John Dalberg Acton, a German-educated historian, rose to prominence in late Victorian England is an editor of The Rambler and a leader of the Liberal Catholic Movement. His struggle against Ultramontanism reached its climax at the Vatican Council, 1869-1870, which endorsed the dogma of Papal Infallibility and effectively ended the Liberal Catholic Movement. Acton's position on the Vatican Decrees remained equivocal until the Gladstone controversy of 1874 forced him to take a stand, but even his statement of submission failed to satisfy some Ultramontanists. This study, based largely on Acton's published letters and essays, concludes that obedience to Rome did not contradict his advocacy of freedom of conscience, which also placed limits on Papal Infallibility.

Ever since the Reformation the providence of God has been variously applied in the doctrine of scripture. In the Reformed and Protestant Orthodox traditions, and in the context of polemic surrounding the nature of scripture that has prevailed down the centuries, providence has always played an important supporting role. In the case of inspiration, it is applied to the preparation of God’s spokesmen. In the case of canon, God is understood to have supervised the reception of just those books He intended for His church. In the case of textual transmission, ‘a singular act of God’s providence’ has preserved the scriptures through time. Thus, providence undergirds the Reformed doctrine of scripture. It functions almost at the level of presupposition. However, such usage is seldom justified, and this raises the question of warrant. The Bible itself must be revisited to determine if the application of providence to scripture in Reformed Dogmatics is legitimate by its own standard of Sola Scriptura. A survey and exegesis of a number of important passages confirms that it is. It shows that the application of providence in the doctrine of scripture is not only justified, but is also helpful to a better understanding of the nature of God and His written Word. / MA (Dogmatics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Ever since the Reformation the providence of God has been variously applied in the doctrine of scripture. In the Reformed and Protestant Orthodox traditions, and in the context of polemic surrounding the nature of scripture that has prevailed down the centuries, providence has always played an important supporting role. In the case of inspiration, it is applied to the preparation of God’s spokesmen. In the case of canon, God is understood to have supervised the reception of just those books He intended for His church. In the case of textual transmission, ‘a singular act of God’s providence’ has preserved the scriptures through time. Thus, providence undergirds the Reformed doctrine of scripture. It functions almost at the level of presupposition. However, such usage is seldom justified, and this raises the question of warrant. The Bible itself must be revisited to determine if the application of providence to scripture in Reformed Dogmatics is legitimate by its own standard of Sola Scriptura. A survey and exegesis of a number of important passages confirms that it is. It shows that the application of providence in the doctrine of scripture is not only justified, but is also helpful to a better understanding of the nature of God and His written Word. / MA (Dogmatics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Au 20ème siècle, la position traditionnelle de l’épistémologie cartésienne a reçu de nombreuses critiques. La transparence de l’esprit et notre accès authentique à nos propres états mentaux sont couramment attaqués par les arguments selon lesquels nos jugements prétendument fondamentaux ne sont point infaillibles. Le problème de la « poule tachetée » proposé par Chisholm est ici un bon exemple. D’autres épistémologues ont proposé des scénarios où les cognitions fondamentales sont les victimes, soit des processus cognitifs étranges, soit des environnements défavorables. On a aussi constaté qu’il y a de cognitions fondamentales qui sont obscures ou fausses. Ces trois groupes d’objections faillibilistes ne sont pas irréfragables, mais il n’y a pas non plus de réponse systématique et suffisamment solide de la part de ceux qui défendent la thèse de l’infaillibilité fondamentale. Dans le présent travail, nous reconstruirons un modèle de l’intuition à l’inspiration des Regulae ad directionem ingenii. Nous réfuterons avec ce modèle la plupart des objections contemporaines, et proposerons en même temps une nouvelle interprétation des textes principaux de Descartes. / During the 20th century, the position of Cartesian epistemology has been much criticized. The transparency of the mind, as well as our authentic access to our own mental states, have been continuously attacked by arguments that attempt to reveal the fallibility of our putatively foundational cognitions. The famous problem of the speckled hen is representative; some epistemologists have also configured fictional scenarios where our foundational cognitions suffer from strange cognitive process or unfavorable epistemic environment, so that the relevant cognitions are no longer reliable, a fortiori infallible; others directly state that there are fundamental cognitions that are actually mistaken. These three groups of fallibilist objections are not flawless, but there are no systematic and sufficiently solid responses that defend the infallibility thesis either. In this dissertation, we shall reconstruct a model of intuition on the basis of Descartes’ Regulae ad directionem ingenii. The model will be used to refute most of the contemporary anti-Cartesian objections. It also provides a new interpretation of Descartes’ Meditations and other related texts.

It is widely accepted, amongst epistemologists, that evidence plays an important role in our epistemic life. Crucially, there is no agreement on what evidence is. Following Silins, we can cash out the disagreement around the notion of evidence in terms of the opposition between Evidential Internalism and Evidential Externalism (Silins, 2005). Evidential internalists claim that evidence supervenes on one's non-factive mental states, such as, beliefs, impressions (BonJour, 1999, Audi, 2001). Evidential Externalists deny that. In this Thesis, first, I contrastively assess the plausibility of two prominent contemporary externalist theories: Duncan Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism, the thesis on which one's evidence in perceptual cases is truth-entailing and reflectively accessible (Pritchard, 2012), and Timothy Williamson's E=K, the thesis on which one's evidence is all and only the propositions one knows (Williamson, 2000). Second, I develop a novel externalist account of evidence that I call Ecumenical Evidentialism. I show how Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to bring together some of the benefits of both Pritchard's Disjunctivism and Williamson's E=K. This Thesis is structured into three sections, each of which addresses the following three questions respectively: Does the Access Problem represent a real threat to Evidential Externalism? Is Evidential Externalism committed to a sceptical variety of Infallibilism? How does Evidential Externalism understand the relation between evidence and epistemic justification? I argue that neither Epistemological Disjunctivism nor E=K are fully satisfying Externalist accounts of evidence. On one hand, I argue that Disjunctivism captures the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive, but it does so on pain of facing the so-called Access Problem. On the other hand, by rejecting any strong accessibility thesis, Williamson's E=K is better positioned to resist both the Access Problem as well as the Infallibility Problem, but it does not vindicate the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive. Finally, I show that, while retaining the main commitments of Williamson's theory of evidence, such as, E=K, my Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to capture the orthodox responsiveness intuition about epistemic justification.

In this thesis I compare the views of Joseph de Maistre and Fyodor Dostoyevsky with regard to the relation between modernity and the theologico-political problem. I integrate this comparison within the general context of the reflection concerning modernity and the theologico-political problem, as well as within the context of two Christian theological traditions, Catholic and Orthodox, on the basis of which the two authors develop their religious and political thought. In particular, I analyze the views of the two authors with regard to the origins and the defining traits of modernity. Likewise, I present their opinions concerning the consequences which are inherent in the modern project. Viewing modernity first and foremost as an attempt to build a secular world that would define itself by its opposition to what both authors regard as authentic Christianity, Maistre and Dostoyevsky emphasize the fact that, having theological origins that mark the totality of its becoming, modernity should be understood on the basis of a theologico-political reflection. Associating the modern ambition to build a secular world with the fate of the biblical Tower of Babel, both authors adopt a prophetic posture, announcing the collapse of the modern project as well as the ultimate eschatological resolution of the modern crisis. Yet, the two authors are differentiated by their interpretations of the relation between modernity and the theologico-political problem, identifying differently the theological origins of the modern crisis. In this sense, while according to Maistre modernity originates in the Protestant Reformation, for Dostoyevsky, modernity’s origins must be located in the transformations of Western Christianity that have finally lead to the latter’s separation from Eastern Orthodoxy. These differences of interpretation lead to the articulation of two different responses to the modern crisis, which are rooted in two different Christian theological traditions. Consequently, if in reaction to the modern crisis Maistre affirms the Catholic principle of authority, whose highest expression is the concept of papal infallibility, Dostoyevsky opposes to this crisis the Orthodox principle of brotherhood in Christ. The critique of modernity culminates in the thought of the two authors with an approach of the complex and troubling problem of theodicy, which, Maistre and Dostoyevsky believe, stands at the origin of the modern opposition to Christianity and its traditional institutions.

In this thesis I compare the views of Joseph de Maistre and Fyodor Dostoyevsky with regard to the relation between modernity and the theologico-political problem. I integrate this comparison within the general context of the reflection concerning modernity and the theologico-political problem, as well as within the context of two Christian theological traditions, Catholic and Orthodox, on the basis of which the two authors develop their religious and political thought. In particular, I analyze the views of the two authors with regard to the origins and the defining traits of modernity. Likewise, I present their opinions concerning the consequences which are inherent in the modern project. Viewing modernity first and foremost as an attempt to build a secular world that would define itself by its opposition to what both authors regard as authentic Christianity, Maistre and Dostoyevsky emphasize the fact that, having theological origins that mark the totality of its becoming, modernity should be understood on the basis of a theologico-political reflection. Associating the modern ambition to build a secular world with the fate of the biblical Tower of Babel, both authors adopt a prophetic posture, announcing the collapse of the modern project as well as the ultimate eschatological resolution of the modern crisis. Yet, the two authors are differentiated by their interpretations of the relation between modernity and the theologico-political problem, identifying differently the theological origins of the modern crisis. In this sense, while according to Maistre modernity originates in the Protestant Reformation, for Dostoyevsky, modernity’s origins must be located in the transformations of Western Christianity that have finally lead to the latter’s separation from Eastern Orthodoxy. These differences of interpretation lead to the articulation of two different responses to the modern crisis, which are rooted in two different Christian theological traditions. Consequently, if in reaction to the modern crisis Maistre affirms the Catholic principle of authority, whose highest expression is the concept of papal infallibility, Dostoyevsky opposes to this crisis the Orthodox principle of brotherhood in Christ. The critique of modernity culminates in the thought of the two authors with an approach of the complex and troubling problem of theodicy, which, Maistre and Dostoyevsky believe, stands at the origin of the modern opposition to Christianity and its traditional institutions.

John Henry Newman - life and work in the context of the struggle for the universality of the Church ThDr. JUDr. Květoslav Tomáš Krejčí, M.Phil. (Oxon), Ph.D. In the absence of any Czech language monograph since 1939 (or 1947), the thesis presents a summary of the life and work of John Henry Newman (1801-1890). It also contains an original Czech translation of selected writings. Due to its character of a thesis in history of theology, the work also introduces Newman as a writer. A particular attention is given to the reception of Newman's thought in France and Germany, his relationship with Catholic modernism and liberal theology as well as to Newman's impact on the documents of Vatican II.

Our understanding of the physical world has evolved drastically over the last century and the microstructure described by subatomic physics has been found to be far stranger than we could previously have envisaged. However, our corresponding model of experience and its structure has remained largely untouched. The orthodox view conceives of our experience as made up of a number of different simpler experiences that are largely independent of one another. This traditional atomistic picture is deeply entrenched. But I argue that it is wrong. Our experience is extraordinarily rich and complex. In just a few seconds we may see, hear and smell a variety of things, feel the position and movement of our body, experience a blend of emotions, and undergo a series of conscious thoughts. This very familiar fact generates three puzzling questions. The first question concerns the way in which all these different things are experienced together. What we see, for example, is experienced alongside what we hear. Our visual experience does not occur in isolation from our auditory experience, sealed off and separate. It is fused together in some sense. It is co-conscious. We may then ask the Unity Question: What does the unity of consciousness consist in? The second question is the Counting Question: How many experiences does a unified region of consciousness involve? Should we think of our experience at a time as consisting in just one very rich experience, in a handful of sense-specific experiences, or in many very simple experiences? How should we go about counting experiences? Is there any principled way to do so?The third and final question, the Dependency Question, concerns the degree of autonomy of the various different aspects of our unified experience. For example, would one's visual experience be the same if one's emotional experience differed? Is the apparent colour of a sunset affected by the emotional state that we are in at the time? I offer a new answer to the Unity Question and argue that it has striking implications for the way that we address the Counting Question and the Dependency Question. In particular, it supports the view that our experience at a time consists in just one very rich experience in which all of the different aspects are heavily interdependent.

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