The purpose of this essay is to investigate and critically analyse some of the formative factors which led to the spiritual maturation of a leading Vīraśaiva saint, Basava (1106–68). This inquiry focuses on a single event in the life of this great reformer of medieval times, i.e. his spiritual conflict leading to his rejection of the upanayana (investiture of the sacred thread) ceremony. The study will proceed through an investigation of the earliest and subsequent sources which veil the personality of Basava. The traditional view will be challenged as one-sided. By critically comparing the sources, a more comprehensive and plausible account will be suggested.

My object is to suggest some ways of amplifying and applying Bochenski's account,1 in order to bring out its value for philosophical investigation of the doctrines of particular religious communities.

Although Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, Alvin Plantinga has developed a theodicy that is fundamentally Arminian rather than Calvinistic. Anthony Flew, although the son of an Arminian Christian minister, regards the Arminian view of ‘free will’ to be both unacceptable on its own terms and incompatible with classical Christian theism. In this paper I hope to disentangle some of the involved controversy regarding theodicy which has developed between Plantinga and Flew, and between Flew and myself. The major portion of this paper is devoted to showing that Plantinga's theodicy contains some serious flaws and undesirable implications.

As I shall be taking issue with Michael Durrant for the bulk of this paper, it is appropriate, as well as a good way to start, to register my endorsement of his arguments in chapter 4 of The Logical Status of Godl for the conclusion that sentences about God are typically used to express propositions, and that acts of thanksgiving and petition to God presuppose that some such propositions are true. The present paper is therefore a continuation of Mr Durrant's attempt to locate the status of the term ‘God’ in propositions expressed by sentences of the form ‘God is F’.

The Free Will Defence, as we shall understand it here, is an attempt to show that

(1) God exists and he is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good is logically consistent with

(2) There is moral evil in the actual world.

Predominant branches of historic Christianity have traditionally held to each of two doctrines about God: that he is incorporeal and that he is omnipresent. And in the minds of many people, these two doctrines do not simply represent two independent characteristics or attributes of God, but rather they are closely related. A.H.Strong, a conservative theologian active during the early years of this century, writes, ‘God’s omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal.’1 More recently, Dr Harold Kuhn put forward a view which similarly links the two notions.2 When we recite the Apostles’ Creed and affirm our belief in ‘God the Father Almighty’ we are, according to Kuhn, also implying our belief in an incorporeal God, for any imputation of a body to him would appear to entail spatial limitation, since it is thought that only a bodiless being could be omnipresent.

I want to put forward a certain view of the logical foundation of religious belief. It is, in a sentence, the view that religious belief is constituted by the concept of god. This view will be discussed under three headings. First, I shall explain as clearly as I can what I mean by it. Secondly, I shall indicate what seem to me to be interesting parallels, both with regard to universes of discourse in general and to religious belief in particular, between my idea of a constitutive concept and Wittgenstein's ideas of a fundamental proposition and a religious ‘picture’. Thirdly, I shall try to substantiate the view I take of the logical foundation of religious belief by rebutting three conceivable objections to it: namely, that it rests on an illegitimate craving for generality, that it is at variance with common usage, and that it consigns religious belief to an intellectual ghetto.

I want to consider in this paper a question that is looming large in the theology of most world religions, not least in the Christian tradition. The following discussion will be confined to the Christian standpoint, though I hope mutatis mutandis the main points will be seen to apply to other religious perspectives as well. Specifically then, this question can be ex–pressed in two ways. We may ask, (i) in the context of the contemporary dialogue situation, how is the committed Christian to regard the adherents of non–Christian religions? and (ii) what status do these alien belief–systems have with respect to the Christian faith–response? Both forms of the issue are often discussed it seems to me without due attention being given to an important distinction between them. So, at the outset, it will be useful to make one or two observations about this. First of all, it is inevitable, I think, that an evaluational factor is implied by both formulations. We are pondering a basically Christian assessment of religious traditions that are non–Christian, and any solution suggested which eventually eliminates a one-sided overall perspective will apparently put us in a dilemma. For, on the one hand, a Christian theology of religions will be expected to produce a Christian (and therefore evaluational) result; on the other hand, a finally nonevaluational solution seems unable to be called a Christian view of things at all. In the event of such a ‘neutral theology’ as the latter resulting (by no means a purely speculative question as we shall see), is the dilemma that becomes apparent a genuine one, or can it be resolved by a more stringent analysis of the relevant issues?

In a recent paper Anthony Flew gives an argument which can be outlined as follows:

1. Any attempt to give a ‘free will defence’ (to rebut the argument from evil against God's existence) must be based either on a compatibilist notion of free will or a libertarian, incompatibilist, notion of free will.

2. A free will defence based on a compatibilist notion of free will must fail, for on a compatibilist view of free will, God could make creatures who were free but never chose evil.

3. A free will defence based on a libertarian notion of free will might have other difficulties, but on a libertarian view of free will God could not both leave men free and bring it about that they never chose evil.

4. But a free will defence based on an incompatibilist, libertarian notion of free will can be rejected, since:

(a) It is not clear that the ordinary use of such key terms as ‘action’ and ‘choice’ carry any implications of libertarian free will.

(b) If such terms did carry the implication of libertarian free will it becomes hard to see how anyone could be in a position to know that a choice had been made or an action performed.

(c) The possession of libertarian free will by created beings seems to be incompatible with the essential theistic doctrine that all created beings are always utterly dependent on God as their sustaining cause.

5. Therefore the free will defence fails.