Thesis (M.A.)--Capital Bible Seminary, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-90).

Thesis (M.A.R.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 1998. / Vita. Photocopy of computer printout. Library's copy lacks the introduction (leaves 1-5). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, March 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

No description available.

<p>Bayesian arguments play an important role in debates about the existence of God in natural theology. A successful Bayesian argument for theism should show that, relative to competing hypotheses such as naturalism, theism does not have a very low prior probability and is better able to explain certain general features of the world. Proponents of such arguments for theism, such as Richard Swinburne, have argued that there is no tension between the prior probability and the explanatory power of theism because certain of God’s fundamental attributes – omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect freedom – jointly entail the explanatorily powerful attribute of perfect goodness. If this is correct, then ascribing perfect goodness to God does not make the theistic hypothesis any more complex than does the ascription to God of those fundamental attributes. However, this argument presupposes the truth of a certain package of controversial metaethical claims. I argue that we have good reasons to reject this package of claims.</p> <p>After introducing these key concepts and responding to an objection in the first chapter, I map out models of divine motivation – pure rationalist, modified rationalist, and Humean models – in the second and third chapters. Pure rationalism holds that God is perfectly rational and perfectly free from non-rational causal influences, including non-rational desires. On this model, God is motivated by objective reasons alone. Chapter two explicates and assesses the pure rationalist accounts of Swinburne and Mark Murphy while chapter three develops the modified rationalist and Humean alternatives and argues that these models better handle problems of divine creation and freedom than do pure rationalist models. According to modified rationalism, God is motivated by the recognition of objective reasons, but is also motivated by brute preferences or desires. Humean models hold that all of God’s motivation derives from brute preferences or desires. The fourth chapter focuses on moral motivation, primarily the Humean theory of motivation. I develop a more permissive, and so more easily defensible, version of Humeanism. The fifth and final chapter brings together my defense of Humeanism and discussion of divine motivation to argue that there is strong reason to accept the Humean model of divine motivation. However, accepting this model comes with a cost to the Bayesian natural theological argument for God’s existence because it is incompatible with the claim that God’s being omniscient and perfectly free jointly entail God’s being perfectly good.</p>

Important tenets of Enlightenment thought, specifically natural theology and philosophical naturalism, mark both the libretto and certain aspects of the music of Haydn's Creation. The opening chapters of the dissertation establish the philosophical, historical, literary, and musical milieu as shaped by leading thinkers of the period. Influences of important precursors are discussed, including Milton's Paradise Lost and earlier "creation" oratorios. The libretto of Creation, through its revisionist treatment of the biblical account of creation, reflects a shift from the orthodox Christian, apologetic perspective of Handelian oratorio toward a deistic representation of biblical truth. Paralleling this shift away from theological orthodoxy is The Creation's departure from the contrapuntal textures of Baroque oratorio--associated by James Webster and Hermann Danuser with the element of the musical "sublime"--to a pluralistic musical palette including elements from secular genres such as opera and symphony. These parallel shifts move the work toward naturalism. The Creation's ultimate message is one of Enlightenment optimism produced by the oratorio's religious tolerance--demonstrated by the omission of the Fall narrative--and musical eclecticism. Musical inclusivity is conveyed by a mixture of styles and conventions that cross normative standards for setting sacred texts. The analysis of text-music relationships in Creation builds on theoretical constructs of Danuser and Kramer, focusing on smaller- to larger-level musical sections that demonstrate the contrast in style and values represented by the sublime and idyllic. Both texts and music of The Creation elevate values of naturalism while simultaneously "rescinding" the sublime element into the beautiful or "idyllic." Concluding chapters focus on reception history of The Creation in both Austria and England, Haydn's two target audiences for the work.

Thesis (M. A.)--Trinity International University, 2008. / Abstract. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-85).

Thesis--Uppsala. / Extra t.p., with thesis note, inserted. Bibliography: p. [253]-272.

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there was a close connection between natural philosophy and theology. However, this connection was neither essential nor intrinsic, but was open to discussion and negotiation, and natural theology played an important role in these negotiations. While there is already a great deal of literature concerned with natural theology from two distinct academic disciplines???history of science and history of religion???neither set of literature has adequately grasped the nature of the tradition, leading to conflicting claims about its historical origin. In addition, the close connection between natural and revealed theology evident in the works of orthodox Christians in early modern England has been frequently overlooked. This thesis, then, is a contribution to discussions of the relations between theology and natural philosophy in early modern England. Its main purpose is to develop and test a theoretical model of natural theology, designed to overcome some of the limitations of existing approaches. According to this model, a tradition of natural theology only emerged in England in the seventeenth century, due to the theological and natural philosophical turmoil of the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, although it was not without precedents. This tradition of natural theology was apologetically focused, providing arguments in favour of religious doctrines originally derived from revelation. Natural theology was a dynamic discourse, which may be represented by the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, in which resources chosen from natural philosophy and theology were combined and refracted according to the pre-existing views of the practitioner as well as the contextual challenges to which he was responding. By employing a variety of resources from both natural philosophy and theology, natural theology could function as a kind of mediator between these two neighbouring traditions. This model will be tested against a range of historical case studies that represent the moments in the historical trajectory of natural theology at which output of the discourse became more concentrated, due to renewed upheaval within and between theology and natural philosophy.