Evil poses a particular problem to early modern thinkers. Late scholasticism, while itself variegated, provided a number of resources for dispelling concerns about the justice of God raised by the existence of evil. With much of the metaphysics of the scholastics rejected, the new philosophers needed either to find inventive ways to make the old solutions fit into their new systems, to come up with new resources for dispelling the difficulties, or to accept the difficulties as insurmountable, likely via fideism or atheism. Leibniz, I claim, provides a provocative mixture of the first two approaches. Many readers think Leibniz's solution to the problem of evil can be summed up in as little as a page, perhaps even a compound sentence, that sentence being, "God created the best possible world, and so He cannot be blamed for the existence of evil." My primary purpose is to show that this conception is false. Not only does Leibniz offer a complex response to the problem of evil which involves a unique combination and reinterpretation of components from the history of philosophical thinking about evil, but his solution changes a number of times throughout his career. And how could it not? It is nearly uncontested that Leibniz's metaphysics underwent important changes between the early 1670s and the mid 1680s. The thesis that Leibniz's metaphysics changed significantly at least once between the mid 1680s and the end of his life is becoming more and more accepted among scholars. Given the importance of theology to Leibniz's metaphysical thinking and the importance of metaphysics to Leibniz's theological thinking, it could hardly be the case that Leibniz's thought on the problem of evil could remain unchanged throughout these changes. What follows is structured as three developmental stories each revolving around the role of one conceptual tool used by Leibniz as a part of a solution to the problems posed by evil--these conceptual tools being the doctrine that God created the best possible world, the distinction between willing and permitting (in particular as it relates to God's relationship to evil), and the doctrine that sin is a privation. Each chapter highlights the way Leibniz's conception and use of the particular tool changed throughout his life and the differing ways these concepts interact with each other. I begin by examining the doctrine that this is the best possible world. Early in his career (in particular in the Letter to Magnus Wedderkopf of 1671) Leibniz thought that this doctrine was sufficient for explaining the goodness of God in spite of the evils in the world. In that letter he explicitly denied that divine permission was possible, and within a few years explicitly denied that the doctrine that sin is a privation was of any use in securing the goodness of God. The doctrine that God created the best possible world itself went through a few changes as Leibniz's thought developed. Of most significance is the change from seeing God's creation of this world as necessary to holding that it is a contingent fact that God created the best possible world. Shortly after this change occurs and, I argue, partly because this change occurs, Leibniz begins to see the problem of evil split in such a way that it is no longer sufficient for procuring divine goodness to point out that God has a good reason for bringing evils about. It must now be argued that God brings evils about for a good reason and remains morally upright in doing so. Regarding the other two doctrines--divine permission and the privative nature of sin--Leibniz's thought undergoes radical change. Once Leibniz feels the need to go beyond giving a reason why God choose to create a world that contains evil, he reverses his opinion about whether God can be said to permit anything. Regarding privations, Leibniz's thought undergoes a number of changes. Around 1678, He reverses his opinion about whether there is any value to holding that sins are privations. Further, the phrase `sins are privations' takes on different meanings as Leibniz develops. In 1686, he takes the phrase to mean that sins are the result of the limitation of the creature. By the time of the Theodicy(1710), however, he thinks of sins both as the result of limitations of creatures and as having a privative aspect (i.e., there is a defect in the action itself, and thus a double-role of the concept of privation). These changes require changes in Leibniz's metaphysics and in particular a change in the way Leibniz thinks of the causal interactions between God and human actions, and substances and human actions. This lends support to the still controversial but increasingly accepted view that Leibniz's metaphysics undergoes a significant change between the Discourse on Metaphysics and the Monadology.

While much has been written about the conflicts, supposed or actual, between logic and faith, science and religion, few accounts of the personal turmoil these conflicts can cause exist. Likewise, many of these nonfiction accounts are written from a distinctly polarized place leaning either to science or faith. In this thesis, I mix research and history with memoir and a sense of poetry to explore my personal experience with this conflict. At its outset, I hoped for this project to capture my struggle as an orthodox member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in dealing with the questions my own sense of logic provided that institution. This goal was achieved in part. However, by the end of the project I had also captured a narrative exploration of my experience leaving the LDS Church and learning, instead of trusting the authority provided by a structure of orthodoxy, to feel comfortable trusting my own sense of reason. The first chapter captures my initial struggle with acknowledging questions within a religious structure. This is accomplished, in part, by merging the personal narrative with a researched account of French priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I show both his struggle with questions and faith, and my desire to lean on his example as someone who acknowledged question without leaving his faith--in Chardin's case the Catholic Church. The second chapter, again following this pattern of mixing research with memoir, explores the feelings of exile I had during the time while I was still an orthodox member of the LDS church. This personal narrative is woven into several historical and literary accounts of exile. In the third chapter, I struggle with the question of what to do with the spiritual experiences I had during my time in the LDS Church after having separated myself from that institution. The short fourth chapter takes a strictly narrative line as I address my spiritual and mental outlook upon the completion of this project.

Rhetorical agency is an ideologically contentious facet within communication and rhetorical research. While its importance in scholarship can be traced back to early works by Kenneth Burke and Pierre Bourdieu, debate continues regarding the source of agency, how it is enacted in rhetorical application and communication, and who/what can claim responsibility for the communication practices one may utilize in enacting their respective levels of agency. Thus, the ways in which the rhetoric of popular, influential individuals/antecedents affects the rhetorical agency and invention practices of those without significant levels of influence must be examined. American Christianity, in particular the culture created through heavy use of televised and web-media (televangelism), provides an excellent context to examine this subject. The present thesis discusses relevant literature to the topics of rhetorical agency, invention, and antecedents, as well as American Christianity, televangelism, and the changes that have occurred in religious rhetoric within the culture. Additionally, results indicate a high propensity towards rhetorical agency influenced through the themes of identity, adaptation, and audience sensitivity, and encourage pastors to focus on the identity and context through which their agency is manifested.

A brief review of the history of western interest in the Qur'an from Keaton's 1143 C.E. translation to the present and a comparison between the western and traditional views on the Qur'-am's textual history serves to place the western theories on the collection and transmission of the Qur'an in their historical and intellectual context. The theories of Richard Bell, John Burton, Leone Caetani, Paul Casanova, Arthur Jeffery Alphonse Mingana, Theodor Ntildeke, John Wansbrough and W. Montgomery Watt are given primary consideration; Nabia Abbot, Hartwig Hirschfeld, D.S. Margolicuth, William Muir and Ajmal Khan receive secondary consideration. The traditional history of the Qur'anic text serves as the outline for the thesis. Theories suggesting that the Qur'an could not have been written down during the life of the Prophet are considered against extant physical evidence in inscriptions and papyrii of early Arabic writing. The questions surrounding the 'personal" or "metropolitan- collections are treated next, followed by two chapters on 'Uthman's recension and the Hajjaj collection. The two most recent studies, Wansbrough's and Burton's, reach opposing conclusions and their theories are considered against the work which preceded them. The thesis concludes that the morass of conflicting and differing conclusions regarding the history of the Qur'anic text may be the result of subjective analysis and selective use of evidence rather than intrinsic mystery of the subject matter.

Religious counselors tend to neglect theorists who oppose religion. B. F. Skinner and Albert Ellis implicitly and explicitly criticize religion in their published writings. These criticisms are connected with their atheistic philosophies. Thomism is a theistic philosophy endorsed by the Catholic Church. Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan have integrated Thomism with contemporary thought. Their works serve as models for this research project--a counselor's integration of Thomism with the philosophies of B. F. Skinner and Albert Ellis. A counselor can disconnect Skinnerian and Ellisian criticisms of religion from their atheistic philosophies. Viewing the same criticisms in the context of a theistic theory, a counselor can gain insights on religion and related topics --sin, guilt, belief in God, prayer, afterlife--as they apply to counseling. This writer hopes that this project will be an example to other religious counselors who attempt to integrate religion and counseling.

Soren Kierkegaard is presented as a Christian corrective to nineteenth century idealism. The nature of idealism is described as it arises in Hegelianism, the ecclesiastical structure, and the cultural setting. The Hegelian ontology of "pure thought," the principle of "mediation," and the striving for "objectivity" are presented as the fundamental obstacles to the assimilation of Christianity. Kierkegaard approaches these issues maieutically. This method is discussed as it relates to the author and his works. The stages of existence (i.e. Aesthetic, Ethical, Religiousness A, and Religiousness B) are described in relation to Kierkegaard's maieutical approach. Kierkegaard's Christological concern is discussed. Comments are directed to his presentation of God and his view of the historical approach. Christ is presented as the "paradox," "absurdity," and "offense." The nature of Christian existence is described as it relates to ^hrist in contemporaneity and the overcoming of offense in faith.

As a Religious Studies and Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture major, I have noticed several striking similarities between South Asian religious philosophies and Continental philosophy. However, this also brought my attention to the severe lack of representation of South Asian philosophies. I began to see the resonances with Jainism and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism. Therefore, my thesis explores the similarities between atheism, subjectivity and responsibility as common concepts between Sartrean Existentialism and Jainism.

The diploma thesis named What may we hope for? Immanuel Kant's Philosophy of Religion has the goal to explore Kant's philosophy of religion to answer the question what a reasonable human being may hope for according to I. Kant. To reach the above mentioned goal we are going to deal with Kant's ethics of duty in the first chapter trying to find the answer to the question how the reasonable human being shall live to be able to hope at least. In the second chapter we focus on Kant's critique of proof of God's existence which precedes Kant's fundamental study about postulates of pure practical reason. From the third chapter we begin to map Kant's philosophy of religion chronologically. We enter Kant's prior to critical period and we try to interpret Kant's letter in which we can find the first important statements of our philosopher towards Christianity. Along with the fourth chapter we step into Kant's critical period and we process already mentioned study about postulates of pure practical reason. The last two chapters draw from I. Kant's post-critical document. In the chapter named About Human Nature we meet with Kant's concept of human nature, further we also compare where this concept corresponds with or perhaps differs from the previous philosophical periods of our philosopher. In the last...

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature posits religious medievalism as one among many critical paradigms through which we might better understand literary efforts to bring notions of sanctity back into the modern world. As a cultural and artistic practice, medievalism processes the loss of medieval forms of understanding in the modern imagination and resuscitates these lost forms in new and imaginative ways to serve the purposes of the present. My dissertation proposes religious medievalism as a critical method that decodes modern texts’ lamentations over a perceived loss of the sacred. My project locates textual moments in select works of John Keats, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde that reveal concern over the consequences of modern dualism. It examines the ways in which these texts participate in a process of rejoining to enchant a rationalistic epistemology that stymies transcendental unity. I identify the body of Christ, the central organizing principle of medieval devotion, as the cynosure of nineteenth-century religious medievalism. This body offers a non-dualistic alternative that retroactively undermines and heals Cartesian divisions of mind and body and Kantian distinctions between noumenal and knowable realities. Inscribing the dynamic contours of the medieval religious body into a text’s linguistic structure, a method I call the “medievalizing process,” underscores the spiritual dimensions of its reform efforts and throws into relief a distinctly religious, collective agenda that undergirds many nineteenth-century texts.

Sacred texts authored in antiquity present a challenge for contemporary religious practitioners because there is always a question regarding how to interpret and apply the message today. Prominent Pentecostal theologian and disability theorist Amos Yong faces this challenge concerning the Bible as it relates to disabilities and those who have them. As I argue in this thesis, Yong succeeds in challenging the Pentecostal perceptions of disability without compromising on the over-all Pentecostal view of scripture. The Hebrew Bible, which, according to Yong, "...serves as the foundation of the Christian scriptures," contains multiple passages that portray disability in a negative light. For example, the Old Testament contains laws and regulations governing the priestly liturgical cult that place very strict guidelines on who is allowed to fulfill what duties based on one's lineage and physical condition. The Old Testament also contains passages in which the God of the Hebrews makes a covenant linking obedience with health and disobedience with sickness. The second part of the Christian scriptures (the New Testament) also includes multiple narratives that portray disability as (at the very least) an undesirable phenomenon. For example, the healing narrative and miracles attributed to Jesus and his followers are used by Pentecostals to stress the importance of physical healing. Consider also the Pentecostal understanding of the cross event. According to Pentecostal scholar Keith Warrington, the cross is used to emphasize triumph over suffering, sin, and the devil. The challenge for contemporary religious practitioners, then, is deciding how one is to interpret and apply the message of a given text today. For example, (a) how does a contemporary Pentecostal (that utilizes the Bible as a sacred text) view the phenomenon of disability and passages of scripture that marginalize the differently-able today? Furthermore, (b) how does Yong successfully arrive at non-Pentecostal convictions concerning the differently-able while maintaining his Pentecostal beliefs about scripture? In order to explain how Yong succeeds in justifying his non-Pentecostal perceptions of the differently-able one must first understand the overall Pentecostal convictions concerning scripture which inform the Pentecostal perception of disability. The authority of, and use for, the Bible as it informs the perception of disability within Pentecostalism (a variant of (a)) will be the focus of Chapter One. Chapter Two will introduce Yong's theological hermeneutic which articulates his understanding of the purpose of scripture. By examining the hermeneutical approach utilized by Yong in his earlier work Spirit-Word-Community, on biblical interpretation, one can gain a clearer picture of how he relates methods of interpretation to his perception of disability in his later work The Bible, Disability, and the Church (a variant of (b)). The final task, then, is to demonstrate how Yong successfully solves the problem of exclusion experienced by the differently-able while maintaining his Pentecostal beliefs about scripture. Chapter Three articulates Yong's hermeneutical solution to the problem of exclusion justified within the Pentecostal understanding of scripture. This is done through understanding Yong's `disability hermeneutic. This chapter explicates Yong's assertion that the way Pentecostals have misinterpreted scripture is to blame for exclusive and oppressive perceptions of disability.