheir soldiers in their work – for example,those who work in the munitions industry,or in military intelligence. Non-combatantsare usually defined as civilians notinvolved in the war – in other words,those whose occupations do not directlysupport it. In A. J. Coates’ words,combatants may be defined as ‘thosewho are engaged in activities that aregenerated by war itself and would nottake place without war’, and non-combatants as ‘those whose activities,on which society depends for its normalfunctioning, war has not called forth’(1997, p. 238). The discriminationdemanded by jus in bello takes the formof different treatment. Combatants arethe legitimate targets of military action,but non-combatants may not bedeliberately targeted.² The reasonable chance of success criterion is focusedparticularly on the losing side here because if a countrylacked a reasonable chance of success then it is morelikely than not that it will be the loser in the potential con-flict; and while the winning side would have some chanceof improving the situation (at least for themselves) byachieving their military aims, a vanquished country wouldnot even have this chance.

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2 The in bello proportionality criterionThe second jus in bello rule,proportionality, is rather like the jus adbellum rule of the same name, but it ismore narrowly focused. It states thatarmies should ‘deploy only proportionateforce against legitimate targets’. The ideais to avoid the use of ‘excessive force’ inwar – if the target is a munitions factoryin the middle of a built-up area, thenusing a nuclear warhead to destroy itwould be wrong because the force usedis far greater than would have beennecessary to destroy the factory, andbecause the destruction and death thatresulted would be highly disproportionateto the good achieved by successfullydestroying the factory. Orend frames thisrule as ‘do not squash a squirrel with atank, or swat a fly with a cannon’ (Orend,2006, p. 119). In short, this rule demandsthat soldiers should ‘use forceappropriate to the target’ and ‘make sure... that the destruction needed to fulfil thegoal is proportional to the good ofachieving it’ (Orend, 2006, p. 119).

Ending a ‘just war’: Jus postbellumJus post bellum is a set of criteria whichdetermine how a victorious belligerentmay justly act at the ending of a conflictand beyond. As it is a more recentaddition to just war theory, these criteriaare not so firmly established as the jusad bellum and jus in bello criteria, butsome post bellum conditions which areoften used include the following.

1 The victors must have ‘just causefor termination’ of hostilitiesBriefly, the original ‘just cause’ of the warmust have been achieved, leaving theaggressor ‘willing to accept terms of

surrender’ and giving the successfulcountry ‘just cause’ to cease hostilities(Orend, 2000, p. 128).2 The victor must have ‘rightintention’As with the jus ad bellum criterion of rightintention, the victor must ‘intend to carryout the process of war termination only interms of those principles contained in theother jus post bellum rules’ (Orend, 2000,pp. 128-129).

3 Any penalties imposed on thedefeated state must observe thecriterion of discriminationIn short, this requires the victors to‘differentiate between the political andmilitary leaders, the soldiers, and thecivilian population’ (Orend, 2000, p. 129).Civilians are ‘entitled to reasonableimmunity from punitive post-warmeasures’ (Orend, 2008, p. 41).

4 The ‘terms of peace’ must be‘proportional to the end of reasonablerights vindication’This means that these terms must be‘measured and reasonable’ in their effortsto achieve the war’s purpose and bring itto an end, and they must not makeunnecessary or excessive demands(Orend, 2000, pp. 40, 129).

Thus, according to just war theory,declaring war can only be morallyjustified if the situation fulfils all jus adbellum criteria; the morally permissiblemethods of waging war are limitedaccording to the jus in bello criteria; andthe end stages of a war are governed bythe jus post bellum criteria.

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http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/#2 (Brian Orend, StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory (Wikipedia)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/(Alexander Moseley, InternetEncyclopedia of Philosophy)

Links

1. Do you agree or disagree that acountry which has just cause, legiti-mate authority, reasonable chanceof success and so on is morallyjustified in declaring war? Give rea-sons for your views.

2. Do you think there is ever anyjustification for violating the jus inbello rules of conduct? Whatsituations could justify this andwhy?

3. What actions would be mostmorally appropriate at the end of awar?

Discussion points

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Bellamy, A.J. (2006). Just wars: FromCicero to Iraq. Cambridge: PolityPress.

Coates, A.J. (1997). The ethics of war.Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress.

Hobbes, T. (1994). The elements oflaw national and politic: Humannature and de corpore politico, Ed.J.C.A. Gaskin, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Orend, B. (2000). Jus post bellum,Journal of Social Philosophy, 31(1),117-137.

Orend, B. (2006). The morality of war.London: Broadview Press.

Patterson, E. (Ed.) (2012). Ethicsbeyond war’s end. Washington,DC: Georgetown University Press.

Walzer, M. (1977). Just and unjustwars: A moral argument withhistorical illustrations. New York:Basic Books.

References

Emily Pollard is a PhD student and tutor at Durham University. Her doctoral subject isthe ethics of war, focusing specifically on just war theory. She has published papers inPhilosophical Writings and The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and War: Just WarTheory in the 21st Century (Eds. Fritz Alhoff, Nicholas Evans and Adam Henschke).

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