The physicist Richard Gott defends the Copernican principle, which claims that when we have no information about our position along a given dimension among a group of observers, we should consider ourselves to be randomly located among those observers in respect to that dimension. First, I apply Copernican reasoning to the distribution of evil in the universe. I then contend that evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life strengthens four important versions of the argument from evil. I remain neutral regarding whether this result is a reductio of these arguments from evil or the statement of a genuine evidential relationship.

When it comes to religion, lack of conclusive evidence leads many reflective thinkers to embrace agnosticism. However, pure agnosticism does not necessarily have to be the final word; there are other attitudes one might reasonably adopt in a situation of epistemic uncertainty. This article concentrates on J. L. Schellenberg's proposal that non-doxastic propositional faith is available even when belief is unwarranted. Schellenberg's view is rejected since his envisaged notion of faith conflicts with important epistemic aims. Instead, it is suggested that a combination of hope and ‘occasional’ faith constitutes a substantive religious pro-attitude rationally available in situations of epistemic uncertainty.

Central to a theory of the atonement is one's position on forgiveness and satisfaction. These two issues are interrelated, but it is unclear whether one takes precedence over the other. Specifically, must one make satisfaction to remove the guilt incurred by sin prior to forgiveness, or can a victim forgive a wrongdoer independently of any work of satisfaction? Richard Swinburne argues that satisfaction must precede forgiveness, but I defend the view that forgiveness is a manifestation of love, and as such satisfaction is not required prior to forgiveness. Instead, I argue that forgiveness can and should precede satisfaction, and I highlight important implications of this view for a theory of the atonement.

I offer a new approach to the old question of the epistemic value of religious experience. According to this approach, religious experience is a species of desire, desire in this context involving a kind of experience which is cognitive and unmediated. The account is inspired by Levinas and Heidegger, and it involves a conception of experience which is shared by a disjunctivist account of perception. Perceptual disjunctivism is my starting point, and it provides the ground for the ensuing discussion of desire. In the final section of the article I argue that the parallel between perceptual disjunctivism and a Levinasian conception of desire points to a further strength in the account of desire here presented, namely, by suggesting the possibility of a disjunctive style response to scepticism about religious experience.

The article begins with the journey towards knowledge of the infinite that is traced out in Descartes's Meditations. Drawing on Levinas's construal of the argument in the Third Meditation, I argue that Descartes's reflections on God as infinite can be a starting point for deepening our understanding of the religious quest – the paradoxical human search for that which, by its very nature, is incomprehensible to the human mind. The second half of the article argues that this search is from first to last structured by desire and longing, and that something prima facie non-cognitive and non-epistemic, namely the desire for God, has a cognitive and epistemic role to play. Perhaps desire can be our human way, or a human way, whereby we can (in Descartes's words) ‘in a certain manner attain to’ the infinite perfection that is God.

This article seeks to get clear on an important feature of a theistic way of life: namely, the appeal to ‘deep desires’ as part of an ethical and spiritual life-orientation. My main thesis is that such appeals should primarily be seen as pertaining to our acquired second nature and the space of meaning it makes possible, rather than first nature or innateness. To appeal to the ‘depth’ of a desire, on this account, is to say something about its normative importance: it is something of profound significance for our human fulfilment about which we ought to be concerned, and it correlates with the normative ‘height’ of the object of desire. Thus, our deepest desire correlates with what is seen as the highest or most worthy object of our desire (or love), which the theist claims is God. This view is contrasted with subjectivist accounts where desires are seen as ‘deep’ in that they structure our identity. My account affirms that deep desires structure our identity, but they do so because of their perceived objective normative importance. I also seek to show how we should affirm Alasdair MacIntyre's claim that ‘the deepest desire of every [human] being, whether they acknowledge it or not, is to be at one with God’.

John of the Cross presents a spiritual journey of desire in which desire changes from a painful yearning for an infinite other, always out of reach (human desire), to the satisfaction of desire in mutual love and rest (the goal of union with God, conforming human to divine desire). John asserts a continuity of desire between these two states, and that it is possible for human desire to grow from one into the other. Yet they are very different. John's treatment of desire and how he asserts this continuity are assessed through a critical reading of his Spiritual Canticle.

‘Interested non-belief’ in God is now a common attitude, and one religious outlook such non-believers should take seriously is the Christian contemplative tradition. Drawing on C. S. Lewis, I identify the familiar phenomenon of ‘worldly union desire’: elicited by worldly things, and aimed at union with some beauty or goodness therein. I examine specifically Thomas Merton's contemplative outlook, arguing that by his lights worldly union desires manifest a desire for God and aid spiritual openness. Merton's picture extends any purely secular value in worldly union desire-experiences, giving union with God – and the spirituality aimed at this goal – a deep existential appeal for non-believers.

This article clarifies the relationship between spiritual desire and religious practice. I outline a philosophical account of practice, and suggest that desire is one of four cornerstones of the concept of practice. I distinguish three kinds of practice – art practice, skill practice, and spiritual practice – which are differentiated by their structures of desire. I argue that ‘spiritual desire’ can be understood as an ‘infinite desire’’, and that spiritual practices offer determinate, embodied, culturally specific ways to express this infinite desire. Within this theoretical framework, I discuss certain salient features of experiences described during my interviews with religious practitioners, showing how these first-person accounts of spiritual desire and religious practice relate to my philosophical analysis.